Surviving Date Night

Help for Your Breastfed Baby and the Babysitter

By Shel Franco

Don't forget to give your sitter permission to take a break. "If the sitter finds themselves getting very upset with a crying baby, it is best to put the baby down in the crib for a few minutes and walk out, calm down, get something [nonalcoholic] to drink and go back and try again," Calandro says. Acknowledge that crying babies are very difficult to deal with, and it is okay to take a short break to regroup if nothing else seems to be working.

Bedtime
Perhaps the most anxious time of all is bedtime. Falling asleep at the breast is a much-loved activity for breastfed babies the world over, leaving many moms to wonder, "How will Baby get to sleep without me?"

"I use the rocking and finger sucking routine," says Calandro, who is also a grandmother with plenty of babysitting experience. "If the baby is taking a bottle well, rock and bottle-feed while holding the baby up close in a quiet place."

There's also the swing, the car seat, the bouncy chair, a sling or baby carrier and the stroller.

Wade made it to the wedding and stopped off at home to nurse Ashley before the reception. "She seemed happy enough, but bedtime was still a ways off, and I had only been gone a couple hours at that point," she says.

An hour into the reception, Wade's cell phone rang. "Ashley was so upset she was scaring the sitter. I couldn't see putting the baby or the sitter through any more torment."

The evening wasn't a total loss. Wade learned a few things: "My baby has a time limit. She does fine when I'm gone for two to three hours, but any more than that is not for her. Now I know ... I know exactly how long I have to enjoy myself. Three hours is an awfully long time to sip one glass of champagne."