For those who've talk to me in chat, you know we had a bit of a glitch with the Nanny. We thought we were getting Mary Poppins but what we got was a Nanny 911 reject.

We hired the Nanny - let's call her Mary - because she was an older woman - and by older I mean not in her twenties. She has grown kids, been a nanny for a long time, and had good references. She knew/knows a LOT about babies and their developmental stages, she also didn't ask to be paid under the table. That last one was something of a biggie for us. Given my occupation, I can't be paying people illegally.

So with much anticipation, she arrived two weeks ago. Within an hour she decided we weren't doing anything right. For nearly two weeks now we've had food issues with her - and by food issues, I mean how, when and how much 'lil Q gets fed.

When she arrived she announced that we were doing it all wrong. That the most important element was making sure she got enough formula. She was rather adamant that babies need to get 24-32 ounces of formula a day and that the solid food we were giving her - at the doctor's direction - was to be secondary to the formula. She was told to do it our way, food first then formula, because honestly 'lil Q doesn't get that much solid food yet.

After she changed the order, she started cramming formula at a prodigious rate into the baby. The feeding order was 6oz, - cereal/fruit + 4oz; fruit and meat/veggies +6oz; 6 oz: cereal fruit + 4oz. So five times a day she eats. I feed her first thing in the am, then the nanny does the next two and we do the last two.

The first feeding she gave her 6 instead of 4 then her cereal then 2 more. after the walk she gave her another 2 for no other reason than she might be thirsty. Her seconding time feeding, she again upped the formula.

So I - not being home, wrote her a note saying no no no. Do it our way and I laid out the order again. I explained, nicely I thought, that if she doesn't finish her formula, she can have it later, but she needed to get in the habit of eating not just drinking.

I got a note back saying - again - 'lil Q needed between 24-32 oz a day. If you go back and do the math, you will see that our numbers came out to 26oz a day. My next note - what part of 26 does NOT fall between 24-32 was tossed out by Mike before she could read it. But not to worry, I was home on Nanny's 5th day - and when she reiterated the amounts, I asked her when the numerical system changed. She gave me that huh look So I asked, when did 26 stopped being after 24 but before 32. She stopped with that. That day she also told me - at the end of the day - that 'lil Q didn't eat any of her solid foods - I nearly blew a blood vessel in my head because that is when it dawned on my I saw her feeding 'lil Q the bottle before the food. I - perhaps not too nicely this time - reminded her that she was supposed to give her food THEN formula and that it was not open for discussion.

Amazingly, since we insisted, 'lil Q has always eaten her food and drank her formula. Go figure.

So we figured all was well. Nope, not at all. Mike noticed she was putting an entire scoop of formula and a formula scoop of cereal in 'lil'Q's bowl. First that's too much cereal, but the worse part was this was her way of getting around our feeding regiment - we didn't say don't put 2 oz of formula in her cereal. So we nipped that in the bud and realized how much food she had given 'lil Q in just a week. It was incredible.

Now 'Mary' is not svelte. In fact she tells us the reason she can't hold 'lil Q to fed her is because she too fat and her belly gets in the way - her words not mine. So maybe she see's nothing wrong with the baby getting fat, but we do. I know folks are going to say there is no such thing as a fat baby, but when we went to the Doc, 'lil Q was 90th percentile length wise and 75% weight. Clearly she wasn't under fed.

We got another discussion about how she needed more food because she was going to have a growth spurt etc. 'lil Q is one of the happiest babies I know. Ask anyone who's met her. She is also very good at telling us she is hungry. IF she needed more food, she'd let us know and we give it to her, that was how we knew to increase her formula from 4oz to 6. Another sit down with 'Mary' Again it was explained, there isn't any issue to resolve. She gets what we tell her and that's it. The Doc was very happy with her development, saying she was doing great. In my mind we were/are doing things right because the baby is doing well. Why are we tinkering with something that isn't broke? Yeah I know there is the idea of it could always be better, but if she's eating, gaining weight, and thriving, why are we trying to change things? We aren't is the bottom line.

SO fast forward to Wednesday this week. It is good I work outside of the house, because I'd probably be taking off work for a few weeks while we find a new nanny. "Mary' told Mike that on Thurs & Fri of last week and Mon and Tues of this week, she'd been experimenting with 'lil Q's feeding, giving her 3 oz before her nap and 3 oz after so 'lil Q would sleep at least 90 minutes.

So first - who the (@% said she could test her theories on the baby without our okay? If I'd been home I'd have fired her. Mike took a more measured approach, he called me and vented. But the other problem I had was this length of nap shit. 'lil Q sleeps from 10-10 with a 15-20 wake up around 630-7:00 to eat. Most people do it 7-7 but with Mike working at home, we don't get the Nanny til 10 am so this worked for us.

The Nanny knows she sleeps til 10 am, because often she is the one to wake her. So by 1-1:30 she's been up about 3 -3.5 hours max. She doesn't need an hour and a half nap that soon. Moreover, we've been letting her sleep as long or as little as she wanted. "Mary' gave her food before the nap to 'help' her sleep longer. Her opinion was 'lil Q woke up because she was hungry but if we fed her before the nap, she could sleep longer. Well yeah, if you stuff me full of food, I could take a nice little nap too. The point is she doesn't need that much of a nap at that time.

Coincidentally, a 90 minute nap is about 25% of the time the Nanny is here. Hmm, shorter nap, more work, longer nap, less work. Nope, no correlation there at all. Then came the smoke up my ass. She tried to tell me that 'lil Q needed the nap to recharge and to grow. Of course, how stupid of me. Those 12 hours she slept at night did nothing to help her grow, in fact she didn't grow a lick any time other than that 90 minute nap during the 6 hours the Nanny was here. Right.

So we sat her down yesterday - I had to take a couple hours off work to be here. We explained, that there weren't going to be anymore feeding or sleeping issues. We set the schedule in accordance with our Pediatrician. We'd read other books and asked other people before we came up with her routine. 'lil Q was/is thriving, growing, gaining weight, developing at or above expectations. There was NO need at all to change things. We welcomed suggestions, but we didn't ever want to see/hear she changed something, tested a theory, or whatever without asking us first.

I realize we don't know everything, far from it, but what I do know, is 'lil Q is in a good routine that has let her develop on track or faster and has left her very happy. Unless there is a reason to change - i.e. she's being harmed or it's inhibiting her development, there is no reason to change. In fact, mucking with her routine is likely to cause more harm than good.

I think she got the message. In fact today, she did it exactly as we wanted. But she did say to me that 'lil Q didn't sleep very much and that she was tired but wouldn't go to sleep. I was like, yeah, well my mom told me I rarely slept more than 30-45 minutes, my nieces and nephews didn't do more than that, my co-workers twins don't do more, in fact few babies do so it's probably just fine.

Now let's see what next week brings.