This was in response to a great thread I had going on one of my posts.

Moms, we struggle with taking our kids to daycare. There are those of us who cannot WAIT to be people again and drop our kids off with someone else. There are also those of us who dread it, delay it, and totally botch it day-of…and delivering our babies to daycare is nothing short of the worst trauma we have ever experienced.

If you are the former mom, YOU ARE RIGHT.

If you are the latter mom, YOU ARE ALSO RIGHT.

😉

And here are the ten things you NEED TO KNOW as a mom with a kid in daycare:

1. They will say it gets easier. You won’t believe them.
2. It will get easier. You will feel like a bad mom when it gets easier. DON’T.
3. She is learning so socialize, be okay with being nurtured by new people, AND she will learn to sleep with more noise.
4. She knows your scent and your voice. You are MOM forever, no matter who else gives her your milk and comforts her.
5. She won’t remember this. But you will, and your time will be more precious because of it, a gift you may not have experienced if you were forever, all hours, being her nurturer.
6. You are STILL her nurturer while at work. You are doing what you have to do to make sure she has food, shelter, safety and healthcare. She will never hold that against you.
7. Thought difficult and counter-intuitive, going back to work will provide you with balance. You will be away, thinking other thoughts and doing other things, just long enough to make the endless hours of feeding, soothing, bathing, changing and entertaining seem like the most precious of your existence.
8. Yes, you will realize how pointless your two degrees and years of experience are in comparison to raising a human. BUT…take this time to see yourself be super. Let yourself excel at your job, AND at being a mom. And at the end of the day, say, “Damn…I did it.” (Then pump and have a celebratory glass of wine for yourself.)
9. Expect daycare to fail sometimes. Yeah, you showed up with the two-page printed instruction sheet for your LO, the special pillow to ensure their head won’t go flat, and the special “stimulation” ball made in China that they can’t live without. But if you show up at the end of the day to find every instruction disregarded, your baby swaddled on an 87-degree day, and the ball and special pillow still in their bag, chill out. The two daycare workers have successfully managed to feed, change and pacify your baby for 8 hours…somehow. They may not have done it your way, but they got it done. And THAT’S what you pay $915/mo for. 😉
10. When they say “It takes a village…”, it really does. Let your daycare and your family be your “village” that helps you raise your child. You will always do it best, and they will eventually know that, but take comfort in your best effort…your full-time job…your hardest sacrifice ever. Know always that you are always doing your very, VERY best. It will always be hard. Every aspect of having a child (besides loving them) is hard. But you have given a baby the amazing gift of life, and no nay-sayer can say to you that you are doing your child wrong by doing everything in your power to give them the WORLD…in whatever form that world takes.

You GO, mama.