To NOT feel guilty that my kids are in childcare?

[Kanfuzed123]

Inspired by the childcare eating a £45k salary and the anti nursery sentiment from a few posters on there as being inferior for a child.

anyone else not feel in the slightest guilty that there kids are in nursery and have been post maternity leave?

yeah when they cried at drop off was rough and I called into the check out they were but that soon settled. They do lovely events for the parents and upload lots of amazing activities they do, they’ve made fantastic friends.

I could’ve reduced my hours but I didn’t, we could’ve maybe managed on one salary (glad we didn’t when rates shot up) but I went back FT when dc 1 was 15 months (used annual leave for part time before then) and dc2 was 13 months.

anyone else just not feel guilty? I like the lifestyle we can get when we’re working, especially since the 15 funded hrs and now 30, it’s so affordable. (Eldest is in school and youngest now has the 30 hrs) bill is less than £400 a month inc club etc. I like having something else to focus on too.

im not alone or am I?

Oh I couldn’t agree more that parents should maintain their own interests, hobbies and things they like as adults. I have always swam on my own 1-2 times a week whether working or since having children as it is really important to me, I don’t have to justify that. I often pop out in the evening to Governor meetings/cinema trips with Mum/a friend over dinner and bedtime. My DH plays darts once a week. I do find it a shame if there is a huge imbalance between couples with this, and I do notice that it’s usually Mums who suffer more.

I follow a couple of obviously wealthy SAHMs. The children do some nursery whilst they get housework done and hobbies. They obviously play with the kids too. I think it is a nice balance. Not jealous at all. 😄

Yeah something I think is interesting is that really wealthy women tend to neither work nor be with their kids full time, they tend to use some childcare (often nanny but sometimes preschool) and do some sort of personal project on the side.

My very wealthy SAHM acquaintance used nursery, a weekend nanny and regular babysitters..

But in my experience most people attend 2-3 groups per week, which totals 3/4/5 hours. They don’t spend all day at toddler groups and none of them last more than an hour. I think the loss of wider local family has also played into this as well. For sure most of the kids from antenatal who had a SAHM spent very little time around their peers. It could just be anecdata on my part but they also had anxiety type issues when starting school and struggled to share/make friends etc

One or two of the mums have said they wished they’d done a couple of days of nursery from age 18 months or so

Yes, it does vary hugely. I personally found it much easier to make proper friends for me when I was at uni or working. I found everybody at groups friendly, but attendance could be patchy due to illness, appointments, etc. It was just nice to have somewhere to go rather than be alone the whole day as I do like a chat 😂 also, as your children get older they get way chattier too 😂 I have found it easier for both myself and my children to build more consistent relationships now they are at school though.

I also live somewhere where we grew up and both had existing family and friends. Most of the friends I socialise with during the week have been working teacher Mums I knew before. Some rural areas may only have 1 group on per week, so if you were without a car I would personally have found that very difficult.

I think it is very important parents do not become alone and isolated, their happiness and mental health are very important, so I completely understand why some choose to work to maintain a sense of themselves as a person and to socialise as much as for financial reasons, completely understandable.

Where it really is a different world is Dubai, regardless of whether you work or not, have children it not. So I know 3 couples/families who re-located there. 1 couple (both teachers) were personally driven to and from work each day, dinner cooked for them, cleaning done, night nanny so the couple were out socialising at night with friends, all night feeds done for them. Weekends spent on party yachts etc. They tried moving back here, but Mum struggled with suddenly needing to do washing on her 2 days off work. Her own mother stepped in and did all her laundry, cooked for them all, did the school run…but ultimately they are back in Dubai and will likely never return. It was quite an eye-opener! 😂

I think everyone tends to talk about extreme scenarios of nursery or SAHM-ing. Of course there is a place for nursery or 'industrial childcare' as someone her called it, but there is a huge difference between a 2 year-old going for a a few days or mornings per week, and a 10-week old baby going in more or less full-time. A friend used to work in a nursery and she said that in the baby room there were 10 week old babies. They would be dropped off at 7.30 or 8am and picked up about 5pm or later. That was their life, from 10 weeks old. They knew nothing else. The parents thought it was fine because the babies didn't cry when they were dropped off - but this was because they could barely focus their eyes and where to bewildered for any organised response. Even the staff thought this should be illegal. Maybe it is now? Personally, I think any company that would expect a mum with a 10 week baby to return to work is criminal. It's the very antithesis of feminism - it's inhumane, for mums and babies. Nobody should be put in that position and employers shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

By the time they can walk and express themselves a bit, it's a different matter because they understand where they are and that it's not forever. Even then, ideally, they don't get much out of nursery until about 2.5 or 3. Before that, it's just a holding facility really. I think people need to be honest and to acknowledge that, in modern society, what may be convenient or financially necessary for parents, is always going at the expense of babies lived, day-to-day experience. People always talk about 'outcomes' on these threads, but actual life is what happens in the interim. The only exception of course, would be extreme poverty or other factors at home, in which case nursery is at lest a safe environment.

Maybe that was when maternity leave was so much shorter. My eldest went at 13 weeks. There was only 16 weeks ML then so id you'd had to finish work 4 weeks before birth then the baby would only be 12 weeks when you had to return, if it had been born a fortnight late then ML ran out when it was 10 weeks.

I went on ML 10 days before due date. DD was nearly 2 weeks late

A much shorter maternity leave used to be standard so smaller babies in nursery used to be the norm. It isn't illegal but because maternity leave is longer now, smaller babies in nursery are more unusual.

