Beyond DaddyCare

DaddyCare has worked out for the month, and both Doug and Ian and still alive and enjoying each other's company. But last week it got very stressful. Doug's workload was increasing and Ian decided that napping is for weenies (later in the week he also decided that nighttime sleeping is for fools). So having Ian in the office was making Doug's days very tiring and stressful, and I was stressed knowing that he was stressed. Thinking that having your parents constantly be stressed and exhausted is not the best long-term situation for a baby, we considered our options -either care by an individual or in an institutional daycare.

We contacted the person from church who we both thought would be a good candidate for individual care, and I arranged to tour a daycare that had an opening in November. The daycare is the same franchise as the one we've signed up for in February, but a different location. I was not thrilled with the infant room. The older kids' rooms seem okay, but eight babies for two adults seems like a lot. The woman leading the tour kept talking about "quality assurance". I thought, surely my baby would come home safe and clean from this center (quality assured!), but I also care about having an enthusiastic person interact with him throughout the day. I had thought that having Ian at a daycare would be okay, because it would give him another place to explore, but not one of the babies in the room I toured was moving. They were all strapped into something - a swing, bouncy seat, exersaucer, etc. Of course this happens at home, too, when I need to eat lunch and things, but I felt like the kids were just being managed. One of them was screaming, and it took a while before anyone picked her up.

Fortunately, our other option worked out - JackiCare. Jacki goes to church with us and has a 9 month old daughter. Before she became a mom, she was a nanny and did several other childcare related things. So starting this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Ian went to her house and hung out with her and Avery. This is a great arrangement for us, since it is flexible, and means that Ian only has to share an adult's attention with one other person. He and Avery also seem to be interested in one another, so he'll get a little baby socializing. We trust Jacki to do a great job and it wasn't traumatic for me to leave him with her. We're hoping this will continue to work as well as it has this week! Tuesday and Wednesday were my first full days at work since Ian was born. They were very intense, but not as overwhelming as I thought they might have been. Ian has been waking up several times a night to nurse since Friday (even though he's been sleeping 8 hours straight for a month), so it was a very exhausting few days, but I feel good that we got through it. Ian go to and from Jacki's, I got to and from work, Doug and I had food to eat, and Ian had enough milk. I started to see how being a working mother can be possible. But that's not to say that I wasn't relieved to have today off!