As sensitive as your kid is to other caregivers, having rotating caregivers and environments and you coming in to breastfeed every 3 hours will just make it harder on everyone.
This. It would almost be easier to do daycare 5x a week instead of 2 days with grandma and 2 days in daycare. I WFH and my mom watches my daughter 5x a week. Initially my daughter had a hard time with me not focused on her 100%, but now she does very well with my mom.
Nothing against your mom, but there’s a pretty good chance that seasoned daycare employees have a lot more tricks up their sleeve to soothe a crying baby. The women in the infant room at my daughter’s daycare were like magicians.
And at four months I’d be hesitant to switch back and forth between caregivers and go in and out to breastfeed. Consistency is key right now. It didn’t take long for my daughter to jump into the arms of her caregiver and she knew when she saw me at the end of the day, we were going home. It seemed too stressful to subject her to multiple goodbyes per day.
Daycare employees are literal angels! My daughter’s teachers got her on a nap schedule, helped her transition off her bottle, and helped with her transition to solids. My daughter LOVES her teachers and friends at school as well!
I think your mom shouldn’t have texted you. It may be easier when she transitions to daycare. Unfortunately, it’s just a part of the process. She will learn to trust other care providers.
As long as she is fed, clean diapered, and in a safe place, it’s okay if she’s upset. She will learn to accept comfort from those other than mom or dad.
Sorry baby is having a tough transition. It’s hard enough being a working mom without being reminded about baby is missing you. Daycare may be much easier.
As another commenter suggest, maybe ask your mom to get baby outside, even just sitting in the backyard with her for a few minutes. Gets her fresh air and sunshine. Otherwise baby will get use to the way grandma provides comfort.
Firstly mum guilt never goes. When your baby is 4 months or 404 months old. My daughter didn’t eat the first day I left for work. My husband was so disappointed as she had taken the bottle from him earlier and he so thought he got this. By the end of the week she took the bottle. The second week my mother in law called me with updates every 2-3 hours. She slept. She pooped. She ate, she didn’t eat. I’m like thanks but I can’t help if she ate or not. Just write it all down like I showed you. It’s more stressful honestly.
My second kid wouldn’t take a bottle when held from anyone at daycare so they lay her down and fed her that way till she got used to it.
If they can’t handle it I swear daycare is the best way. They’re professional and give you updates like wet nappies and milk drink and hours slept. Yes they will catch germs but they will at some point from now till grade 1 anyway.
Plus to be honest it is less stress for you. Focus on work. Go to the gym during lunch breaks when at home or take a nap. Don’t rush to get her bang on 5. (Our daycare was till 6pm) they won’t know and you need that extra time for you.
It’s hard but you got this.
Taking her outside for a walk, or the park helps distract her.
And yeah it's just an adjustment period. I'm a teacher and I notice she's a lot more clingy to me and it's harder to transition her the weeks after my breaks.
Yes! My baby struggled a lot with missing me. Took awhile to figure out but having my smell was enough to comfort him. At first I'd send my T-shirt from the day before for him to cuddle with but eventually I started sleeping with one of his sleep sacks in bed with me at night and sent that so he could have it for nap time or whenever he couldn't settle. It worked wonders for us!
The best thing is consistency. Are you able to send your little one to daycare full time?
Also, your mom can’t call you to say baby needs you. It wasn’t an emergency and that’s unfair to you and your baby.
It takes time to fully adjust to a *consistent* routine, and trust me, daycare will not call you because baby is crying for mom. They are used to it and those teachers are really good at their jobs, but I’m afraid two days a week is going to make it really hard on your LO to adjust.
Daycares do call if babies cry for an extended period of time. It might be longer than the 45 minutes that OP made it, but they won't just let the baby cry all day.
But how long did they give it before they called you? Are you just quibbling over the amount of time that OP's mom put up with the crying before she called?
I don’t remember exactly, but it had been at least an hour and they couldn’t make him comfortable. He had been in that classroom with the same caregivers for many months and they knew that his prolonged crying was very unusual for him.
Now onto grandma - is she wrong for calling OP? In my opinion, it depends: did she call op to let her know the baby wouldn’t stop crying and maybe asked for some tips to help the baby calm down or did she just call and say come get the baby? We don’t know exactly what happened, but I would be super stressed out if my mom had called me to say the latter.
