Quality Time together..

Felt terribly guilty the first dozen or so times i left my daughter - missed her and also felt bad that i was having ME time

After a while my mother said to me.. A happy Mum is a happy child and to try not to stress!

Its hard work but spending time either by myself or just with hubby is now time i treasure greatly and daughter loves being with Nanna!

I know that this doesn't really address your issue but have you thought about having date nights at home?

Probably sounds sad but every Saturday night we sit down and have a really nice meal that one of us has prepared. TV stays off and we talk and try to catch up. We've had to go down this path as don't have any babysitters available. You could get a DVD too if you like.

Might make your partner feel like you are having some real couple time and you'll enjoy it because you are at home.

Don't know what time your DS goes to bed, though, and obviously you'd need him to be in bed early enough for you to have an evening.

I left dd with my mum for 7hours when she was 3 weeks old an (unaviodable siutation) and spend much of the time texting and ringing mum .. telling her about 30times do not heat teh breast milk in the microwave and such things like that. but if i didnt HAVE to leave her with mum at 3 weeks old i don't know how i would off delt with it iykwim?? now ive left her with mum and mil and dp(who absoluetey loves the time they have together) many of times (shes 3 months old) even still i do text and ring a few times but its alot easier now ... im glad to know if any thing happened to me without notice and i needed to leaver her for a day or two that she would cope ..
leaving her over night anytime soon however is another story ........ lol i like her sleepy face in the morning to much to let anyone else see it!

I think there may be something wrong with me, I can honestly say that as much as I love my children,I have no problem leaving them with my husband or my parents or MIL ,even the first time, I didn't worry about anything happening, just that my hours of freedom would pass too quickly .....

lol Kelly me too. Love DS like nothing else, but would happily drop him off at mum n dads for the day lol




Bubie - maybe you could cut a deal with OH...

You drop him off with your mum after a feed, and go out for a coffee close by. then you are back before his nap and can take him home for a nap....

Then next time you go out, take him round for the play and nap... then come back during his nap so that your mum has to put him down, but you are there if it doesnt work, and for your piece of mind.


eventually you can stretch it out to your mum coming round to your house after he goes down to bed at night, then you can go see a later night movie with OH and DS is none the wiser.



HTH!

Im sure when you do eventually go out, you will realize it was really nice to get out for a while. And you will think why didnt i do this sooner hehe

Bubie I could have written your first post!! I am shocking, I hate leaving DS. I left him once around two months old to go to a function, my IL's babysat at our place and had to bath, feed and put him down for the night and though DH only called once to check on him, I thought of him the whole time and couldn't wait to get home.

Other than that I have left him maybe three times total for around 1.5 hours each time with my MIL and I hated every second of it!

I always said 'if it was my Mum that was looking after him then I'd be totally fine' however my whole family lives in Ireland so that wasn't possible.. until Wednesday when my Mum arrives in NZ for a long holiday (a few months at least) and DH has said great, we can go out for dinner and a movie for our wedding anniversary on 15th Dec and now I'm freaking out about leaving him with Mum even though she is even staying in our house!!

I have a fear that he will be unhappy and whoever is looking after him won't want to bother us and he will just be miserable the whole time I'm gone. However I'm sure he would have a great old time without me and would probably like the change and I have to keep telling myself that.

As for overnight stays.. well that can be left for another time far, far away Actually, maybe when I'm in hospital having no.2 might have to be the time.. we'll see how that pans out I guess!

Babies have a very very short attention span. They may cry when you first leave, but 2 minutes later they forget what they were crying about (unless it's due to pain). Distraction is awesome!!!!

I'm the same as Kelly etc. - have no problems leaving the girls. Now they spend each weekend with their dad, and yes I miss them, but boy do I also enjoy the break!!

I think Caro07 has a good suggestion - it's rare that I can get DD to bed with less than a 2-hour struggle, but when I do, I try and fit in some couple time. I've also been making an effort to fit in some hanky panky during her afternoon naps on weekends if we can It gets us couple time whilst knowing DD is safely tucked up asleep in her cot.

I quite happily leave DD with DH - great for me time, not much use for couple time! It came about because DD keeps me up all night every night, so often by the time she's ready to get up, I'm still totally shattered and will boot DH out of bed to get her up. I can hear them playing in the lounge and it's been really reassuring to hear that they are both really happy together. So now I'm happy to go out and leave them together. Could you try getting your mum round to play (or going to hers) and hanging out in another room where you can listen but he can't see you?

We don't have any family nearby, and I have a very high-needs baby, so the only other place I leave her is daycare. I was horrified at the prospect of that too, but these days I'm quite happy about it. I pop in to breastfeed during the day, and as a quiet observer I've learnt quite a few things. One is that babies behave quite differently towards the carers when their mum is there to when they are not. They always choose mum over anyone else, but if mum isn't there, they'll happily hang out with their carer. Also that any tears when mum leaves almost always stop the instant mum is out of sight. Also, I've seen a couple of occasions where a kid has got really upset over something (one popped a balloon and got a big fright, for example), and after a few minutes of trying different things to settle her down (including lots of cuddles and distractions), they rang her mum to come and give her a hug. So it was really good to see that they'd actually do that.

I'm sure given it's your mum, that she'd ring you if need be.

Oh, another thing daycare do that has made it heaps easier for me is to take several photos of her each day and stick them in a notebook for me - so I can see her having lots of fun doing different things. Because they are often looking sad when you leave, it's easy to imagine that they stay that way all day, when in reality they don't.

Hope some of that helps anyway