Return to work in one week - aaaargh!

[shelbel]

I'm back at work next week for four days (dh is also working four days)and ds will be 6 mo old. We're currently doing a settling in period at nursery having done one session at a previous nursery and decided it wasn't for us. I can't bear the thought of leaving ds for whole days at all and am having so many doubts about the whole thing. We can't afford for me to take any aml so there are no other options but i keep thinking have i chosen the right nursery, should i have looked at childminders instead - (ds looks so vulnerable in a room full of babies up to 21 months of age but we decided early on that we didn't want a childminder). I want him to be as settled as possible before he starts full days but then i just want to spend our last full week together. I just feel so down about the whole thing and i know that every mum who returns to work goes through the same feelings but i can't imagine them getting better. Has anyone any advice/experiences to share.

I think you need to take a deep breath and perhaps recognise this for what it probably is - a concern about leaving your ds at all, rather than a concern about the place. I think we all will have been through this. I spent huge amounts of time interviewing and choosing a nanny and had an overlap with her before I went back to work. After she had been with us a couple of days I had a real wobble when I was quite clear that I couldn't leave my DS with her - she was too young, couldn't drive etc etc. What I said to myself that really helped was that I would see if I still felt the same in a month's time - this really helped me to be a bit more objective about it. Two and a half years on we still have the same nanny, DS is more than fine and DH and I are very happy with all of the arrangements. I know its hard, and I really feel for you...but I promise you it will be ok.

You have my sympathy - I found this stage horribly traumatic. Oddly I'd been anticipating it all being fine, but the very first day I left dd at her nursery for a trial morning I walked home crying the whole way. I just felt desparate at leaving my little one anywhere. She seemed so young and had no way of telling me if she was unhappy.

It did take me a couple of months to get used to it and even then there would be days when the nursery did something I didn't like (in my control freakish way, e.g. giving her crackers when I hadn't yet introduced wheat to her diet!) and that would set me off in floods of tears again. But she's now two, loves her nursery and I'm really happy to be out at work and know I would have gone crazy at home. I think the stimulation and company of other kids has been good for her. It's so much easier now she can tell us what she's been up to, and she talks about going to nursery and seeing her friends. I hope I'll find it easier to hand over my 2nd child!

So all I can say is - hang in there, if you're still unhappy in a month or two, obviously you'll need to rethink, but it's not at all uncommon to find this hard. In fact I spent the first few months at work permanently on mumsnet, to seek some comfort!

Thanks for your support - i think i was getting things out of perspective a bit yesterday and Anchovy, you hit the nail on the head when you said its really all about concern at leaving ds and not the actual nursery - this really helped. I do enjoy my job and i do miss the people that i work with and I can see the positives in ds going to nursery socially so i guess i just have to go with it knowing that its just going to be really hard but should get easier and look at how i feel as time goes on.