Childcare during labour/delivery?

[hmt1979]

Hi there, I was wondering if anyone had come up with novel solutions to childcare for a toddler while in labour/ hospital with number 2? We are relatively new to the area and have no family closeby. We do obviously have some friends /childminder we can call upon if I need to go to hospital at a civilized hour but my concern (and hope in some ways!) is a fast labour overnight and need to go to hospital in the middle of the night and needing to call someone at 03.00 on a weeknight. I was wondering if anyone knows of any professional local "night nanny"-type options or other solutions that people in a similar situation have come up with? Thanks!

[fleur201]

I will be watching this thread with great interest! I'm in the same situation except im a single parent. New to the area and no family in the country. I have a 27 month old and due with baby 2 in Sept. So worried about the situation im in that it's really keeping me up at night.

Hope someone can come up with an answer for us :(

[etta166]

Befriend a neighbour quickly? If not, can a relative come and stay for a few weeks? Or could you move to one of the home birth services so there's no need to dash to hospital at all. With my third I was luck enough that I had family staying, fir a totally different reason as the bay was 3 weeks early, but that really worked for us.

[hmt1979]

Thanks Etta166 for your reply, ultimately there are people we could call if we had to, I was just wondering f anyone had come up with another solution to this problem. Not brave enough for a home birth this time round....

[esme]

www.nightnannies.com do overnight care but you can always take your older child and then arrange someone to pick them up so try not to stress

[shaunag]

There are some agencies that have nannies that can help out in this type of situation; a friend used this service for the birth of her second child and it worked really well. I will try and find out the name of the agency she used and let you know. I was in a similar situation; no1 is incredibly nervous around strangers and my mum is abroad. She flew in 2 days after my due date and my son was born the following day. I was v lucky with the timing and had many sleepless nights about it in the run up to the birth. The midwife had said to me that it tends to work out somehow for most people and it did. If you are fretting about it try to put lots of plans in place so that you feel reassured that no1 will be ok (have a standby overnight/daytime bag ready with clothes, toys, snacks and printed instructions), and maybe have an agency nanny as plan a but lots of other options in place that could be there at short notice/overnight etc. you don't need any stress re this right now so don't worry about asking for help with this; you can always repay the favour if the time comes for your friends/neighbours!

[jennyh]

I was due my second at Christmas but didn't fancy having to entertain family guests for long so my MIL came around mu due date and then when I was overdue she went home to Norfolk. I had a list of which local friends were around on each day/night and in the end a very kind friend came to at 1.30am. Fortunately baby arrived relatively quickly at kings so husband got home for 7am and MIL had driven early to get to us for 8am so it all worked out. It is hard work but try not to get too anxious about it. I was so stressed in the run up and I swear my son waited until I had calmed down a bit before he made an appearance!