Both my wife and I work full time. So when we had our daughter, for the first 6 months, my in-laws came to live with us and help out. Now, both of them left to take a break. And now my mom is coming for another 6 months to help.
But my baby is now entering a 'fussy' period that is making it hard for my mom to handle on her own during the day (we come home around 6:30pm every night and take over). Three major things that make it hard:
- She will cry if anyone leaves her sight. Which essentially means my mom would have to watch her every second of the day. It'll be difficult for her even to go to bathroom or go to kitchen to heat milk for her every 4 hours.
- She has trouble napping, both going to sleep and staying asleep. She needs to be held for 15-20 mins and if you are lucky she may fall asleep. And once she is put to the crib, if you are lucky she may stay asleep for 30 mins, usually she would wake up in 15-20 mins and need to be patted and held again. If we need her to nap 3 times per day, you can see how this process would exhaust all energies from her care taker.
- (This may get better with time). While she no longer cries when with my mom (she used to in the first day when my mom arrived and inlaws left), she often doesn't want my mom with her alone for any extended period.
1) and 2) and 3) combined, it seems it's nearly impossible for one caretaker to handle my baby for 8 hours during the day.
Am I wrong in the above judgment? And what concrete steps can we do to address those difficulties, or are they more of a nature of a baby and not much we can do to change it at the moment?
She does not spit up when feeding, she feeds bottles of expressed milk 4 times a day every 4 hours. The first and last feeding are the most difficult (she would stop sucking after 3-4 oz's).
Napping: that is what I would say is the biggest issue. We are keeping her on a 3-nap per day schedule, with the aim of a total of 4 hours of napping each day. This is harder and harder to achieve: both getting her to fall asleep and stay asleep is a struggle.