My Experience of a Mother's Help

When Sofia was around 10 or 11 months we hired a mother’s help temporarily while we were waiting for a nursery place to come up. It was a final acceptance of the fact that I needed help every day, whether my ME was good or bad.
Initially I had achieved a triumphant independence when Sofia was around 4 or 5 months old and I managed some full days without any help. Things then got much harder: starting solids doubled the work load, my ME went into relapse, and Sofia became more mobile and required ever more stimulation and interaction. But in spite of this I battled to hold onto that precious sense of independence which seemed the most important thing. I got into serious trouble trying to cope without help for 3 days a week. I was so out of my tree with exhaustion one evening that after putting Sofia to bed I forgot to pull up the bars of her cot. She could have fallen out and suffered serious injury. And my bond with her was under huge strain. I had nothing left in the tank to interact with her. Every drop of energy and more went into our sheer physical survival.

We worked out we could afford help for 3 hours a day twice a week. The other three days my parents would come. It gave me and my parents a much needed break from each other. At that time I found the dependence on my parents, especially my mum, took a huge emotional toll on me. For complex reasons I found managing this new relationship with my parents almost as much of a struggle as my physical illness itself.

Finding a mother’s help wasn’t easy. I found Nanny Agencies who advertised Mother’s Helps but these were really fully qualified nannies who would work alongside the mother rather than in her absence. They charged the full nanny rate plus agency fees and wanted a minimum of four hour’s work per day. One agency found me someone who was prepared to do the minimum four hours twice a week but only until she found a full time position. Still, it was too expensive.

Eventually we found Pauline through a cleaning agency. She sounded good as she was a mother with experience of working with Special Needs children for the council, as well as a cleaner. I think we paid £8 per hour including the agency fees.

I had Pauline from 10- 1 twice a week for about 10 weeks. That covered me for lunchtime which was/is my most tiring part of the day. She loved playing with Sofia. She was thorough with the chores, if a bit slow. I did find managing her quite stressful and was always glad when she left us alone with a nice tidy kitchen. Her main problem was that she was afraid to go to the park with Sofia. I only realised this after a while when I probed into where she took Sofia for walks and found out she had been pushing her around the pavements for weeks!