SAHM to fulltime working mom - NEED ADVICE

[keanablue]

I have been a SAHM mom for 15 months and my daughter and I are very attached. Soon I will be returning to work fulltime and am in need of any advice on how to make this transition. I am dreading the thought of childcare and of being away from my daughter 8 hours a day. Any advice?

[Erin Pavlina]

Be sure to find someone to care for her that you trust and who will treat her well. That will ease your mind a lot.

I think your daughter is old enough to really enjoy interacting with other children her age, and having the opportunity to play with toys and on playyard eqiupment that you may not have. (That's the bright side).

It will be difficult to leave her, sure. It will take some adjustment time. And if it's not working out for you, you might be able to find another way of making things work that will suit you both better.

But the key thing is to make sure your child's caregiver respects your wishes, food choices, and style of parenting.

[Zoesmama]

I'll be keeping up with this as I'm going back to work after being there pretty much her first 2 years. I did work from about 2-3 months old until she was about 7 months or so but only part time and she was with dh most of that time. She went to a sitter a few times probably 6 max.

I'm sooo nervous about leaving her but we started going to a playgroup again recently and she is getting into hanging out with other kids. She tries to drag them all to play with her. LOL Its very cute. She hardly notices me in the corner anymore. Its sad but I'm glad and think it might help her later on.

I left her twice at the gym childcare a few months ago and I could hear her crying whlie working out. So it was a change to know she will fit in better now with other kids.

[ilovegiraffes]

My best advice is to find other moms that work to chat with - either online, on the phone or at work. I went from working a very flexible part time schedule for the first 10 months to working a fulltime + job where I have very little vacation, sick time, etc. I come home for lunch when I can. I call daycare when I need to. I get everything ready ahead of time and allow myself time in the morning to nurse, play or do whatever she needs done. I have a relative with an in home daycare and that's wonderful because she actually cares about my daughter because she's family. As with any daycare you have to weigh the positives and negatives. I would prefer that my daughter watch no tv at daycare, but our relative often has television on in the background. While I'm not a fan of this, I am a fan of having very safe, reliable daycare where I know the family, who will be around my child and where I very often have one on one attention since she only watches one or two other children part time and my daughter is the only full time child with her. I know people who do actual centers and there is a definite benefit to that as you have more people and don't have to worry about your daycare provider being ill as centers have multiple staff to cover this.
Either way, getting back to how to help you, don't let others or even yourself feel guilty in ANY way about this. Being away from my daughter is one of the hardest things that I have had to do and if I had a choice I wouldn't be, but I don't. I have to look at the positives in that she is around other kids and loves playing with them. She gets to learn to share and handle other personalities and people and gets to play with toys that we don't have at home. I also get lots of hugs and grins when I pick her up so that I know that she doesn't hate me. Hope this helps.

[keanablue]

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice. It has helped a lot. After searching and searching I finally found a daycare that I am excited about and with which I have very few worries.