Leaving a young baby for 10+ hours a day

[kcj748]

I am about to have my first baby in November and plan to return to work full time four or five months later. I am incredibly nervous about leaving my baby at this age for such a long amount of time. I don't have the option of working part time so this will be five days a week for at least ten hours a day. My husband works even longer hours. A family member could possibly help out one day a week but we would mostly have to do childcare. My salary will only just cover a full time nanny but I love my job and really wouldn't want to have to let it go. Ideally we would be leaving our baby with a childminder but I have no idea at what age this is realistic and am terribly nervous about leaving my baby at someone else's house and with someone won't be able to give him exclusive attention.

Is it completely insane to think any of this will be possible? Does anyone have any advice about childminders/nurseries and other possible options?

Yes, if you do have a choice, wait and see how you feel. I thought I was going to be all lentil weavery and the perfect mum to a new baby, but then I had PND and didn't like my poor little baby so having to go back to work was a good thing in my case! (I ADORE her now, of course - but it was a strange period in my life.)

What I'm trying to say is that until you have your baby in your arms you just won't know quite how strongly you'll feel (one way or another!).

And Thermos, I honestly don't think my DCs suffered in my absence at all. They were very much loved by their carers and my relationship with them is wonderful. It a mum has to go back to work for financial reasons, she is going to be suffering from enough guilt without being judged.

Ignore thermos. She's entitled to bring up her precious little darlings as she sees fit and so are you.

Lots of people do it. I did it, my colleagues do it and plenty of people on here do it. Your baby will be fine and so long as he/she gets good and ideally 1:1 dedicated care she won't notice it - my kids both thrived with the care they got, and my 8YO has had the same carer since he was 3 months old and has a fantastically warm relationship with her, and both of them thrived in a nursery 2 days a week. I would be slightly more concerned about a 10X5 childminder relationship simply because the care needs to be shared out, but then that is no different than raising a child in a house with siblings.

But you do need to plan stuff:-

1. definitely have a parent one day a week if you can
2. work out with your DH what the 'chores' are (laundry, etc), and agree who is going to do it and when. Both you and DH are going to be fairly exhausted (and you in particular may be emotionally exhausted), so you need to outsource as much as you can, otherwise your weekends become very miserable.
3. agree who will cover 'emergencies' - my Dh and I took it strictly in turns
4. plan as much as you can before the baby is born. The good nurseries will have 6 mth waiting lists and the last thing you want to do is look for a nanny within weeks of giving birth if you can help it.
5. Try to keep your options open. You have no idea how you will feel post birth.
6. If you possibly can, try to do a 4 day week. It really, really, really helps.

I understand some mothers need to work to pay the bills. But the OP wants to work because she loves her job.

What you don't seem to realise/accept is that some parents HAVE to go back to work when their children are only a few months old. Financial necessity.

Also, I don't like the way you're only referring to the Mother, where does Dad feature in all this, can they "meet your baby's emotional needs like it's mother" ?

Thermos,

It is always a balance, though, isn't it, and the whole family needs to be considered rather than it being JUST the baby or JUST the adults.

The whole family's needs may be best served by having a roof over their heads and without the enormous stresses of financial hardship. As a previous poster says, there may be some more financial 'slack' than you originally think there might be - as part of the whole priority rethink that children bring, cars, holidays, new clothes, entertainment may all begin to seem less important than they once were. Equally, though, in many families two incomes are necessary to deal with existing and new financial commitments (babies can be cheap or dear, but are never absolutely free!).

Equally, emotional needs mnay need to be met. Is a baby best cared for by a loving professional during the week and by happy and fulfilled parents at the weekends, or by a grumpy, bored, resentful SAHP full time? If the OP still feels, once the baby has arrived, that her self-worth, self-esteem and happiness is best achieved by a balance between work and family life, that is per right. It may be that the balance sits a little away from the current 'work centred' set of priorities, but it may still need to ber a balance for everyone's happliness.

x-posts.

Ok, I'm going now. I think I've made my point and I hope the OP at least gets the book I've mentioned and reads it before she makes a decision.

