Hello everyone - this is my first post, so please be nice!
I'm not sure where to begin with this, really. Our DS is now 8.5 months old, and recently my DW went back to work. I was going to stop work for 6 months and look after our DS myself, but on hearing this my employer (we're both freelancers) suggested I go part-time, and work 2 days in the office and 1 from home. My DW works 3 very long days and is then at home the other 2, so this means that one of us is at home looking after our DS every day - what would seem an ideal arrangement.
I've now been looking after our DS for 3 weeks and am finding it very difficult to cope - I look after him for the 3 days in the middle of the week. I had a series of blinding migraines in the weeks leading up to this, the last of which resulted in me being hospitalised, so I think I was quite stressed about it anyway.
He's a wonderful little baby, very happy and good-natured and rarely cries apart from teething pains, but he's very mobile which means that I can't really take my eye off him for a moment except when he's having a nap, and then that time is taken up with tidying up, washing, dishwasher, etc. By the second day of each week I feel as though I'm on the verge of a panic attack the whole time. I think I could manage if I had some respite in the shape of a few hours on my own - there's a good nursery nearby and I suggested that our DS go there for 1 whole day or 2 afternoons out of the 3 days. My DW doesn't like the idea of this at all and thinks he's too young to be in a nursery - but we were probably going to send him there in September anyway, when he'll be a year old.
Am I just being a typical man and a selfish, feckless tosser who should just pull himself together and get on with it, or is this actually a reasonable thing to want to do?