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| Photo Jack Moreh rom freerangestock.com |
When I had my first child, maternity was 4 months, as was mandated by law. I had some medical complications in months 1&2 and maybe early part of 3, but the time month 4 was rolling in, I felt healthy and mentally and physically I felt the little one was in a place where his care could be shared with somebody else. I started taking 1/2 days off for a couple of days a week where I would do woodworking projects. I put processes in place to be able to check on the nanny pretty frequently, e.g. we had a logging app where I knew when the little one ate/pooped, was awake or not etc. So long as I saw the rhythm of happenings, I didn't even have to call to check in. The nanny figured out if she kept up with login, I wouldn't call her so she kept it up to date ... and we kept up that culture for first 3 years. I have donated lots of pretty accurate data to whoever owns that app!
When my little human became 8 months old, we moved countries. I took 15 days of to plan the move. Paid a hefty amount to move our entire life, furniture and even cereal for the baby in bulk, to ensure our lives continued more or less undisrupted for many months to follow. Slowly we eased into the new country and new brands and rhythms. I thought it went well.
Then i had my second child. This new country mandated 3 months off, so I took three months off. When I was getting ready to get the nanny to take over in the last month I felt a bit unprepared to do the handover. I don't think the baby was ready either. I couldn't describe a rhythm I could give instructions to. And it took us a while of me observing things were a bit "messy", using every weekend to try out what worked for this baby. Should sleep interval be 1.5hr or 2 hour approximately? What morning hour do we aim for? Why cycle would land us at what evening routine hour etc.
All of this was made more confusing because everybody in the household had a theory about why the little one seemed upset sometimes. It often revolved around her having a stomach problem. Well, that's a convenient problem, especially if the child is breastfeeding. You outsource the issue to the mother who will now spend day and night worrying about what food to eat or not to eat so the milk will get better.
The curveball in all this is the fact that babies, in the early days, don't know when they are tired and need to go to sleep. So if you don't catch your baby's sleep needs early enough, you will have a tired and cranky baby who will get more and more upset the more and more they get tired, even while you try to make them sleep. It's a nightmare for the child and the caregiver. My second child, it felt like, was upset a lot of the time. Had we screwed up her sleep schedule, or did she have a tummy issue, or was she just "colic", whatever that is?
After a couple of peaceful Sundays I had with the little one where I thought I had worked out a pleasant schedule for her, I put my foot down and told everybody in the household that I didn't want to hear any other excuses, her schedule would be per my recommendation. Tummy ache or not. Zero, deviations are allowed. Fortunately for me, her father, even if he doesn't always agree with me, is a team player. He fell in line.
The first day I noticed our nanny using her "soft judgment" and missing the recommended sleep schedule. I took half a day of work reminding her when to put the child to sleep when to feed her when to put her back to sleep etc. I don't think she appreciated the hovering attention that much. When I offered whether I should take more days off to help her with the schedule she told me not to bother, and that I can expect the schedule to be updated in the app. Bingo! I think all our lives improved significantly after that point. Every few months I updated the time between naps, increasing them by age, more or less in line with recommendations at the Baby Sleep Site, which I had used for my first child as well. Once we fixed the sleep issue, the crying fits subsided significantly.
Still, I felt my husband and I were battered in the months that followed. Our schedule with the kids has always been to take over from the nanny at 530pm once we finished work, and hang out with the kid till bedtime - usually between 7 - 8pm so far for both kids, till the age of 4. When we had one child, one parent could be "off" on alternating nights. They could either work late, work out, or meet friends. We called that parent "uncle/aunt parent" -- they could drop in and play but had uncle/aunt levels of responsibility, i.e. not much. Even if the uncle/aunt parent dropped in on their "free days", the meals, the nappy changes, etc, had to be handled by the parent on duty. This worked out for us both. It used to really give us a mental and physical break without feeling we'd deprived our child of parental care/bonding.
When we had our second child, we kept the schedule but each parent would be, on a rotating basis, responsible for either one of two kids on any given day. In theory, the parent with the older child had less work to do as daily activities involved wrapping up play time, sitting through dinner where the child will at least partially self-feed, brushing teeth, reading books, etc. A toddler still tries his darndest to test one's patience, so it's not a walk in the park but it can at times feel almost as if one has no responsibility. At times!
The parent whose day it was to take care of the baby was exactly doing that 100% of the time: giving care. It's not a mental or physical break day.
The nights with the toddler, who now has a separate bedroom, were mostly uneventful except for days when we get incoherent middle-of-the-night visits. They were ok. I tried to remind myself to always be gracious, as these little people won't come for visits forever.
The nights with the baby were like the first time around. Maybe she lost her pacifier. Maybe she wants a little bit of milk (I stopped breastfeeding at 4 months for both so I didn't have a bigger nighttime care responsibility than the father-- we took 50/50 hits). In one way or another for both babies, we also had a nighttime "on-duty parent" schedule. Whichever parent was on duty would wake up the next day estremely sleep deprived.
As months went on my husband and I looked at each other one day and acknowledged that this time round the process felt a bit more brutal. Hardly surprising, we had fewer "break" days. Most nights and all evenings.
Today I'm got the motivation to write this because I recently realized, while I still wake up at night, I am able to function almost as my old self. After puttin our first son to sleep, I used to be unable to work at night. I lost that when we had our second child. Now I can pull of a few good hours of work after the kids go to sleep till midnight, get some sleep, and not get to work the next day feeling like I have been hit by a bus.
Looking at where we are, I realized it must be something about this age I hadn't considered last time: 8 months was when we moved our family across countries and we slid into a new one without the feeling of too much disruption. Last time, I was lucky the dates aligned. This time I realize 8/9 months is perhaps a good milestone to feel a re-balancubg of life.
If somebody ever asked me, so what did you learn that you didn't read about:
- For a regular pregnancy (i.e. not premie babies) 4 months, even with some levels of post-delivery "complications", is the earliest optimal time to end maternity leave. Much better than 3 months, in my experience, and the difference was huge. At 3 months babies' care may be equal part instinctive and part mechanical. Perhaps at 4 months, it starts becoming 80% mechanical, and 20% instinctive.
- Expect to lose yourself a bit for the first 8-9 months, especially with multiple kids. You will feel that you'll regain yourself significantly in 8 months or so. If you want to make daring changes, try not to schedule them before.
That's it!