When to start nursery

Skia Louise was born on 10th May in the pool of the midwife-led birthing
unit, Cambridge. All went well and, as planned, the only pain relief was
less than an hour of gas-and-air during transition. Thank you for all
your advice place of birth and first names. I've meant to post a
detailed birth story, but haven't found the time yet. Breastfeeding and
getting her to sleep in the evening are still a bit painful, but she's
healthy and an absolute delight and we're soo happy to have become
parents. (Understatement of the year.)

The big decision that's lurking is when to go back to work. I'm a
scientist and will start my own lab after my return. That means I'm
really working for myself and nobody is dependent on my presence.
Therefore, the University is very relaxed, and they are fine with just
four weeks or so notice. So is my sponsor. The only person who wants a
decision NOW is the nursery manager.

After looking into a couple of nurseries, we've decide to go with the
university's: We like the parents, kids, staff and atmosphere, it's
close to both our places of work, and it's subsidised. Because of that,
it's very popular, and there are long waiting lists. (We signed on right
after the positive test result.) So I understand why they want a firm
commitment on starting date and hours, but it's not making it easy for
me. They take babies from 3 months onwards. The demand for baby places
is a bit less than for bigger kids, so if we don't take their offer now,
we might not be able to get one later.

OK, so the current plan is to start phasing her in from September, and
then go to full-time or 4 days a week from October. That's more or less
what I had thought would be best during pregnancy. I'm keen to finally
be my own boss at work and thought I would be bored to bits at home all
day. Now, seeing how much she needs me and how much there is to discover
every day, I am not so sure. I am enjoying this much more than I thought
I would, and I'm worried what the noisy environment and shared attention
in the nursery will do to her while she's so tiny. There is no way I am
going to give up my career and become a housewife, but a few months
longer at home won't hurt - 'only' financially.

When did you working mothers go back, and for how many days/hours? Are
you still happy with your decision or do you have any regrets? I would
be very grateful for any experience, advice, opinions, wisdoms...

TIA,
Karen

Karen wrote:

Skia Louise was born on 10th May in the pool of the midwife-led birthing
unit, Cambridge. All went well and, as planned,

Congratulations on your baby!

When did you working mothers go back, and for how many days/hours? Are
you still happy with your decision or do you have any regrets? I would
be very grateful for any experience, advice, opinions, wisdoms...


We get 8 weeks of maternity leave here in
the U.S. for a c-section (6 weeks for vaginal).
I took an extra 4 weeks with Pillbug and went
back full time.

When I had Rocky, I just took the 8 weeks. In
both cases, we had a nanny who came to the house
to take care of the babies. I went back to
work part-time because Pillbug needed a lot
of therapy (he is autistic).

I wish that I had gone back part-time with
Pillbug, because I got to see so much more
of Rocky because I was part-time and I know
I missed out on so much with Pillbug. I
wish that I had taken 6 months off with each
kid and only worked part-time both times.

-- Anita --

Hi Karen,

I went back to work full-time when DS was 4 1/2 months. We got a
nanny, so it was one on one care in our home, but it was still very
hard and I was away from him 10 hours a day. However, it was what was
best for our family, because I needed to go back to work financially,
and that's when my work needed me back. If I'd waited much longer they
would have had to replace me. Is the University nursery in the same
building/complex as your lab? If so, knowing your baby is close and
you can visit anytime will help a lot. Nothing will make it easier to
leave your baby (its easier to leave a toddler LOL at that point you
want the break) but if it is a high quality nursery and you like the
caregivers it will not hurt your child. If you can pop in any time and
visit, feed her, etc. that will also help. Keep in mind, children that
have siblings also have noise and shared attention, and most children
do end up with siblings at some point. That won't make it any easier
to leave her emotionally, but it may make it easier to do it
intellectually. And don't forget, you can always take her out and do
something different if you feel its really not working.

Hope this helps, and congratulations on your daughter

Hey there,

an Australian perspective...

I work for the State Government and get 14 weeks paid maternity leave and 52
weeks unpaid. I plan to take in total 8.5 mos paid leave - maternity leave,
recreation leave (holiday pay) and long service leave (at half pay).

I took approximately the same with my first child (6 yrs ago) and went back
part time 3 days per week...same plan for #2 due in September. I think it
was/is a good plan.

This time, as my husbad is now disabled and therefore no second income, I
have no real choice but return. As I am a Project Manager (you know, I have
a "career" lol) for a Roads Authority, I would have always returned to
minimum 3 days per week with both kids, but obviously $$ are the MAIN factor
this time around. Would not want to give up work but would love to strech
out time at home (part time) whith the kids even more The 3 days work, two
days full time mum - for us- is a great compromise...keeping your hand in at
both "jobs".

My plan is fairly average for government employees, unfortunately those in
the private sector have much less time available with their babies.

My advice, fwiw, take as long as you can while it is financially
viable...especially if your work will always be there...its precious time
you can never get back and it wont kill you to eat a lot of sausages and
noodles and buy second hand clothes from eBay!

