Returning to Work With a 4 Month Old: Easing Guilt and What Really Happens at Daycare
The rubber of the daycare doorknob is sticky with someone’s spilled apple juice when I turn it on my first day back at work. My 4-month-old, Lila, is strapped to my chest in the strawberry-print carrier I bought when I was 7 months pregnant, and the green paci I’d stuffed in my pocket is digging into my thigh. I’d stayed up until 1:47 a.m. the night before, labeling every single burp cloth and writing three pages of instructions for her provider: She spits up if you move her too fast after a bottle. She only likes the green paci. She naps best if you swaddle her with her arms up, not down. I’d cried through most of the note writing.
Ms. Rita, who’s run this in-home daycare for 22 years, just nods when I hand her the note, tucks it into her binder next to 10 other crumpled notes from other new parents. She holds out her arms, and Lila just blinks at her, then turns her head to stare at the construction paper fish hanging over the playpen. No wail, no cling, nothing. I stand there for a full minute waiting for the meltdown—mine, hers, both—and when it doesn’t come, I just back out of the door, mumble that I’ll see her at 5, and get to my car before I start sobbing. I sat in that parking lot for 22 minutes, staring at the cracked steering wheel of my Honda, checking my phone every 10 seconds for a text saying something was wrong.
The first text came at 10:17 a.m., a blurry photo: Lila stretched out on a striped play mat, one hand tucked under her chin, asleep, and a 5-month-old boy named Milo had his tiny hand resting on her ankle. I cried again, because why wasn’t she missing me? Had I already been replaced?
Over the next couple weeks, I started noticing small, unexpected things I’d never seen talked about in the mom groups I scrolled at 2 a.m. The first week, she was a little fussy when I picked her up, but that faded after three days. One Tuesday, I got there and Ms. Rita told me Lila had started blowing raspberries that morning, copying Milo. I got home, laid her on the couch, and sure enough, she started doing it on my shoulder, little bubbles all over my shirt. I’d been trying to get her to do that for two weeks, no luck. She learned it from a baby.
I brought my guilt up to our pediatrician at Lila’s 4-month check up a couple weeks in. I told her I felt like I was making a terrible mistake, leaving my baby when she needed me most. She leaned back in her chair and said 4 months is actually a really good age for this transition. At 4 months, babies’ brains are growing faster than they will at almost any other point, and they’re just starting to be curious about people outside their immediate family. They love watching new faces and new movements, and full-blown separation anxiety usually doesn’t hit until 8 or 9 months, when they understand better that you’re gone. All that new input from other caregivers and other babies isn’t harmful, she said. It’s just different. That didn’t erase the guilt entirely, but it shifted it a little.
I made a few small changes that made everything easier, for me and for Lila. I stopped writing those three-page notes after the first week. Now I send a 1-sentence text the night before: “Slept 6 hours straight, extra fussy if overtired, don’t forget the green paci.” Ms. Rita told me 90% of new parents overdo the notes, and it just makes everyone stressed. I also built a 5-minute buffer into my pick up routine. I don’t burst in the door and grab her and run. I kneel down on the play mat, say hi to the other babies, let Lila roll over to me on her own, and ask Ms. Rita to tell me one small thing that happened that day—like “she laughed at the dog when he walked by” instead of just a generic “she was good.” That gives me a little connection to her day, and it gives Lila time to transition between daycare and home, no sudden shifts.
The best small change I made was sticking to a 10-minute pre-bed routine that never changes. No matter how tired I am, no matter how much urgent work I have left to finish, after I give her the last bottle, I sit in the same scuffed rocking chair by her window, sing the same terrible lullaby my mom sang to me, and rub her back the same slow way. I used to think I needed to do an hour of special play to make up for being gone all day, but that just left me exhausted and her overstimulated. Ten minutes of consistent, familiar connection is all she needs.
It’s not all good. Two weeks ago, I dropped her off and she started crying, reaching for me, and I had to pull over on the highway halfway to work to wipe my eyes because my vision was blurry. Some nights, she’s so tired from the day that she fusses through bedtime and I don’t get any of those big grins I look forward to all day. I still miss her— I catch myself scrolling through the photos Ms. Rita sends me when I’m sitting in boring work meetings, and I wish I could just hold her.
Tonight, she’s asleep on my chest, her little head pressed against my collarbone, and my work laptop is open next to me with a half-finished report I need to send tomorrow. The laundry is piling up, I forgot to buy milk, and there’s a spit-up stain on my work shirt that I’ll have to scrub out in the morning. I still have guilty days. I still wonder if I’m doing it right. But last week, I picked her up an hour early and stood outside the window watching her for a minute before I went in. Ms. Rita was blowing on her belly, and Lila was laughing so hard her whole body shook, harder than I’ve ever made her laugh. I stood there for a minute, and I realized that love doesn’t get divided up. She can laugh with Ms. Rita and blow raspberries with Milo and still be my girl. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be okay. Right now, that’s enough.
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