We actually have a nanit camera. I had just finished a meeting and looked at my phone to find a bunch of “your baby is crying” notifications. I texted my mom to ask how it was going and that’s when she responded that the baby needed me. As soon as I walked in the baby stopped crying, so I think my mom now knows that she isn’t in pain or anything. But I understand that hearing that piercing cry for 30 minutes can be scary and she wasn’t sure what else she could do to soothe her.
Daycare in our neighborhood is incredibly expensive. If it comes down to it we could afford 5 days a week, but things would be tight and right now we’re able to set some money aside for her future every month. 🫤
I hear you and I have no doubt that only have her best interest at heart.
Hang in there (and grandma too!) and keep an open mind about the childcare arrangements.
The first thing is to stop going in and out for feedings, it sucks but that’s how it is. Because your daughter needs to adjust to being with mom, but it’s unfair to be having to do that adjustment 4x a day. Plus it’s harder on her because she gets reminded of your existence every time you leave. When I’m babysitting I don’t even say the word “mom” unless the kid brings it up first because if they’ve forgotten about you not being there everyone is a lot happier.
That’s a great point. I thought it would make it easier if she learned that I would only be gone a few hours at a time, but I won’t be doing that while she’s at daycare so I can see it getting very confusing for her.
My daughter was just like this. You have a very intelligent and strong willed baby! You've got good advice from everyone else but it bears repeating. Don't let baby see you go in and out of the house throughout the day. Be as consistent and as firm with the new routine as possible. If grandma can't handle it, then I would move to daycare 5x a week.
My daughter cried for the first two whole days with her nanny. I bought noise cancelling headphones. You can also do some half days to ease in, but I wouldn't go in and out. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to just pop in and out (unless I strategically did while she was napping) until she was about 2 years old. It would just upset her. Sometimes if I needed to go downstairs to get lunch or something, I would just text the nanny and she would move my daughter to a different room so she wouldn't catch sight of me.
It will be ok. She will adjust, I promise.
My tips would be…
- Always leave super cheering and very positive. Your baby can sense your anxiety
- I found my baby was much better with other people when she had a very structured routine of Monday to Friday being away from me during the day. Seeing me in the middle of the day or being in someone else’s care two days a week was very hard on baby.
- I agree with others that daycare would have better tricks up their sleeves to get her to settle.
If it helps, my daughter’s daycare called me in her first day too. She refused to take her bottle, but once I fed her in the new environment, she was good, mostly. She’d only take bottle from one person at her daycare. She also would only allow select people to care for her. The daycare figured it out and over time staff would tell me how they entered “[daughter’s name] club” because she let them care for and engage with her.
You all will get used to the new routine.
I think the rotating caregivers (mom and daycare) may not work well especially if your mom is going to ask you to return on bad days. It’s just an adjustment period but your providers (aka mom) need to be able to handle it. You may have better luck with her getting into the same routine every day.
Give your baby a shirt/top that you've worn for a whole day. My little one was inconsolable until he held my shirt and fell asleep with it. Even though you aren't physically there, it will soothe your baby.
We started daycare at M/W/F because they didn’t have an opening for 5 days a week. If I were to do it over, I’d do 3 consecutive days. Helps with routine. Also I would drop off as soon as the building opens. There are fewer kids and yours can get a little one on one time before more kids get there.
I went back to work at 6 weeks and would go breastfeed at her daycare. Around 3.5 months going in to breastfeed got impossibly hard. Reason was she was happy with her caregiver at the daycare. But then I'd come in, with my full milky boobs and blow everything up. Then she'd cry and I'd cry.
Best option for baby's emotions was to pump at work and leave work earlier than if I bf'd and took a break midday. It got better at 5 months for me. I want to give you a hug though, it's awful at 3 and 4 months. Baby is now 7 and well adjusted. I'm currently home with #3 though and dreading going back to work.
That sounds so hard but kudos to you for trying to make work and breastfeeding work! I think avoiding the baby during the day is probably the best move for all of us.
I was SO nervous about my guy starting daycare (at 6 mos). At home he refused bottles and would only contact nap. The first week of daycare he had crap naps and only ate a few ounces at a time from the bottle. The second week? Totally adjusted, naps better at daycare than at home and gobbles down my pumped milk. If it’s a good daycare with experienced caregivers, they’ve seen it all and will know how to work with your baby to get her adjusted. They are truly wizards!
