Baby Nurse

One of the things that made life a little more manageable when the boys first came home from their stay in the NICU was having a baby nurse come and help us at night. If you talk to any mom of a newborn baby, you will hear horror stories of no sleep, a crying baby, middle of the night feeds, exhaustion, stress...now multiply that times three. In the beginning the feeds took longer, we were feeding every 3 hours and I was pumping after each feeding. I would literally get about 45 minutes of sleep at a time before my alarm went off to start all over again. It was tough. I mean really tough. I made it through...thank God...but it helped tremendously that we had a night nurse a few times a week for a while.

Our baby nurse is a lady named Laura who owns her own company, Needs For New Moms.  On the nights Laura would come, I only had to get up to pump once or twice a night and Thomas got to sleep through. She would come around 11 pm and stay until 7 am. When she was here, neither Thomas or I had one worry about the boys. She was great with them! She had 20+ years of experience working in Mom/Baby at the hospital and she also worked for a midwife for a while before starting her company. She knows all about newborn babies and she knows what new moms need to function. Not only did she take great care of the boys, she was a sounding board and an advisor for me. I would ask her all sorts of questions about the boys, about pumping, about everything! She even helped me get organized with the baby stations about the house and provided the insight about the milk shelf and keeping the breastmilk organized in the fridge (see Feeding Triplets post!). She is the sweetest woman and really became a friend of mine over the course of time with our nighttime conversations. On top of all the help with the babies and me, she would wash all the dirty bottles, make new bottles and even do all the baby laundry. I would wake up to a clean kitchen, baby laundry clean and folded, and bottles ready to go for the day. Awesome!

Needless to say, she was a vital part of our life at home with triplets for the first few months. Thomas and I would look forward to the nights when we knew she was coming. I would highly recommend her to anyone that wants a little extra help to adjust to having a newborn (or newborns) at home and wants an opportunity to get some sleep.

Just recently Laura came over to babysit for the evening so that Thomas and I could go out on a date. It was great to see her and catch up after several months. It was funny to see her reaction to the boys as well since they've grown and changed quite a bit since she was here helping us at night.

Check out her website - www.needsfornewmoms.com - and keep her in mind if you have a baby!