Baby boy has finished his first week of daycare, and I don’t really have any jokes to crack.
I have, however, done the following Google searches in the past week:
- Is daycare bad for children?
- How many hours of daycare is bad for children?
- At what age is daycare ok for kids?
- When do toddlers stop crying at daycare drop off?
- Why does my toddler cry when I pick him up from daycare?
- Why won’t my toddler eat at daycare?
- Why won’t my toddler nap at daycare?
- How long before my kid gets sick from daycare?
- Is my child always going to be sick now that they are in daycare?
- Work-from-home jobs for former teachers
- Can I afford to be a stay-at-home mom?
I am lucky that I have a bit of transition time for my 13-month-old to get used to daycare before I actually go back to work – unless tackling the disaster that is my house counts as a job. We were able to start slowly: one hour the first day, two the next, four the next, and capping it at five until I got back to work. I can easily keep him home if he gets sick, and I can pick him up after nap time and spend some quality time.
Regardless, it has been a whirlwind of emotions and my doom-and-gloom Googling and Reddit diving have not helped.
I do not have the answer to most of those questions, either from Googling or the experience of the last two weeks. Baby boy did have a two hour nap today, so that’s something. He is willing to eat – if it’s a refined carb. Pasta? Oh, he’ll shovel that in his mouth. That’s my boy.
As for sickness? After five days, I already have a runny nose, cough and body aches. Baby boy is mildly sniffly, and crawling laps around me with seemingly endless energy.
I write my mom’s group.
“Welcome to daycare,” they say.