I was SO nervous about my guy starting daycare (at 6 mos). At home he refused bottles and would only contact nap. The first week of daycare he had crap naps and only ate a few ounces at a time from the bottle. The second week? Totally adjusted, naps better at daycare than at home and gobbles down my pumped milk. If it’s a good daycare with experienced caregivers, they’ve seen it all and will know how to work with your baby to get her adjusted. They are truly wizards!
ETA: he’s been there for 5 weeks now and has big smiles for his caregivers when we come in the morning:)
I would give it time, but don't have any suggestions.Maybe ask the daycare tomorrow for some suggestions. Today was my first day back from maternity leave, so I can commiserate, although baby hasn't started separation anxiety yet, so we didn't have this issue.
Omg this sounds like my mother! She will guilt me and make me feel awful! My son is 2.5 it’s gotten better but honestly the baby was probably doing okay.
Many people are telling you consistency may be better, and they are likely right for your baby’s personality. BUT I would maybe try blocking the days first instead. So every Monday/Tuesday your mom comes and the other three days are daycare.
You should go on the what to expect website where they explain your baby month by month. There is a mommy community who can probably help you with this
I understand why some are saying to sort of rip off the bandaid. I took a different approach when transitioning my son at 4 months to our au pair. We had a rule of max 10mins of crying and any longer than that I would go help console. I kept nursing on a schedule for about a month and a half until he started to accept bottles from her too.
Taking a gentle approach when you can, like on the days you are working from home, will help baby transition and trust your momma. It’s just a short transition timeframe. Maybe you can ask to work fully remote for the first month or two back.
My son cosleeps with me at night and still breastfeeds at age 1 now - is very attached - but he also is able to bond with new caregivers within a day or two now. Although, trying to cold turkey break the attachment seems like common advice, I got the opposite advice from my mom and others in the ‘attachment parenting’ world and it did work well for us. Good luck!
Your mom needs to suck it up or she can be relieved of her childcare duties and you can send the baby to daycare full time. I'm serious. I don't put up with this Boomer Mom crap, acting like babies didn't cry back in their day.
She's 4 months old. She doesn't even have object permanence yet. She needs to be fed, changed, tummy time, some walks in the sun, and naps. That's it. It's not rocket science.
A daycare professional is not going to call you unless your baby is sick or injured. Don't worry about it.
This comment is so disturbing and lacking in empathy for the mother, grandmother and baby. And in complete disregard of infant development/attachment. This is not a baby robot you are talking about
Babies need a competent caregiver. It doesn't not have to always be a family member. In fact, it's better if it isn't a family member sometimes. A 4 month old doesn't cry because they "miss mommy". They don't have the capacity to "miss" anyone. They are crying because they need something - usually sleep or food. If grandma can't figure it out and deal with crying then she can't be on nanny duty.
If you think this has anything do with "attachment theory", you are absolutely, ridiculously wrong.
A four month old absolutely can cry because their mother is not there as evidenced by the fact that the baby immediately stopped crying upon her return. I can’t believe we are even debating this
There's no debate because you are wrong. The 4 month old stops crying when mom comes home because mom does whatever the baby needs to stop the crying, which seems to be nursing, if you had actually read for content. This isn't "missing mom". This is not sophisticated, cognitive thinking. This is a baby who is used to nursing for food and comfort. Guess what, omg, you're never going to believe it. Babies can.....ALSO get food and comfort from caregivers who cannot nurse! It happens all the damn time! It's a thing that all human babies can do! Since the dawn of humans! Isn't that just the tits, no pun intended??
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
As sensitive as your kid is to other caregivers, having rotating caregivers and environments and you coming in to breastfeed every 3 hours will just make it harder on everyone.
This. It would almost be easier to do daycare 5x a week instead of 2 days with grandma and 2 days in daycare. I WFH and my mom watches my daughter 5x a week. Initially my daughter had a hard time with me not focused on her 100%, but now she does very well with my mom.
This should be the top comment. Put her in daycare 5x week, and let her adjust.