Thermos, your posts are not only inflammatory but also ill informed. There is plenty of research to support both sides of this debate on whether or not a baby is better off with a parent staying home full time.

My children have all been in full time care from 3 months (or younger in DD's case). They are all happy, thriving, well-adjusted children. Although it is perhaps a tad premature to make that judgement for DS2 as he is only 7 months old.

OP, Lots of people need to work. Staying home is a choice. Don't let ignorant posts like those from Thermos upset you. There are a lot of people here who will give you supportive advice.

I am neither angry, defensive nor uncomfortable with your opinion Thermos. But I think you are pushy and wrong.

I have read the book thermos mentions; it does say that love matters. It doesn't say that a CM won't love the baby too.

thermosflask while I appreciate that you have your opinion you have to understand that a lot of people need to work. We don't have a lot of money. We are lucky enough to have been able to recently buy a house. We haven't moved in yet but we will be furnishing it almost exclusively with donations from family and friends and freecycle.org. I think it's great if women can manage to work and have children. It is wonderful to be a stay at home mum but it is not an option for everyone and I think lots of children benefit from having a mother who has a career and other things in their lives.

I have a childminder for my DD, I don't work as long as you, however I found this was the best option for me as I wanted DD to be secure and with one person, as it is, they are a husband and wife team, they are never full to capacity with little ones during the school day.
My DD is happy to go there and most importantly for me my childminders are affectionate and give her cuddles and call her sweet pet names, this emotional involvement were they actually care for DD, is entirely possible and a real blessing!
Don't feel guilty we all have to do what we need to do and DD loves seeing her little friends, start looking around now so you can find the perfect childcare option for you.

Wait and see how you feel OP.

I assumed I'd be going back to work full time when my firstborn was 6 months old.

I'm a SAHM now and love it

Strix, to be absolutely fair, both going to work and staying at home are choices.

However, due to previous choices that the family has made, the arguments for and against each option may not be evenly balanced.

Foe example, if a couple has bought a house, and two salaries are needed to pay the mortgage, then to make the choice to stay at home, the couple would have to sell the house and find somewhere cheaper to live. A possible choice, but not necessarily one that couple would favour.

Equally, in my case by not going back to work after 6 months I essentially gave up my career. That is a choice that I made, but it is not a choice that others would want to make.

There is likely to be a route for every family to have a stay at home parent, and for every family to have adults who work full time - but the balance of sacrifices involved to achieve those (career sacrifice, moving home, managing without car / holiday, moving out of the area etc) are different for every couple and so the choice every couple makes is different.

Ignore thermos. Do what is necessary for you and your family. I went back to work when DS was 7 months old (he is 3.5 years old now) and DD was 6 months old (she is 10 months now). They both go to a nursery and DS loves it there for many reasons like his best friends, his teachers, and the food!!

And it's just as well that I went back to work because as of this month my husband has been made redundant. So really if i didn't go back to work... Exactly how would we live? Both kids won't be in nursery yes, but we wont be able to pay our mortgage, bilks or eat!

Do wait till your baby is born to see how you feel.. But I realize you need to tell work your plans. So maybe do tell them you want to go back to work after 4 months but try and work it such that you get to go back maybe 3days a week for a start? That way your baby and you will have some transition time. You can use keep in touch days (10) to transition back and then use some accrued holiday to take a day off a week for the first few weeks or months? Or maybe your husband can work 4 days too??

Good luck. It is very doable.

Sorry, that's not to assume, as you rightly point out, that everyone has the financial means to be a SAHM. I certainly couldn't have afforded it when my first DD was born, but me being made redundant coincided with DH getting a big promotion and payrise and as I had two pre schoolers by that point most of my salary would have gone on childcare.

You never know what's around the corner - keep your options open, and you've absolutely done the right thing getting people's experiences here.

