Life Changes: Returning To Work

Some of you may know that I am due to return to work shortly. This means that like most working  parents, we now face the difficult decision of who will look after our little gremlin while we are at work. 

We've explored most avenues and hit many brick walls. There's the busy grandparents who are adamant that they will be having bubba, but at 10 months old he is everywhere, and therefore can be quite a handful. Ask me, I spend my days chasing around after him and taking a breather when he finally goes down for a nap. 

We've spent weeks going round in circles. Yes he's definitely going to nursery, but then again maybe he'll be happier with the grandparents...but it will restrict them from going out and doing their things. My head has been a total mess these past few weeks. I knew we'd be taking out a second mortgage by sending him to nursery, and that's only part-time. So we bit the bullet and started settling him in at nursery two weeks before he would start, and what an emotional roller coaster that has been. For myself and my poor little boy! Five sessions later and there's still tantrums and years, from mother and baby. 

How can we justify paying a fortune for childcare when the little gremlin doesn't even settle. He's the happiest little boy who can entertain himself very easily at home. Always exploring, climbing things, going for all the things he shouldn't be going for, but never screaming and crying the way he does when he goes to nursery. Apparently this will happen for a good few weeks, or even months before he finally adapts to life at nursery. How cruel is that. As a mother I can't sit there and listen to my baby crying, I can't drive to work without worrying about how upset he is, let alone completing a full day's work and then getting back to collect him. 

I know that all mums go through this when the returning to work transition begins, I just don't know how they do it. I'm very weak when it comes to my son, I've even thought about packing in nursery altogether and relying on family members to pull together and look after him for a few days a week. That's fine as a temporary arrangement, but after a few weeks or months temporary arrangements just won't cut it. 

Nursery offers me the stability and guaranteed childcare, that's why I refer to it as a second mortgage. I just wish it didn't have to upset my little bubba so much in the process. 

I hope he can forgive me for abandoning him while he's still so young. 

H x