9 months and 11 days since I delivered our beautiful baby boy via c-section. Today is his first official day at childcare. Today is the longest time that I have been apart from him. Whilst it’s only a total 5.5 hours, it’s 5.5 hours where I feel like I’ve lost a part of me! As my husband rightly pointed out, I haven’t only been with our son 24/7 since he was born, I’ve been with him 24/7 since he was conceived. That’s when motherhood begins. That’s when the caring, nurturing and protective role kicks in. Even if the pregnancy does not progress to the delivery of a healthy baby (my first two didn’t), I feel that in the instant of becoming pregnant, our focus shifts.
Whilst I was dreading dropping our son off at childcare today (fearing that I would be an emotional mess!), I found last night more triggering. Last night, I packed his bag for childcare and labelled his spare clothes, and all the things that he would need to help him get through the day, things that provide a sense of familiarity for him, such as his drinking cup, his sleeping bag and his comforter. And as I label his belongings with his name, I almost felt like I was sending him away to school camp for the first time!
I know that for some mums, having their child go to childcare brings a sense of freedom and opportunity to put their feet up, if only for a short time! I am experiencing mixed emotions. I know that childcare will provide our son with the opportunity to socialise and experience new surroundings, as well as new care givers. These are positive things and great for his development. On the other hand, I feel guilty. So guilty. After all, we are paying a stranger to care for our baby, so that I can return to work to earn money. Essentially, for me, there has to be an imbalance here in that I earn slightly more than the daily childcare fees. Otherwise, why would you? My inner narrative tells me that I am his mum and that I am the one to care for him, so why pay a stranger to do so? Even more challenging is completing the paperwork for childcare, where I essentially am providing a stranger with “instructions on how to care for our son”. This seems crazy, as my husband and I are extremely skilled in our roles, so why write an instruction manual for someone else? It’s easier (and more desirable) to care for him ourselves. Ah, the guilt. And so then, I try to change my inner narrative to the one that reminds me that it is beneficial for our son to be amongst different people (especially those of his own size!) and socialise. In choosing to return to work and send our son to childcare, we are choosing to provide him with new opportunities.
Not only does this time bring a huge physical change is the separation of a child and their biological caregivers, it also brings about many other changes. Specifically, I refer to those mothers who are breastfeeding and preparing to send their child to childcare. We are so fortunate now to live in a time where there is a huge selection when it comes to breast pumps. But what if you don’t want to express, don’t have time to express or are unable to express? What if your baby won’t take expressed breast milk? What if you don’t wish to transition to formula? Or, maybe you do, but your child doesn’t! After all, breastfeeding is more than just meeting the nutritional needs of the child. When breastfeeding is a positive experience for both mother and baby, it provides the most incredible bonding opportunity, a closeness that cannot compare and cannot be replicated by expressed breast milk, or formula.
I found myself in a situation where my baby drinks water very well from an open cup and so we tried formula from the same. This was refused! And so, we thought that it may be helpful to try expressed breast milk from a cup, changing only the method by which the milk is delivered, rather than creating a change of method and change of milk type. This was also refused! Needless to same, the maternal anxiety kicks in! Of course, I felt the need to replace offering my boob for a feed, with an alternative feed type. When your baby only wants the boob, it feels cruel to almost withhold this. But then, how do you ever get them to learn that there are different ways of feeding? And so, we went a few days whereby the expressed breast milk or formula was offered in place of the boob! Whilst all feeds (other than the boob) were refused, we had no choice but to persevere. It was really tough. It goes against your maternal instinct as you just want to provide for your child. We even resorted to offering formula via a bottle, however our baby has not had a bottle since he was 2 months old, so he was only interested in playing with the teat as if it were a teething toy! And, I can tell you that I have bought every type of feeding cup that you can imagine! After all, I wanted to be able to say that we had tried everything! I even changed from using cow’s milk for porridge/cereal to using the formula in hope that our son would get used to the taste this way. And, as is commonly advised in every google search result for “what to do when your baby refuses formula”, my husband tried offering the feeds whilst I was out of the room. Still, our very determined son refused!
A few weeks later and our son seems to be willing to take some formula from his open cup! Such relief! It’s early days, however I feel so pleased when he takes even just a small amount. I guess this is a great reminder than parenting is just one big experiment! And that perseverance does pay off!
Reflecting on my feelings of sending our son to childcare (“sending” seems such a horrible word for it), I feel the importance of building a secure attachment with our son has been truly highlighted. For the first time, he is being handed over to strangers who will be expected to meet his care needs. I am so grateful that my husband and I have built a sense of trust with our son in the 284 days since he was born. We will never know if we have got it right, however we will always know that we did our best.
And so, how did I spend my first day without our son by my side? Did I get chance to put me feet up? No, no, the flooded bathroom took good care of that!!!! And before I knew it, it was time to go and pick up son up from childcare and as I left home, I literally danced into my husband’s office, I was so excited. I can only liken it to meeting loved ones at the airport after being apart for some time! To see our sons face light up when he saw me arrive at childcare…priceless! And all those nights of broken sleep, responding to his cry’s, offering cuddles, meeting his emotional and psychological needs, putting his every need before my own, every single one of these moments was worth it because I feel that we have developed that precious secure attachment.
Now, see how I feel on day 2 of childcare!