to send my 6 month old dd to full time nursery

[bluebeanie]

I'm heading back to work soon. Mat leave has gone far too quickly.

We don't have any family nearby for any help. She's formula fed, so no problem there. We really need two wages coming in. My mat leave was a very generous 6 months full pay. Our combined incomes will just cover all bills, some savings and the childcare. Plus, it is a critical time in both our careers.

The closer I get to the end, the more guilty I feel. I get the feeling many people think this is too young. I've been given the look of horror by several friends and family members.

Have any other mums got experience of this? How do you fit housework etc in? We probably can't afford a cleaner. I guess I just need some positive stories please. Will she hate me?

We do well with a 1 or 2 times a year deep clean, which is cheaper and more convenient for us than a regular clean. But we don't want sheets changed, ironing done etc by a regular cleaner. We can manage to keep on top of things quite easily with just a little bit of housework - it doesn't take that much time during a week to run the hoover round, wipe the surfaces, clean the bath. But you get dirty windows and limescale build up and things like that, and a good clean every 6-8 months, say, makes it easier to keep on top of the day-to-day cleaning.

It does depend on how much you'd miss the money. Around our way it would be a good £80-£100 a month to have a regular cleaner, and I just can't justify £1000 a year on keeping the house clean as that would actually be quite noticeable. I can justify £200-£400 a year on getting it deep cleaned, though.

Another thing I meant to add was that the mornings, getting out of the house, are hard. Try and get your combined work timetable so that either one of you drops off and the other picks up, or you are both there at one end of the day. But they get easier. I even noticed the first few months (which was about 9 months up to about 13 months in our case) getting easier both in the mornings and as we came home.

DH works quite a distance away so he gets up early and uses his flexitime to start in the office early and leave early, so he's home at 6 most days. I do the morning run and then try and put off leaving the office till the last possible minute so I'm home with DS not long before DH. The first few months when he was mobile, but I couldn't turn my back on him, were hard both in the mornings (he did settle down to being OK to sit in the highchair and watch me get ready) and coming home (especially when he was tired and couldn't play nicely).

Investigate all the childcare options open to you, and then pick the one that is best for your child. Ignore people who make sweeping judgements about nursery not being good for young children, because a) they don't know the specific nursery you have in mind and b) they don't know your child.

I also echo the point that 6 months is actually far easier than starting to leave a child at 9 or 12 months.

We used a cm then progressed to a fabulous nursery. I returned to work when my two were 3 and 4 months respectively...they settled quickly and contentedly.

Occasionally some people might try to make you feel bad by hinting that childcare isnt good and that your child may be unhappy or insecure. What they dont understand is that YOU as the parents know your child and pick up on their moods and demeanour. It's not like parents just stick their children in childcare and pick them up a few years later! You will know first hand how your child is settling, and as the parents you will always be the most important influential people in their life.

Our children are teenagers now and perfectly happy, clever, confident... Just ignore anyone who tries to guilt trip you about it.