How to Feel Better About Returning to Work When Your 4 Month Old Starts Daycare
Last March, I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the home daycare we’d toured three times, my 4-month-old Lila strapped in her car seat behind me. Half a dry tear crusted on my own cheek from the drive over, my blazer had a faint spit-up stain on the lapel I’d dabbed at in the driveway before leaving, and my work laptop dug into my ribs through my canvas tote. I sat there for 12 minutes, counting cracks in the asphalt, because I couldn’t make myself get out. I’d spent the previous three nights scrolling mom groups at 2 a.m., reading all the stories of 4-month-olds who stopped bonding with their moms after starting daycare, of how this would ruin her sense of safety, of how I was choosing my career over my baby.
When I finally forced myself to get out, Ms. Rita, our caregiver who’d been running home daycare for 30 years and had silver hoop earrings that caught the sun, opened the door with a half-eaten peanut butter cookie in one hand and held out the other for Lila’s carrier. Lila fussed for 10 seconds when I passed her over, then fixed her gaze on those hoops and calmed right down. I did the silly little goodbye I’d practiced, kissed her forehead, said I’d be back later, and left. I cried all the way to my office, pulled over twice to blow my nose, and checked the daycare photo app every 90 seconds for the next four hours. When the first notification popped up three hours in, it was a photo of Lila asleep on Ms. Rita’s shoulder, sun through the kitchen window gilding the edge of her hair, pacifier tilted half out of her mouth. She looked more relaxed than she did most naps at home.
That first week was messy. Lila was extra fussy when I got home each night, and I’d hold her against my chest while I paced the living room, convinced she was angry at me for leaving her. Ms. Rita pulled me aside on the third day and said that fussy evenings aren’t sadness, they’re tiredness. A 4-month-old can only process so many new faces, new sounds, new routines in a day. She’s just worn out, not abandoned. I thought that was just her trying to make me feel better, until I mentioned it to my sister who teaches infant development at the local community college. She confirmed it: 4-month-olds don’t have the cognitive ability to feel “abandoned” yet. They don’t understand that you leaving means you’re gone for the whole day. All they know is right now: I’m hungry, I’m tired, someone is holding me, that’s it. And the biggest misconception people have, she said, is that 4 months is too young to start daycare. Actually, the big separation anxiety – the real, screaming-when-you-leave kind – usually hits between 6 and 10 months. Starting at 4 months, when they’re just starting to be curious about new people and new environments, gives them time to adjust slowly before that anxiety kicks in.
Before Lila started, I was so stressed I tried small, low-effort things that ended up working way better than any of the dramatic advice I saw online. First, two weeks before my return date, I started practicing a tiny goodbye routine at home. Whenever I went to the kitchen to get a drink or throw laundry in, I’d stand in the doorway of the living room, say “Mommy’s leaving to get water, be right back, I love you” to Lila where she lay on her play mat, then leave and come back in a minute. It got her used to me disappearing and coming back, so it wasn’t a total shock when I was gone longer. I also cut a 4-inch square from an old cotton t-shirt I’d slept in every night for a week, so it smelled like me, and left it tucked under the sheet of her nap mat at daycare. It’s not fancy, but it gave her a familiar scent when everything else was new. And for me, I turned off push notifications from the daycare app. I set a reminder to check it once at my morning break and once at lunch, that’s it. I couldn’t work if I was staring at my phone waiting for a new photo, and it just fed my anxiety for no reason.
The first two weeks, I asked my boss if I could leave 15 minutes early, just to build in buffer. When I got home, we didn’t do anything big. No play dates, no rushing to catch up on dishes. I’d change her out of her daycare clothes, sit on the couch, and just rock her while she nursed or played with my necklace, no distractions. That 20 minutes of quiet, one-on-one time every day was enough for both of us. I got my reconnect time, and she got to wind down from all the stimulation of the day.
Last week, I dropped her off, and she was so focused on the 10-month-old who was playing with a new rattle that she didn’t even look up when I said goodbye. I stood in the doorway for a minute, a little stupidly, and then walked out. Part of me was a little hurt that she didn’t care I was leaving, but most of me just felt that tight knot in my chest that I’d carried for months loosen up.
I still have bad days. Last month, I got a call mid-morning that she had a low fever, and I drove to pick her up crying the whole way, thinking that if I didn’t work she wouldn’t have gotten exposed to germs, that I was missing all her first little sick days. Two days ago, I was 20 minutes late picking her up because of a last minute client call, and I felt guilty all the way through traffic. When I got there, she was sitting on Ms. Rita’s front step covered in teething biscuit crumbs, laughing at a squirrel that was running across the yard. She didn’t even notice I was late. We stopped for soft serve on the way home, and she grabbed a handful of mine and smeared it all over my already stained blazer.
It’s not the perfect story I thought I’d have when I got pregnant. I still carry guilt sometimes, I still leave work early when I can, I still check the app more than I should on hard weeks. But Lila’s laughing more now, she’s hitting all her milestones right on track, and when I come home she lights up when she sees me, same as she did when I was home with her all day. It’s okay to feel messy about this. It’s okay that it’s not just me and her against the world right now. We’re both okay.
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