Alaska News

Night nannies offer a break for bleary-eyed Alaska parents

The daily cycle of a newborn is monotonous and unyielding: Sleep. Cry. Eat. Poop. Repeat.

Parents beaming with joy and love will keep at it, day after day, hour after hour. Yet there is no escaping just how difficult it can be to keep up with the tiny new creature they have welcomed into their home. The mounting, inevitable lack of sleep makes an already tough job even more difficult.

For families who can afford it, help may be a mere phone call away. Bleary-eyed, sleepy parents, say hello to the night nanny -- a caregiver who takes care of a baby's overnight needs and offers new parents some much-needed nocturnal respite. The idea has been gaining ground in the U.S. for years, but as with many trends, Alaska is a little behind the curve.

"It was refreshing because we got to get some really good sleep and we had some energy to really take on the day," said Jen Theulen, who is raising an 8-month old boy with her wife in Anchorage. "It's a little bit pricey but I think it's a good idea to give as a gift instead of toys."

Night nannies are generally used for newborn care. But a friend recently gave one night of rest to the couple as a gift to help while Jen's wife recovered from gallbladder surgery.

At first, the couple, who both work outside the home, had some worries about inviting someone new into their house.

Jen remembers asking, "Do we set up a nanny cam? How do we do this respectfully and in a safe way?"

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Enter Lindsey Kruse, owner of the upstart business Denali Night Nannies. Kruse, who is still building her business, handled the shift personally and gave the parents their in-home night off.

"She was warm and she was calm and she made us feel safe doing this," Theulen said. "I got up once and came upstairs just to see if she needed anything. Aside from that we let her do her job. We just trusted the process. We woke up the next day. We felt awesome."

They liked it so much that, if they didn't already have a daytime nanny, they'd make a night nanny a regular routine, Theulen said.

"It's nice to see that people genuinely need our service," Kruse said in an interview shortly after the launch of her business earlier this year. "We are here to help anybody who needs to sleep."

Kruse started the business when she and her husband were thinking about getting pregnant, and Kruse knew she would want help. She didn't want to morph into a zombie mom, as she's witnessed with other new parents.

"'Man, how am I going to sleep? I need sleep,'" she recalls telling her husband. When Kruse wasn't successful finding the service she desired for herself, she took matters into her own hands.

"I just saw the need and decided to fill it," she said.

Since she began advertising the night nanny service, Kruse said she's getting calls from diverse groups of parents, from single moms who are college students or nurses, to couples expecting twins. All are planning now for what to do when the baby arrives.

Kruse says Denali Night Nannies will offer any level of care a family needs, from overnight feedings and changings to sleep training, the process by which newborns are trained to sleep in their own crib for increasingly long stretches of time. It's all up to what a family wants, values and is comfortable with, she said.

A diverse clientele

Kruse says the overnight service commands a fee of roughly $27 per hour. That's consistent with other communities out of state.

Chandra Hall, co-owner of San Francisco-based A Nanny Solution, says her night nannies -- more properly known as newborn care specialists -- fetch anywhere from $22 to $45 per hour, as much as double what her agency's daytime nannies make.

Hall worked as a night nanny for years before starting her own family, and then transitioned to focus her energy on raising her kids and running her nanny business.

In California, the use of night nannies isn't a novelty. It's been around for years, she said. And the client base is expanding.

Older moms, gay couples, two-income families, parents with twins and triplets; these are the types of families who want an overnight helper, Hall said. People who either might take longer to recover from a birth, or who know little and are nervous about parenting, or who are overwhelmed with more than one infant or maybe a houseful of kids of all ages. For all of these types of families, help -- and a good night's sleep -- allow the parents to be more fully charged for a day of work at a job or at home.

"The hardest part about the night shift is not the nursing. It is changing the baby, burping, swaddling and rocking," Hall said.

Whether a mother is nursing or bottle feeding, night nannies can help. The nanny can take a hungry baby to the mother in bed, then let the mom get back to sleep and then the nanny will handle everything else. If the baby is bottle-fed, the nurse can take care of all the baby's needs while the parents rest.

Where Hall's San Francisco company manages hundreds of daytime nannies, it has only about eight overnight nannies on staff. Standards are higher for the night shift, Hall said, and she carefully considers nanny and family personalities before making a match.

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"When I am helping a mom hire a night nanny I am really picky about who I am sending out," Hall said. "A new mom is really vulnerable. You want a night nurse that is going to follow the mother's lead."

Nannies who are too bossy, or whose child-rearing values conflict with the baby's parents, can lead to disaster, Hall said. The whole goal is to make life easier for parents, not more stressful.

Important benefits

Often, night nannies are booked months in advance, sometimes as soon as a couple learns they are expecting. Average assignment lengths range from two to 15 weeks.

Dr. Matt Hirschfield, head of Maternal Child Health Services at the Alaska Native Medical Center, supports new moms seeking out and taking advantage of whatever relief they can get.

He laments the short family leave given to American workers, where parents generally head back to work after what he calls "one of the most difficult experiences ever," and just when their newborn is becoming more interactive and fun to be around.

"It's really hard for families to have that little family leave in this country," Hirschfield said. For this and other reasons, anything that makes family life easier in those early weeks and beyond gets his thumbs up.

In the first week of a baby's life, parents are up every one to three hours, and sometimes more if a baby is sick, fussy, or has colic, reflux or other medical needs.

"It is really important for parents to take care of themselves. Having a healthy mom, one who is fairly well rested, means a more quality mom," he said.

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For Hirschfield, night nannies are an innovative solution to a generation with changing family dynamics. Single moms, two-parent homes in which both parents work, and much shorter family leave than is given in other countries creates a new parenting landscape to navigate, he said.

For families who can't afford or don't want a night nanny, parents should think about other ways to help a new mom relax, he said. Partners can take food and snacks to a nursing mom, or massage her feet. If mom nurses, her partner can take over diaper changing and rocking. Anything that can be done to make mom as comfortable and as rested as possible is worth the effort, he said.

His advice for single parents? Look to their family and friends for help. Assemble a support system and call on it when you need it.

As for Kruse, she'll be in the market for a night nanny herself before long. She's pregnant, and the clock is ticking to get Denali Night Nannies solidly established before her own little one enters the world.

"I really hope that by the time I have my baby we have a few solid people to turn to," Kruse said.

Jill Burke

Jill Burke is a former writer and columnist for Alaska Dispatch News.

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