Mads is currently in daycare full time. I'm going to take off a month before my due date and then 3 months after LO #2 arrives.
My question is should I pull Mads out of daycare when I'm off?
I really want her to be home with me, but I'm worried about the transition back to daycare if she's off for four months. I was thinking of doing one or two days a week while I'm off, but that still feels silly to me because if I'm home I'll be sad she's not with me. She's been in daycare since she was 3 months old, so it's kind of the norm for her. I'm just worried about messing up her schedule.
TIA!
Re: Daycare during maternity leave?
I'm gonna say it depends.
With DC#2 I took 7 months off, 1 month before baby and 6 months after. I took DD out of daycare because I thought at the end of the leave she'd be in preschool. The month before was glorious. We took trips to several parks, swam every other day, etc. I truely enjoyed our time together. The first month or so after DS was really rough. It was a very hard transition. There were a lot of tantrums and crying that I didn't anticipate. I ended up signing her up for preschool earlier than I thought for that reason as well as I learned in our area preschool goes by school year so easiest to start in Sept. So 2 months after DS was born she was in preschool parttime.
Fast forward to baby #3. I KNOW DS is going to have a hard time transitioning to the new baby. He is very much a mama's boy and I know he'll get jealous. I'm planning on having him go parttime for the month before I'm on leave and I'll spend some one on one time with him as well as have my DD go parttime so I can have some one on one time with her. For the rest of my leave he'll be parttime as well especially for the newborn months because I will need my peace on those days.
So...I'd say, judge how your child is. Mine didn't have a hard time transitioning after 3 months off (to a new place as well). If your provider is open, try to see if you can keep an open schedule and go parttime if need be.
I wouldn't have one ounce of guilt and here is why, you're not simply going to be home sitting around watching TV while she's off at daycare you are going to be working even harder than when you head into an office every day. A lot of things will change for her when the baby comes, and in all ways for the better IMO but there will be things that are hard for her and I think that upsetting her schedule would make those things harder.
You will be a better parent to each of your kids if Mads goes to daycare. You will have the chance to nap when baby naps and do a few chores around the house. If Mads is home there is no catching up on your sleep and up all night with baby feeds and then no sleeping during the day = tired, stressed out, snappy, cranky mama which leads to cranky, stressed out kids which leads to more and more tantrums and acting out. You also will have the opportunity to really devote yourself to #2 and soak them up during that time which will make it easier to hand #2 off to DH and have some one on one time with Mads each evening and on the weekends.
I had wished, more than anything that I had gotten Andrew into some kind of program before Cooper was born. We had a pretty easy time since between my parents being here and then DH taking his PFL I had help for the first 2.5 months but it would have been very nice to have had more time to just bask in the newborn cutness.
Thank you!
A big fat DITTO to all of this!
After the first few weeks I decided to keep Natalie home for a week to see how things went and see if I could handle both okay. Lets just say I didn't make it a week. I could do it, and if I had to I would have, but I was a much nicer/happier/more caring etc mom/wife when N was in daycare a few days a week and I got time to relax. Although I use the term relax loosely since I was home wiht a NB, but at least I could sleep when the baby slept, or vege on the couch while nursing or snuggling A, and not have to keep jumping up to meet all the demands of a toddler.