How to feel better about returning to work when your 4 month old starts daycare
The coffee sleeve was soaked through by 7:12 a.m. on my daughter Lila’s first day of daycare, and I was already two minutes late for the train that would get me to my office 20 minutes across the city. Lila was wrapped in the polka-dot swaddle my best friend had made her, a faint spit-up stain bleeding through the shoulder of my blazer where she’d burped on me 10 minutes earlier. The caregiver smiled and held out her arms, I handed Lila over, walked out to my car, and cried so hard I had to blow my nose on a fast food napkin I found under the seat. I kept repeating to myself that I wasn’t supposed to be this person—the one who leaves her 4-month-old for 10 hours a day to go sit at a desk.
I’d spent the whole third trimester scrolling through posts that told me I’d ruin her attachment if I went back to work this early, that 4 months was too young for group care, that working moms missed all the best milestones. By the time I got to work that first day, I was convinced I’d already messed up. I checked the daycare photo app 47 times that day. I read every caption twice: “Lila enjoyed a bottle at 9:15!” “Lila napped 2 hours on the play mat!” I stared at the photo of her napping on a caregiver’s shoulder, trying to tell if she looked sad, if she missed me, if she knew I’d be back.
Three days in, I had a dentist appointment right after lunch, so I went to pick her up 45 minutes earlier than usual. I stopped by the infant room window before I knocked, because I didn’t want to disrupt the group. What I saw stopped me: Lila was propped on a boppy on the floor, kicking her little legs so hard her socks kept sliding off, batting at a rainbow fabric rattle hanging above her. Her caregiver was folding washcloths a foot away, humming an off-key version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and every time Lila made a little squeal, she’d look over and grin and say “nice kick, baby!” Lila wasn’t crying. She wasn’t moping. She was just… busy. Being a baby.
That night, I talked to the daycare’s lead teacher, who’s been there 22 years, when I signed the weekly sign-in sheet. I told her I’d been crying in my car every morning that week, that I was worried 4 months was too young, that I was doing the wrong thing. She leaned on the counter and said, “Honey, I’ve never once met a 4-month-old who holds a grudge. They don’t know what a work day is. All they know is, right now, I get fed, I get held, I get someone to smile at me when I coo. You think your baby cares if that’s you for 8 hours or me for 8 hours? She cares that she’s okay in the moment.”
I went home that night and pushed past the alarmist blog posts to look up what actual child development research says about this. Turns out, at 4 months old, babies haven’t developed object permanence fully enough to wonder if you’re gone forever. They don’t experience abandonment the way we do as adults. The attachment they have to you is built on all the time you’ve spent with them since birth, and the consistent time you spend with them when you’re together. It doesn’t erode because someone else takes care of them during the day.
From that conversation, I started making small, low-effort changes that helped me feel way better, without adding anything crazy to my already full plate. First, I stopped checking the daycare app 50 times a day. I turned off push notifications, and I only look at it twice a day: once after my first meeting around 10 a.m., and once right before I leave work at 4. No scrolling in between. That cut my daily guilt by about 70%, because I wasn’t overanalyzing every blurry photo of a fussy face. Second, I started leaving a cotton t-shirt I’d slept in for two nights in Lila’s crib at daycare. It has my smell on it, and the caregiver said she napped longer the first time we tried it. It costs nothing, takes 10 seconds to throw in her bag, and it made me feel like a little piece of me was with her even when I wasn’t. Third, I stuck to a fixed 10-minute goodbye routine, no rushing, no sneaking out. My pediatrician told me sneaking out makes babies think you can disappear without warning, so saying goodbye clearly even if they cry for a minute is better. I hold her, we glance at the birds outside the classroom window, I give her a little top-up bottle if she’s hungry, then I hand her over and say the same exact line every time: “Mommy’s going to work, and I’ll come get you after you play and nap.”
After two weeks, I walked in to pick her up one afternoon, and she was sitting on the lead teacher’s lap gumming a teething biscuit. She saw me standing in the doorway, dropped the biscuit, wiggled all over, and gave me that big open-mouthed smile only babies do, kicking her legs so hard the teacher had to hold her tighter. That’s when I stopped panicking as much. She knew who I was. She was happy to see me. She wasn’t mad at me for leaving.
I still think people put this weird pressure on new parents that you have to be there for every single minute of the first year to be a good parent. But the truth is, most of us can’t do that, financially or otherwise. And even if you can, it doesn’t automatically make you a better parent. I found that after I started working, I was a lot more present during the time I had with Lila than I was when I was home on maternity leave, overthinking every little thing and scrolling through mom blogs all day. Now, after work, we do 15 minutes of just skin-to-skin snuggling on the couch before I make dinner, no phones, no chores. I used to think I needed an hour-long fancy bedtime routine, but 15 minutes of uninterrupted holding is way better, for both of us.
Some days are still hard. Last week, Lila spiked a fever mid-day, and I had a big client presentation I couldn’t leave, so my husband had to pick her up. I sat through that whole presentation thinking about her fussy on the couch at home, and I cried a little in the bathroom after it was over. I still have mornings where I hold her a little too long at drop off, and the caregiver has to gently remind me I’ll miss my train. I don’t think the guilt ever goes away completely, not all of it. But it gets quieter. It stops being the first thing you think about when you wake up. Lila’s 6 months old now, she laughs at the caregiver’s silly songs, she kicks her legs when we pull into the daycare parking lot some days. She still lights up when I walk in the door to pick her up. That’s all I really needed, right? Not a perfect first year, just a baby who knows she’s loved, no matter who’s holding her during the work day.
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