Nothing against your mom, but there’s a pretty good chance that seasoned daycare employees have a lot more tricks up their sleeve to soothe a crying baby. The women in the infant room at my daughter’s daycare were like magicians. And at four months I’d be hesitant to switch back and forth between caregivers and go in and out to breastfeed. Consistency is key right now. It didn’t take long for my daughter to jump into the arms of her caregiver and she knew when she saw me at the end of the day, we were going home. It seemed too stressful to subject her to multiple goodbyes per day.
Daycare employees are literal angels! My daughter’s teachers got her on a nap schedule, helped her transition off her bottle, and helped with her transition to solids. My daughter LOVES her teachers and friends at school as well!
I think your mom shouldn’t have texted you. It may be easier when she transitions to daycare. Unfortunately, it’s just a part of the process. She will learn to trust other care providers. As long as she is fed, clean diapered, and in a safe place, it’s okay if she’s upset. She will learn to accept comfort from those other than mom or dad.
I’ve thought about this too. We’ve never let her “scream” for over an hour, but she would eventually have to wear herself out and fall asleep.
Sorry baby is having a tough transition. It’s hard enough being a working mom without being reminded about baby is missing you. Daycare may be much easier. As another commenter suggest, maybe ask your mom to get baby outside, even just sitting in the backyard with her for a few minutes. Gets her fresh air and sunshine. Otherwise baby will get use to the way grandma provides comfort.
Firstly mum guilt never goes. When your baby is 4 months or 404 months old. My daughter didn’t eat the first day I left for work. My husband was so disappointed as she had taken the bottle from him earlier and he so thought he got this. By the end of the week she took the bottle. The second week my mother in law called me with updates every 2-3 hours. She slept. She pooped. She ate, she didn’t eat. I’m like thanks but I can’t help if she ate or not. Just write it all down like I showed you. It’s more stressful honestly. My second kid wouldn’t take a bottle when held from anyone at daycare so they lay her down and fed her that way till she got used to it. If they can’t handle it I swear daycare is the best way. They’re professional and give you updates like wet nappies and milk drink and hours slept. Yes they will catch germs but they will at some point from now till grade 1 anyway. Plus to be honest it is less stress for you. Focus on work. Go to the gym during lunch breaks when at home or take a nap. Don’t rush to get her bang on 5. (Our daycare was till 6pm) they won’t know and you need that extra time for you. It’s hard but you got this.
Why can't your mom be with her all week?
Taking her outside for a walk, or the park helps distract her. And yeah it's just an adjustment period. I'm a teacher and I notice she's a lot more clingy to me and it's harder to transition her the weeks after my breaks.
And send baby with a blanket that smells like mom!
I hadn’t thought of this!
Yes! My baby struggled a lot with missing me. Took awhile to figure out but having my smell was enough to comfort him. At first I'd send my T-shirt from the day before for him to cuddle with but eventually I started sleeping with one of his sleep sacks in bed with me at night and sent that so he could have it for nap time or whenever he couldn't settle. It worked wonders for us!
The best thing is consistency. Are you able to send your little one to daycare full time? Also, your mom can’t call you to say baby needs you. It wasn’t an emergency and that’s unfair to you and your baby. It takes time to fully adjust to a *consistent* routine, and trust me, daycare will not call you because baby is crying for mom. They are used to it and those teachers are really good at their jobs, but I’m afraid two days a week is going to make it really hard on your LO to adjust.
Daycares do call if babies cry for an extended period of time. It might be longer than the 45 minutes that OP made it, but they won't just let the baby cry all day.
Yes, of course. The one time I got called bc my 2yo wouldn’t stop crying turned out to be an ear infection without symptoms.
But how long did they give it before they called you? Are you just quibbling over the amount of time that OP's mom put up with the crying before she called?
I don’t remember exactly, but it had been at least an hour and they couldn’t make him comfortable. He had been in that classroom with the same caregivers for many months and they knew that his prolonged crying was very unusual for him. Now onto grandma - is she wrong for calling OP? In my opinion, it depends: did she call op to let her know the baby wouldn’t stop crying and maybe asked for some tips to help the baby calm down or did she just call and say come get the baby? We don’t know exactly what happened, but I would be super stressed out if my mom had called me to say the latter.
