I am a stay-at-home mom. Today I went to the Doctor’s office for my baby’s two month check up.
Now then, before you think this is going to be a flame* thread disguised as a MPSIMs thread, think again.
Parents who use daycare (or any other care that requires moving a baby from point A to point B on a daily basis), lemme tell you:
I salute you.
This was the first time I had to do this on my own and it was a royal pain.
I was running around like a mad cow trying to remember everything.
Whew.
Then, when the madness of ‘getting ready’ subsided, I had to move everything from the house to the car.
WOW.
I can’t believe you do this regularly!
In case nobody has told you lately, congratualtions on doing a swell job without truly going crazy.
*[sub]and it better not end up one either![/sub]
ThanksBNB! Actually, I absolutely LOVE my daycare because they make it so easy on me…
I take in a jumbo pack of wipes and diapers, a case of food, and a can of formula to start–everything else is provided by them and I only need to restock when stuff runs out. That means I only have to worry about getting the actual baby and boy to them, and they take care of the rest.
God bless 'em, I don’t know what I’d do without them.
And let me take this opportunity to say to the Stay-at-Home-Moms----I don’t know how you do it!! Seriously, I love my boys and I’d stay home with them in a heartbeat was our situation different, but I KNOW it would so hard. When I came back to work after my last maternity leave everyone was commiserating with me on how hard it must be to be a single mom, and keep the house, and work full-time—I always smiled to myself because the truth of it is that I do a ton more work staying at home all day than I ever do when I’m actually at work. Coming in to my job is a break for me most days.
If you think moms who use daycare have impressive organizational skills, you should see a good daycare itself. My son’s former daycare person and her assistants managed to make homemade soup every day and get a decent proportion of it inside about 10 kids ranging from 11 months to 2 years. All at the same time, too. The bunch of them lined up at their little picnic table with their matching bibs (and large dropcloths) was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.
And what belladonna said. Work is a day at the beach compared to caring for a young baby 24/7.
I am so thrilled to see a “mommy” thread that is devoted to patting each other’s backs. The saddest thing about becoming a mom, I think, is how we love to tear each other down about things like breast milk or formula, stay-at-home or day care, pacifier or not, etc., etc. The list goes on and on and it can really bring someone to tears. So pat yourselves on the back for being moms who love their kids and also support others who have made choices different from yours.
I’m a SAHM (of 3 boys) and I go absolutely crazy sometimes and would love to have a job to give me self satisfaction. I have an extremely high work ethic and go beyond the call of duty when I am working but I can’t seem to muster that up when it comes to the dishes, dusting, vacuuming and the eternal laundry. I’m a downright lazy slob most days and I know I would manage my time better if I had a job but I still don’t know how you working moms manage to get all the housework done!!
I guess I’m saying that moms, by definition, are pretty amazing creatures. I’m glad I am one.
BTW, don’t worry about getting all the stuff together all the time. It gets to be 2nd nature eventually. I also have a stash of supplies at places my children stay regularly and have a diaper bag for each car that have supplies and toys that stay with that diaper bag. Thankfully my youngest is on the verge of being potty trained.
Yes finally a thread on a message board that doesn’t pit moms against each other. This drives me crazy, I have done both and both are hard. I stayed home for three years until my son was 3 and my daughter was 1. And I’ve got to tell you as a professional person I felt for a long time that I had lost my identity.
At the end of 3 years I was such a basket case (even though I had perfect kids ) my husband gave me an ultimatum: Get a job or go back to school. So off to graduate school I went.
Luckily I had the perfect day-care situation at the University I went to. All of the teachers had at least a BS and were working on their Masters or PhDs at the U with tuition remission while working in the center. In addition it was an international group of kids. For the first year my son was the only US born kid in the pre-school class. So the kids got to celebrate virtually every holiday from around the world. By the time they went to kindergarten they knew more about geography than I did.
When I had 8:00 am classes 25 minutes from home and it was 20 F below zero I really, really, really wanted to stay home. But the quite of the class-room with only one person talking at a time and no one hanging on my leg was wonderful beyond words.
Well, my mom was a big advocate of child labor. If you’re big enough to climb into the bed on your own, you’re big enough to help make the bed. If you’re tall enough to turn on the tap on your own, you’re big enough to wash dishes. If you can reach the dial on the washer, you can start a load of laundry, etc. There was still a lot of stuff that simply went undone, and a lot of our contribution was done under protest, but it was still better than her trying to do it all alone. Besides, it meant that we knew how to take care of ourselves when we moved out. (The guys I ran into in various laundry rooms who had never done a load of laundry made me profoundly grateful for my mother’s philosophy, for saving me from looking that incredibly stupid in public.)
Parents try to make the best choices for their family. I stayed at home, working part-time on weekends. I have four kids, but I remember the feeling you describe. Now I figure if I forget something, I can improvise…
I’m working at home, a single mom with kids aged 4 to 14 trying desperately to avoid putting them in daycare because this is not what they are accustomed to. Dad leaving was enough of a shock.