Good Luck, Congratulations and remember, nothing sucks more than a child
delirious with a fever at 3am while knowing you MUST go to work the next
day. Believe me - I did it last night!


love fiona (poohdoo)
xxx
mummy to rachel rose (6ish) and wriggleguts (due 5 sep)
--






--



"Karen" wrote in message
...
Skia Louise was born on 10th May in the pool of the midwife-led birthing
unit, Cambridge. All went well and, as planned, the only pain relief was
less than an hour of gas-and-air during transition. Thank you for all
your advice place of birth and first names. I've meant to post a
detailed birth story, but haven't found the time yet. Breastfeeding and
getting her to sleep in the evening are still a bit painful, but she's
healthy and an absolute delight and we're soo happy to have become
parents. (Understatement of the year.)

The big decision that's lurking is when to go back to work. I'm a
scientist and will start my own lab after my return. That means I'm
really working for myself and nobody is dependent on my presence.
Therefore, the University is very relaxed, and they are fine with just
four weeks or so notice. So is my sponsor. The only person who wants a
decision NOW is the nursery manager.

After looking into a couple of nurseries, we've decide to go with the
university's: We like the parents, kids, staff and atmosphere, it's
close to both our places of work, and it's subsidised. Because of that,
it's very popular, and there are long waiting lists. (We signed on right
after the positive test result.) So I understand why they want a firm
commitment on starting date and hours, but it's not making it easy for
me. They take babies from 3 months onwards. The demand for baby places
is a bit less than for bigger kids, so if we don't take their offer now,
we might not be able to get one later.

OK, so the current plan is to start phasing her in from September, and
then go to full-time or 4 days a week from October. That's more or less
what I had thought would be best during pregnancy. I'm keen to finally
be my own boss at work and thought I would be bored to bits at home all
day. Now, seeing how much she needs me and how much there is to discover
every day, I am not so sure. I am enjoying this much more than I thought
I would, and I'm worried what the noisy environment and shared attention
in the nursery will do to her while she's so tiny. There is no way I am
going to give up my career and become a housewife, but a few months
longer at home won't hurt - 'only' financially.

When did you working mothers go back, and for how many days/hours? Are
you still happy with your decision or do you have any regrets? I would
be very grateful for any experience, advice, opinions, wisdoms...

TIA,
Karen

OK, so the current plan is to start phasing her in from September, and
then go to full-time or 4 days a week from October. That's more or less
what I had thought would be best during pregnancy. I'm keen to finally
be my own boss at work and thought I would be bored to bits at home all
day. Now, seeing how much she needs me and how much there is to discover
every day, I am not so sure. I am enjoying this much more than I thought
I would, and I'm worried what the noisy environment and shared attention
in the nursery will do to her while she's so tiny. There is no way I am
going to give up my career and become a housewife, but a few months
longer at home won't hurt - 'only' financially.

When did you working mothers go back, and for how many days/hours? Are
you still happy with your decision or do you have any regrets? I would
be very grateful for any experience, advice, opinions, wisdoms...

Which university nursery are you using? I'm a bit out of the loop, but a
new one opened in 2004 and I presume the old one is still open, I never
heard of any plans to close it as the spaces are desparately needed. To
be fair to them, we did have our son there when it was very new, so
things could be quite different now, but we all hated it, it seemed very
clinical and they had no schedule for naps and just seemed to wait until
the children fell asleep, all at different times, and our son was the
type that given the option didn't bother, so came home completely
exhausted. It was a shame, as at the time, I was a research assistant,
with a partly completed Ph.D. in the computer lab, so just over the road
from the new nursery, but nursery not working out made me completely
switch plans and I did become a full time mum. Childminders on the other
hand did work very well for us, we just couldn't get the hours we needed
at that time (again, they needed notice, had we asked earlier for a full
time place, they wouldn't have taken on other part time childen as slots
became free). There does seem to be a lot of very good childminders in
Cambridge - just thinking through my friends, I know several who have
pulled a child out of nursery, the only one I can think of that I've
heard consistently good things about is the one at Addenbrookes, many of
those friend have then found childminders that they've loved.

From the point of view of taking time off, I take the longest that was
possible, it avoids or minimises pumping at work! That said, if the
nursery will allow a schedule that gradually works up, from say 2 4 hour
days, through 3 4hr days, 3 6hr days etc up to what you want to be
doing long term, for a month or so of each, I'd probably consider it,
but even so, not starting until around the 4-6mth mark.

When it comes to figuring out your ultimate hours, different people do
different things, personally, if I'm going to be part time, I need at
least one full day which is completely clear, otherwise it just feels
like full time but getting less done! But equally I have friends who
work 10-5 every day and are very content with that! The exact type of
work you do could influence that too, like if you have experiements that
you know take time to set up, you want to have days where there is
enough time to set up and carry out a worthwhile amount, on the other
hand if you're doing experiments that need little but regular input,
then a more days but shorter hours schedule might suit!

Cheers
Anne

I have to say we didn't like the new Uni nursery, but perhaps we went on a
bad day. Anne brings up some important point about nap times - if that had
happened to my ds there is no way he would have stayed there. Life was hard
in his babyhood with routine, without it would have been impossible. Our
main problem with it was the babies slept in the same room as they played
and the staff seemed inexperienced and impatient with the kids. Perhaps
that's why they have problems with sleep?