OP when my eldest from 8-6 five days a week since she was 6 months old

she's several years into her primary school years now and her carers in the baby room still ask after her and talk about her time there when I see them, she was extremely well cared for by lovely people

personally I wouldn't have sent her there full time had it not been a financial necessity but that's what would have suited me, what suited me isn't necessarily what will suit you

I think the key is to be completely happy with your childcare setting. A nanny probably your best bet if you can afford it - you need to be able to cover your child being ill and appointments and so forth.

See how you feel when you're baby's actually here, it's hard to say beforehand how being a mother will affect your feelings about work.

Agree that the book that thermos mentions isn't the only valid study on the effects of childcare on babies' developmnet

Thermos - do yourself and us a favour and sod off.

A mother ensuring that she has the economic means to support herself and her family on an ongoing basis is vital. End of story.

OP - you're doing the right thing. If you can work from home part of the time reduce your hours for a bit, by all means do that. Your employer may be much friendlier tot he idea than you expect.

The time does pass quickly when you are paying for v expensive childcare to get the right ratios/reducing your hours. BUT I know so many women who are now really really grateful they kept their hand in there so they have the option of going back full time. Sorry to be unduly gloomy, but people who's marriages broke up, one who's husband got ill and signed off work, etc. You never know what's down the road, but hiding behind some childcare book/theories is not going to cut the mustard when you have to keep the show on the road financially for your family. One of the biggest blow hards who criticised me for going back to work is the one whose husband left. 18 months of retraining before she could go back to work as a GP. Sucked.

Sorry, one exception. If a mother has untreated/undiagnosed PND, then in those circumstances a baby will benefit from being looked after by a loving carer, until the mother is well again.

Thermos, you are being bigoted and judgemental, and appear to be shockingly uneducated in the very area you are preaching about. Do you stalk the childminder board just to give that high horse of yours some exercise?

I went to work from choice, not need. And I am pleased that my choices have given my children such a fantastic start in life.

At the age of seven my son now needs me slightly more (he is dyslexic, dyspraxic, and has minor ADHD), and I am working part time to accommodate that. Fortunately my working enabled him to attend (from the age of 3) the school which happened to have been the very best school he could possible have attended for the diagnosis of, and accommodation of, his conditions. As the regional educational assessor told me, had I sent him to any of the local state schools, his condition would most certainly not have been diagnosed for a number of years*, by which time he would have fallen seriously behind. As it is, he is making brilliant progress, achieved level 3 in all his SATS, and is managing to hold his own in such a way that few people realise he is doing anything other than simply sailing through - very few people even know he has extra needs.

Good thing I made the right choices at the time, even though I had no idea at the time how things would pan out. Without working, the school my DC's attend would have been out of our reach. As the other posters have said, there's a lot to be said for keeping your options open.

You do what you think is best for your family, and most of us respect that and don't spend our lives tutting over the garden fence and throwing rocks just because other people make other decisions. And some of us even try to be supportive to others. But then, that requires a capacity for empathy that is so lacking in some of the less enlightened posters...

I love the latest post: "I just turned to page 16 and the book told me that..." Well, you'd better do whatever's in that book!

After DS1 was born I had really bad PND which only lifted when I went back to work after 9 months (I'd planned to take the full year off).

With DS2 I CHOSE to put him into nursery 3 days a week at just 3 months. Partly for financial reasons but mostly for my own sanity. I still suffered PND but I dread to think how I would have been if we hadn't gone down that path.

He's just turned one and does 4 days a week at nursery.

OP your child will be absolutely fine, and so will you as long as you've properly checked out the childcare you go with.

We all do the best we can for our kids - if that means going back to work early to put food on the table, or to maintain your sanity then so be it.

There are lots of books about working mothers damaging children. They come out when the economy needs to shed some of the workforce so scaring women back into domestic servitude makes sense for the country as a whole.
Of course, should the economic climate change so that women are needed in the workplace in massive numbers, out will come shitloads of books and 'scientific' studies proving that childcare is b etter for babies than being looked after by relatives.
Thermos, if you've onlu read one book, you haven't got a clue. So why don't you pop off back to the MRA?

Thermos - again, why is it only the Mother the only person capable of looking after the child. What about the Father?