It helps, a lot, to have a checklist. Diapers, wipes, receiving blankets, pacifier (if baby uses one), lovey, whatever else you find that you need on a regular basis. You WILL need diapers and wipes and blankets. You want the blankets to put on those changing stations that they have nowadays (back when I was doing this, I had to change my daughter on any flat surface I could find, including the public bathroom floor, YUCK!). Every new mother goes through a period of feeling completely incompetent, and yet somehow the human race survives and multiplies. So give yourself some time and some practice, you’ll get the hang of it. And remember, despite appearances, nobody’s perfect.
It might help to keep a stash of most of that stuff in your car…just in case you forget.
Really, in the end we had a diaper bag we kept packed by the door (and will again in July!) for going out. Since it was already packed we just needed some fresh milk and off we went.
I had two bags packed at all times. One for long outings and one for short outings.
If you have more than one baby, twins or kids 2 years or less apart, the bags are never big enough. I found I needed a separate insulated bag for bottles, juices and snacks. I used to keep essential back up supplies in my rather overlarge purse as well (bribes, soother, wet wipes, spit blanket and a couple of diapers). This practice was worth it, the one time I left home without the baby bags.
Yeah, I’m pretty tired of the mom vs. mom stuff, already.
I’m just not about that. I am busy enough managing my own family to be concerned with what you do with yours, barring abuse, of course. As I see it, if you are doing a good job, then really, 'tis nobody’s business how you are going about it. The job is hard enough as it is without getting support for your choices.
I have found that the following works for me:
keeping a diaper bag, ready to go by the front door.
Buying almost everything in two’s and giving one set to Grandma.
(THANK GOD for having a Grandma around the corner from here!)
I was just gonna say (last night the board went down before I could reply and I was too tired to stay up) that I keep my diaperbag ready to go at all times. All I need to do is add my son’s favourite toy and a couple of bottles and I’m ready to go.
So far I haven’t really encountered the mom vs mom thing (knock on wood) but I did find that the nurses didn’t seem happy at all that I wasn’t breastfeeding. Not like I didn’t try but they kept making me feel so bad, on top of being frustrated that he wouldn’t latch.
I haven’t had to carry a diaper bag in years and was never very good at it.
I’m a work-outside-the-home-mom. I remember when my daughter was little, I’d pump for her (I spent hours of my life pumping) and pack that up to daycare. We’d just buy the biggest thing of diapers we could - and I’d carry extra in the car. When daycare ran out it was easy to grab more from the trunk. Daycare supplied wipes. It was a pain, but not a huge one.
Now, on Mondays we take two sets of boots, mittens, snowpants, hats (for my son and daughter) to daycare, and on Friday lug all that (and the share toy for the day, plus artwork) home. I need a small trolley.
As to being a working mom and getting it all done, I’m really lucky. In addition to having a great daycare, a helpful husband and a terrific mother, I have a housekeeper (a second income that more than pays for daycare has advantages). I don’t know how anyone does it (stay at home or work outside the home) on a tight income and without more than enough people to help out.
Yeah, and since we’re in a give the other guy a Ya Hoo mood, can I say something for Dad’s. We the moms need you, and the kids need you and sometimes maybe you don’t hear it enough.
Mr. Pict was always there for our klds. 20 years later I still remember the semester number one son came down with chicken pox the first day of the semester, then number one daughter came down with the pox exactly two weeks later. This was the semester I finished up my masters and started my Phd. Mr. Pict was totally there. This was also the year that he took the kids, 2 and 4, with him on a business trip to stay with his parents over Thanksgiving so I could write my thesis. He was going to Minnesota with an airline stop in Chicago, where his parents lived. Unfortunately, snow in chicago meant a diversion to somewhere else. Soooo we have two little kids and a dad who are supposed to continue in opposite directions. All worked out well after about 20 hours :eek:
By the way, to all you single mothers, my hat is off to you. Raising kids with an involved concerned dad is hard enough. I can’t even imagine doing it alone. And I have seen many, many good kids raised by single moms. Here’s to you.
I developed a network of mums. We help each other in a pinch with walking kids to and from school, taking kids in for lunch or after school and so forth. The mom vs mom thing is something you get more from strangers or, oddly, relatives (in-laws).
The longest I breastfed any of my four kids was 1 month. I’m not ashamed to say that I really detested breastfeeding. It sucks.
My ex was wonderful with babies. He took great pleasure in feeding, bathing, tickling and even changing them. Sadly, he gradually became withdrawn from family life. I miss the help that he did give, but in reality I was virtually raising the kids alone long before he left. My youngest had just turned three at the time.
My kids will be fine in spite of me. At present, I am not the mom I used to be, although I expect in time it will get easier. I find myself telling the kids over and over that ‘I’m only one person’. Looking after four kids, the inside and outside of a house and trying to launch a new career while going through a messy divorce is no picnic. Thankfully the kids themselves, just by being kids, are a constant reminder of what is really important.
Doing it alone isn’t quite true in my case. My ex takes the kids on alternate weekends, which gives me a bit of a break. I also have the support of other mommy friends and relatives. My oldest is 14 and although her schoolwork and friends come first, she can babysit or cook a meal now and then.
Anyway, thank you so much for you kind words about single parents.