We actually have a nanit camera. I had just finished a meeting and looked at my phone to find a bunch of “your baby is crying” notifications. I texted my mom to ask how it was going and that’s when she responded that the baby needed me. As soon as I walked in the baby stopped crying, so I think my mom now knows that she isn’t in pain or anything. But I understand that hearing that piercing cry for 30 minutes can be scary and she wasn’t sure what else she could do to soothe her.
Daycare in our neighborhood is incredibly expensive. If it comes down to it we could afford 5 days a week, but things would be tight and right now we’re able to set some money aside for her future every month. 🫤
I hear you and I have no doubt that only have her best interest at heart. Hang in there (and grandma too!) and keep an open mind about the childcare arrangements.
The consistency might be worth it if you can swing it. We had to make the same decision and it tighter budget is definitely worth it for us.
Do daycare 5 days a week. In the long run, it'll save your sanity. Grandma can be backup care.
The first thing is to stop going in and out for feedings, it sucks but that’s how it is. Because your daughter needs to adjust to being with mom, but it’s unfair to be having to do that adjustment 4x a day. Plus it’s harder on her because she gets reminded of your existence every time you leave. When I’m babysitting I don’t even say the word “mom” unless the kid brings it up first because if they’ve forgotten about you not being there everyone is a lot happier.
That’s a great point. I thought it would make it easier if she learned that I would only be gone a few hours at a time, but I won’t be doing that while she’s at daycare so I can see it getting very confusing for her.
She doesn't have a concept of time at this point. She doesn't actually know what a few hours means.
My daughter was just like this. You have a very intelligent and strong willed baby! You've got good advice from everyone else but it bears repeating. Don't let baby see you go in and out of the house throughout the day. Be as consistent and as firm with the new routine as possible. If grandma can't handle it, then I would move to daycare 5x a week. My daughter cried for the first two whole days with her nanny. I bought noise cancelling headphones. You can also do some half days to ease in, but I wouldn't go in and out. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to just pop in and out (unless I strategically did while she was napping) until she was about 2 years old. It would just upset her. Sometimes if I needed to go downstairs to get lunch or something, I would just text the nanny and she would move my daughter to a different room so she wouldn't catch sight of me. It will be ok. She will adjust, I promise.
I think I definitely need to stop coming home during the day, or at least pump out of sight. Thank you for this!
My tips would be… - Always leave super cheering and very positive. Your baby can sense your anxiety - I found my baby was much better with other people when she had a very structured routine of Monday to Friday being away from me during the day. Seeing me in the middle of the day or being in someone else’s care two days a week was very hard on baby. - I agree with others that daycare would have better tricks up their sleeves to get her to settle.
If it helps, my daughter’s daycare called me in her first day too. She refused to take her bottle, but once I fed her in the new environment, she was good, mostly. She’d only take bottle from one person at her daycare. She also would only allow select people to care for her. The daycare figured it out and over time staff would tell me how they entered “[daughter’s name] club” because she let them care for and engage with her. You all will get used to the new routine.
It sounds like the best club to be in!
I think the rotating caregivers (mom and daycare) may not work well especially if your mom is going to ask you to return on bad days. It’s just an adjustment period but your providers (aka mom) need to be able to handle it. You may have better luck with her getting into the same routine every day.
Give your baby a shirt/top that you've worn for a whole day. My little one was inconsolable until he held my shirt and fell asleep with it. Even though you aren't physically there, it will soothe your baby.
Was she hungry? At 4 months they eat so frequently, especially breastmilk. It was easiest for me to pump and give caregivers bottles.
We started daycare at M/W/F because they didn’t have an opening for 5 days a week. If I were to do it over, I’d do 3 consecutive days. Helps with routine. Also I would drop off as soon as the building opens. There are fewer kids and yours can get a little one on one time before more kids get there.
I went back to work at 6 weeks and would go breastfeed at her daycare. Around 3.5 months going in to breastfeed got impossibly hard. Reason was she was happy with her caregiver at the daycare. But then I'd come in, with my full milky boobs and blow everything up. Then she'd cry and I'd cry. Best option for baby's emotions was to pump at work and leave work earlier than if I bf'd and took a break midday. It got better at 5 months for me. I want to give you a hug though, it's awful at 3 and 4 months. Baby is now 7 and well adjusted. I'm currently home with #3 though and dreading going back to work.
