Daycare and a new baby on the way

[playfelt]

There are quite a few threads on here about juggling pregnancy, newborn, daycare, etc. For sure one of the best options is if your hubby can take at least a month or two of parental leave since you will already be at home. That gives you an extra set of hands to keep an eye on the kids while you feed the baby etc.

Your baby will grow up in the daycare and it won't take you long to get the baby on a schedule that works. Remember a newborn sleeps a lot so you will still have blocks of time to get things done. Most parents are ok with there being more freeplay and less structured activities for a couple months too.

The biggest issue is if you need time before the birth due to needing bedrest, etc. and what your recovery after will be such as if you have a C-section and sometimes those are not things you will know ahead of time but need to have a plan for just in case.

Plan ahead for things like meals in the freezer, arrange with a teen to come after school which is mid afternoon to help get kids up from nap and fed snack and then keep them to help look after your other children while you take a break between daycare and the evening till your hubby gets home. Make sure he is ok with coming home and immediately taking over your kids so you can sit.

I started daycare when my kids were 18 months and 4 months and then two more were born while doing daycare. The days were exhausting but because I had kids of my own there was no chance to sit and sleep anyways so I just had to plod along through the days. It gets better as baby learns to sleep through the night - trick is to put then on a last feed during late evening news so you are in bed by midnight and then they learn to sleep through till 5:30-6 the next morning giving you a block of sleep time overnight and then they go to bed and you have time for a shower and breakfast - and both of those go a long way to making you feel like a real person and then the daycare day starts.