I had planned to have a whole year off but in all honesty by 9 months I was
quite happy to go back to work and felt happy William was ready for nursery.
So at 10 months we both went full-time. Admittedly full-time was really hard
to start with and I did question it but actually I have seen a lot of
children have a harder time settling in when they go part-time at
unstructered times because they don't know where they are. Because William
was there full-time after the first two weeks he got used to the staff and
kids quicker and they made sure they followed his routine until he could
adapt to theirs. He's been there over a year now and we've only had a couple
of niggles about his egg issue which were resolved quickly. Otherwise the
place is fantastic and the staff are brilliant.

With the time issue I can see their point. Having worked in the same off as
the childcare section for a while I can see how they need to have a
deadline. It's just not possible to hold a place empty because the waiting
list is so huge, depsite them now having two nurseries. Perhaps you could
give them a date and then if you aren't ready postphone it? At least you
both have something to work from. Just a thought?

Good luck and congrtulations again. Glad to hear the birthing pool went well
at the Roise. I may well end up there this time round!

Cheers

Jeni

Jeni Steers wrote:
I have to say we didn't like the new Uni nursery, but perhaps we went on a
bad day. Anne brings up some important point about nap times - if that had
happened to my ds there is no way he would have stayed there. Life was hard
in his babyhood with routine, without it would have been impossible. Our
main problem with it was the babies slept in the same room as they played
and the staff seemed inexperienced and impatient with the kids. Perhaps
that's why they have problems with sleep?

Maybe we are talking about different sites, but in the room DS was in
they did have a separate room for sleep, just no schedule for using it,
I can't remember whether they had any cots, or just mats.

Having now seen how sleeping works in a different nursery, I don't think
having separate rooms is an issue, it's how you do it, if you have
separate rooms there is no need to get every child off to sleep at the
same time, which then means a lot of children will be aware that other
people are awake in the other room and resist sleep. On the other hand
if they have to sleep in the same room, then there has to be a plan for
all children go to sleep at the same time, so at the nursery my daughter
went to, one of the teachers put mats out whilst the children were
having lunch and then the kids lay down and go to sleep (this was from
age 1 up - we never used the baby room, so I don't know how they did it
in there). It sounds as though it would never work, but amazingly it
did, even for the part time children, DD was there 2 days a week and she
wasn't desperately keen on it and she usually got less sleep than she
would at home, but no where near as different from the amount she needed
as was the case when DS when he was at nursery.

Cheers
Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:
Jeni Steers wrote:
I have to say we didn't like the new Uni nursery, but perhaps we went
on a bad day. Anne brings up some important point about nap times - if
that had happened to my ds there is no way he would have stayed there.
Life was hard in his babyhood with routine, without it would have been
impossible. Our main problem with it was the babies slept in the same
room as they played and the staff seemed inexperienced and impatient
with the kids. Perhaps that's why they have problems with sleep?

Maybe we are talking about different sites, but in the room DS was in
they did have a separate room for sleep, just no schedule for using it,
I can't remember whether they had any cots, or just mats.


Thank you for all your feedback! We want to send our daughter to the old
nursery at Edwinstowe Close. Is this where William is going, Jeni, or
some other place altogether?

It sounds as if they've changed things since you had your son there,
Anne. In both University nurseries, there is now just one baby room,
with 9-12 cots along the walls and space for playing in the middle. The
old one also has a number of prams for naps outside in the fresh air.

The lack of a separate room for sleeping is the first thing that struck
me when visiting these nurseries. The manager assured me that, while
finding it difficult in the beginning, the babies always get used to the
noisy environment very quickly. Considering that babies of musicians
manage to sleep through tuba practice and all that, I decided to believe
her. They say they (attempt to) follow the same feeding and sleeping
schedule that the baby is used to, as instructed by the parents.

The old nursery is c. 700 m from my office in Tennis Court Road,
therefore it will be easy to cycle or even walk there and breastfeed.
(But I think we would have to sit on an ordinary chair in the hallway.)
Hopefully feeding will be a bit quicker by then...! Although the place
is smaller and a lot more crowded than the new one and private ones
we've seen, we liked the atmosphere better, and the kids seemed happy.
But of course we have no idea how they'll be at home.

Any other thoughts are still very welcome...

Thanks again,
Karen

On Jun 23, 7:57 am, Karen wrote:

When did you working mothers go back, and for how many days/hours? Are
you still happy with your decision or do you have any regrets? I would
be very grateful for any experience, advice, opinions, wisdoms...

TIA,
Karen

I find it kind of hilarious that you can set up a whole lab etc with
less notice than what a daycare needs... It seems to be the same
everywhere, long long waiting lists for quality childcare.

I went back when my daughter was 11 months. It was a new job. I hadn't
planned on switching but this opportunity came up during my mat leave.
They would have liked me to start a little sooner but I wasn't that
flexible, so agreed to start a month before I had planned to go back
to work, doing half days for two weeks and then full time. It was
fine, and I have no regrets.

Good luck with your decision, it is a hard one to make.

Elle