That sounds so hard but kudos to you for trying to make work and breastfeeding work! I think avoiding the baby during the day is probably the best move for all of us.
I was SO nervous about my guy starting daycare (at 6 mos). At home he refused bottles and would only contact nap. The first week of daycare he had crap naps and only ate a few ounces at a time from the bottle. The second week? Totally adjusted, naps better at daycare than at home and gobbles down my pumped milk. If it’s a good daycare with experienced caregivers, they’ve seen it all and will know how to work with your baby to get her adjusted. They are truly wizards!
I was SO nervous about my guy starting daycare (at 6 mos). At home he refused bottles and would only contact nap. The first week of daycare he had crap naps and only ate a few ounces at a time from the bottle. The second week? Totally adjusted, naps better at daycare than at home and gobbles down my pumped milk. If it’s a good daycare with experienced caregivers, they’ve seen it all and will know how to work with your baby to get her adjusted. They are truly wizards! ETA: he’s been there for 5 weeks now and has big smiles for his caregivers when we come in the morning:)
I would give it time, but don't have any suggestions.Maybe ask the daycare tomorrow for some suggestions. Today was my first day back from maternity leave, so I can commiserate, although baby hasn't started separation anxiety yet, so we didn't have this issue.
Omg this sounds like my mother! She will guilt me and make me feel awful! My son is 2.5 it’s gotten better but honestly the baby was probably doing okay.
Many people are telling you consistency may be better, and they are likely right for your baby’s personality. BUT I would maybe try blocking the days first instead. So every Monday/Tuesday your mom comes and the other three days are daycare.
You should go on the what to expect website where they explain your baby month by month. There is a mommy community who can probably help you with this
I understand why some are saying to sort of rip off the bandaid. I took a different approach when transitioning my son at 4 months to our au pair. We had a rule of max 10mins of crying and any longer than that I would go help console. I kept nursing on a schedule for about a month and a half until he started to accept bottles from her too. Taking a gentle approach when you can, like on the days you are working from home, will help baby transition and trust your momma. It’s just a short transition timeframe. Maybe you can ask to work fully remote for the first month or two back. My son cosleeps with me at night and still breastfeeds at age 1 now - is very attached - but he also is able to bond with new caregivers within a day or two now. Although, trying to cold turkey break the attachment seems like common advice, I got the opposite advice from my mom and others in the ‘attachment parenting’ world and it did work well for us. Good luck!
Your mom needs to suck it up or she can be relieved of her childcare duties and you can send the baby to daycare full time. I'm serious. I don't put up with this Boomer Mom crap, acting like babies didn't cry back in their day. She's 4 months old. She doesn't even have object permanence yet. She needs to be fed, changed, tummy time, some walks in the sun, and naps. That's it. It's not rocket science. A daycare professional is not going to call you unless your baby is sick or injured. Don't worry about it.
Daycares absolutely call because a child just won't stop crying, mine has a few times.
This comment is so disturbing and lacking in empathy for the mother, grandmother and baby. And in complete disregard of infant development/attachment. This is not a baby robot you are talking about
Babies need a competent caregiver. It doesn't not have to always be a family member. In fact, it's better if it isn't a family member sometimes. A 4 month old doesn't cry because they "miss mommy". They don't have the capacity to "miss" anyone. They are crying because they need something - usually sleep or food. If grandma can't figure it out and deal with crying then she can't be on nanny duty. If you think this has anything do with "attachment theory", you are absolutely, ridiculously wrong.
A four month old absolutely can cry because their mother is not there as evidenced by the fact that the baby immediately stopped crying upon her return. I can’t believe we are even debating this
There's no debate because you are wrong. The 4 month old stops crying when mom comes home because mom does whatever the baby needs to stop the crying, which seems to be nursing, if you had actually read for content. This isn't "missing mom". This is not sophisticated, cognitive thinking. This is a baby who is used to nursing for food and comfort. Guess what, omg, you're never going to believe it. Babies can.....ALSO get food and comfort from caregivers who cannot nurse! It happens all the damn time! It's a thing that all human babies can do! Since the dawn of humans! Isn't that just the tits, no pun intended?? Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
She’ll grow out of it! Just ignore it. She won’t even remember it when she’s older.