DC's nursery take babies from 6 weeks but I've never actually seen a baby that young there. Mine started at 3 months and were always one of the youngest to start.

Men also need to do more. Mothers can’t work and look after children and maintain their own sanity. It’s always the mother’s fault. Always the mother who needs to make the sacrifice. It’s exhausting. Men have children, outsource everything and face no judgment.

3 months.. wow. That’s barely out of the 4th trimester. We should definitely not be normalising or promoting babies in nursery at 3 months old.

My friends in the states get 6 weeks off (unpaid) as standard so the whole setup here continues to amaze me.

Also, taking a few years out, whether as a SAHM or a combo of SAHM / SAHD is the very least families should expect. It should be illegal for companies to discriminate against people for having children. Babies are not an inconvenience - we were all babies once!

There are some (emphasis on some) families where mums and dads don't want to spend more than a few hours a day with their kids. This is the truth of it. Any more than that, they get overwhelmed or bored. So they use work as an excuse. I've found parents who are ASD can often be like this, because they need the structure a job gives. I understand this, but ultimately, it's not about what's best for the adults is it, it's about what's best for the baby they chose to have! You don't get to opt out. You wouldn't get a dog and put it in daycare 8-5, so why would you have a baby if this set-up is what you envisage?

@Catwhispereroo there are plenty of people who leave their dogs home all day while they're at work. And plenty more who use doggy daycare. That is a silly thing to say.

And it was 100% fine for my kids to go to daycare at 12 months. Particularly for my son. He was very, very bored hanging out with me while we went food shopping or I did some laundry or watched my daughter at dance class or we went to a park. He was extremely happy to start hanging out with kids his own age and be busy all day long. I would have done the same regardless of if I was working or not as it wasn't fair 'on him' to keep him back any longer. He could have started nursery earlier really.

My daughter is a more complicated situation as she's autistic so 'maybe' would have benefitted from longer at home but perhaps not. She loved the routine and knowing exactly what to expect each day. She has never in her life played with a random child at a playpark or anything like that. She needs weeks and weeks of a routine to feel comfortable so nursery was brilliant for her. I did choose to start her later (she was 14 months and my son was 11 months) and I think that was the right call - for her. Not sure it was the right call for me!

For the sake of my mental health, it had to happen. I have no regrets, it certainly wasn't in a baby's best interest to have a mum at home struggling mentally and work vastly improved it.

@Catwhispereroo

I don't think I agree that the adults don't matter at all. I think I do matter and my preferences are important too.

I also think it's madness to think you always have to do the absolute best most optimal thing for your children at all times. You drive yourself crazy that way.

I do think most babies/toddlers would be better off with their parents until around 2 - but we (we did shared parental leave so the last bit was DH) went back to work at 1.

But I also think it's optimal for children to have their own bedrooms - for some families this is a tradeoff and they both need to work to avoid this. I think this is optimal even from a young age, sleep is very important and young children sharing do wake each other up.

I also think it's optimal for parents to have enough money saved to help launch their children into the world as adults.

I think it's optimal to live in an area with good schools - which usually costs more.

I don't criticise others for making the tradeoffs that they do to afford staying at home with their children but I do think it's more complicated than "do what is best for your kids"

I agree that parental mental health is of huge importance. It’s a huge shock/change for many.

My only concern is that society pressures mothers now far more into the academic and careers routes, so it is entirely unsurprising to me that many new mothers feel alone, afraid, panicked and overwhelmed initially.

I can remember attending groups where sitting on the floor in a circle singing was entirely familiar having been an EY teacher, and thinking to myself that some professionals must genuinely think this is mental! 😂 a friend of mine was stunned that a lady ‘shut the curtains, blew bubbles over her and chucked feathers’ over her and her baby, completely understandable as this was so different from her normal, professional day to day.

I just worry that the governmental promotion and wider availability of nurseries means that some panic and don’t allow themselves enough time to pause and adjust, trust themselves and their babies to get used to each other and into a rhythm. I see a lot of posters being really honest about feeling ‘afraid’ to be alone with multiple young children, I admire their honesty but know they would be absolutely fine with some time.

I feel sad for anybody who makes decisions from a place of fear, and worry we are failing new mothers as a society if they feel that worried about their own capabilities. Really sad.

If you don't mind me asking, do you mean you were depressed at 12 weeks? Was there anyone or anything that could have supported you, apart from full time nursery?

I didn't have PND but I think it would have headed in that direction if things had continued as they were. Going back to work made me feel so much better, it was like night and day.

I had other support but nothing made the difference like going back to work did.

That's pretty common actually. My DD was exactly the same. It was return to work that made her feel " like herself" again

Seems strange that if you are in a job that affects your mental health then you are advised to leave and do something else, yet if it's a baby people want you to " endure" even though you know that being elsewhere ( at work) is far better for you

You are honest about that @SouthLondonMum22 and that's all any of us can do really. In my case, if I had to put any of mine in nursery at 12 weeks, even for half a day, I think that would have finished me off. I just could not have done that.

Groups were one of the issues, I just never got along with them and found them incredibly forced and awkward.

I did NCT with DS too but it was just a waste of time and money in the end as I was shunned from the group because I didn't breastfeed.

That's exactly it. I didn't feel like ''me'' at all until I went back to work.

Hmm yeah maybe because your job isn’t a tiny human entirely reliable and dependant on you. So you think mums should abandon their newborns instead of seeking therapy? Seems pretty selfish to me and I don’t understand why would anyone have more than one in this situation.

It would be strange if you felt exactly as you did pre-baby. It’s called matrescence and it’s supposed to happen.