To feel sad seeing a 7 week old baby at DC's nursery today

[comfysketchers]

Dropping my 15 month old off at nursery today before work and there was another woman there at the same time handing over a 7 week old sleeping baby.

He was absolutely tiny and I just felt so sad looking at him thinking that he barely even knows he is out of the womb and his mum is dropping him off to spend all day with strangers in a noisy nursery environment.

I should also add that I live in a country that has excellent parental leave from the government plus most private companies pay at least 10 weeks of full pay on top of that, with many paying much more than that.

YABU - It’s perfectly normal for a 7 week old baby to spend 8 hours per day in a nursery.

YANBU - A 7 week old baby should be at home with its mum.

Research doesn't tend to cover people who are outliers e.g. those who have cancer, those who have mental health problems.

Please tell me you aren’t comparing assaulting a child with putting a child in a qualified care facility?

Because surely no one is that stupid to compare the two but I might be wrong.

100% not an emergency.

He has his own name tag for his bag so he will be there ongoing.

As a former nursery worker I can tell u these babies would get spoiled rotten. Argue over who is going to sit and feed them.

I went back to work when dd was 3 weeks old but I had no choice, dh had been signed off from work sick so we only had my maternity pay coming in. I went back part time and left baby with dh. I felt very guilty but I don’t think it did dd much harm tbh. She’s now 19 and at uni.

You don’t know the mothers situation.

I think it’s sad- child abuse? No! Far from ideal- yes! I think we live is such a callous society, where we purposely dismiss nature to fit with the capitalist narrative.

Oh how lovely it must be to live in an ideal world where everyone can do the absolute right thing all of the time.

Meanwhile, those of us who have to live in the real world understand that sometimes very hard decisions need to be made.

The time will come one day when you have to make very tough decisions, and when it does I hope you learn from it.

Have some sympathy for the mum. As others have said there could be a myriad of reasons why she’s doing this. Maybe get to know her?

Is it ideal, no, is it abuse, also no.

There’s also the point that in many ways a 15 month old is arguably more in need of their parents- certainly they pick up on much more at that age and are learning more from their caregivers. Not saying this to make you feel guilty but there are always arguments against anyone other than a parent looking after kids.

Plus if the 7 week old is anything like mine they’ll be up 8 hours of the night so still plenty of quality time with mum!

I live in the British isles but am foreign, and the cultural differences amaze me still years on.

Attitudes are so different here from other places in Europe.

For ex in France women generally take 3 months maternity leave. As a British poster pointed out on another thread, there is of course cheap / subsidised / available childcare,
but also the general attitude that women would go back to their life and being themselves, women rather than just mothers.

“I should also add that I live in a country that has excellent parental leave from the government plus most private companies pay at least 10 weeks of full pay on top of that, with many paying much more than that.”

That was in the op, you must have missed it.

but anyway, even if the mother has no economic choice whatsoever, the child is still being damaged and we still as a society have a duty to point that out. Not just shrug and move on.

The nursery workers are only strangers for a short while.

The baby will get to know them.

IMO the baby doesn't know any different and as long as its needs are being met, it will probably be unbothered.

YANBU

Fair enough. I hope for your sake your circumstances never change to such a degree that it's your only option as it is for some.

There is so many situations that could result in this and it is absolutely none of your buisness. Yabu to be this naive and judgemental at the same time and that is coming from someone who has never used nurserys

You have no idea the reason behind it so worry about your own child and let whoever is responsible for this 7 week old worry about their child.

I assume you don’t work then? How do you afford that if that’s the case?

Nobody that froths at the mouth about this kind of thing ever makes demands about a baby’s right to paternal comfort, do they? It’s always the mothers they pour scorn on.

That mum left her baby safe in the nursery’s care. It’ll be fine. Save your judgement for someone who deserves it.

YANBU, I'd feel sad about this too. No matter the reason. Perhaps it can't be helped, due to circumstances outside the parents' control, but even so it's still sad to see. Young babies need to bond with one primary caregiver.

My point is that it is sad for a baby to be in a nursery at 7 weeks and all the reasons you gave about why it might be necessary are also sad.

In the post I quoted you didn't stay anything about getting support to change mat leave. I haven't got all the way through so don't know if you went on to say that.

Exactly this.

Or two primary caregivers of course. But nursery at 7 weeks is never going to be best for a child's emotional and cognitive development.

It’s okay, I didn’t miss that at all.
I’m replying to you and your quite frankly offensive comments about child abuse.

YABU to judge, you don’t know anything of the parents’ reasons for doing so, and what you say about parental leave in your country doesn’t mean that they’d have another choice.

If I could be arsed to look I'm sure I'd find a study saying that putting 15 month olds into nursery is detrimental. It's quite shite that we have to pay other people to look after our babies and toddlers so we can go to work for a fraction more than what we've paid for daycare but that's the country we live in. It could be worse really.

Op you'll get flamed for having an opinion on this. And people will insist that the mother will likely have no other choice. Even though people know full well that many parents dump their kids in childcare whether they need to or not.
Yes it not your business but it doesn't mean you can't feel sad about it. I'd feel sad too, both seeing the baby be dropped off, or if it was my baby being dropped off that young. I don't think that at that age nursery is what I would choose or think it to be the best place. My thought on that wouldn't change even if I was having to drop a 7 week old off myself!