Am I ready for this?

Tomorrow Beanie starts daycare.

If you recall I was supposed to start her in July and got cold feet and pushed it out a month. Then when August rolled my parents and I still felt it was too early. She was just too young and we were mentally not ready to send her, so the week prior to when she was due to go I left a voicemail for the school to tell them she would not be coming.

This time I think she is ready.

She has grown a lot the past month and as I mentioned in my "5 Month" post is now a baby, not a newborn. She is very curious and I feel she is getting a bit bored with the toys and things we have at home. After all how many times can the same old lamp or chair be exciting. And given I work, I don't get to take her out very much during the work day. Sometimes in the evenings we go to Tar.get or something, but its only the weekends when we can do outside activities.

Now while I think she is ready.....I am far from it. I am very anxious at the thought of (a) sending her outside the home away from me (b) having strangers who know nothing about her care for her.

Now don't get me wrong, I really like the daycare I have chosen. I went there yesterday to get some forms and everyone was really nice. They had Beanie's cubby and drawer all set up and are looking forward to meeting her.

The room is big, airy, cheery, with lots of natural light. It brings a smile to my face every time I go there. All the babies there are happy. I have gone unannounced several times and its always calm and no crying/screaming kids. The teachers have been there 13 years and 10 years so they obviously like their jobs and their place of employment. So all in all I don't have concerns on that front.

My main concern is her feeing scared to be with new people. Normally she is very social but is always seeking me out with her eyes.  This time she will be by herself.  You can be rest assured I will be camped outside there for an hour after I drop her off, probably sobbing :-(

I am also very worried about her getting sick.  Everyone I have spoken to says that babies will get sick "a lot" in daycare. Ugh ...that worries me, but I guess at some point she will have to get in contact with germs :-(

My other concern is that Beanie is not a good napper in the best of times. I have a really hard time getting her to nap since she smells milk and invariably wants to nurse to sleep. My Mom is really good at getting her to nap. Not sure how she will fare at daycare.

Plus we are still on a baby led schedule, so while there is a semblance of a schedule which has evolved, it can vary based on how we sleep and when we wake up. I am now trying to incorporate a more tight schedule for waking and eating so we can get some semblance of order and I can figure out her daycare drop/pick up times.

So, the plan is as follows --  in the month of September I am only sending her two days a week - Tuesdays and Thursdays for about 4 hours each (10am -2pm), just to let her (and me) get used to the idea. The rest of the days my Mom will continue to come in and look after her.

Then in Oct we will revisit and maybe increase to 6 hrs a day, or change it to three days a week. Eventually it will become full-time but only 6 hrs a day. That is an edict from Grandma, that Beanie has to be home before it gets dark!

Its been great having my Mom come the past two months and help during the day with Beanie and while she loves it, I don't want to make her my permanent daily childcare giver. Its not fair to her since she has a home to run and recently retired from work so should enjoy some downtime too.

She will of course help the hours when Beanie is not at the daycare. Its funny because she is so attached to Beanie that even on weekends when I tell her "Mom...just enjoy the weekend and take time for yourself" she will invariably come by for a few hours under some pretext to see Beanie saying she misses her so much!

So tomorrow we will be going to drop her off. My Mom wanted to come along and now my Dad wants to as well.

I hope I can maintain my composure while I am there - I told my Mom to expect tears, and she said I should expect some from her too!