About Me

Kent, United Kingdom
I have the perfect family but still struggle to find the light in the darkness of post-natal depression.

Tuesday 9 September 2008

Quality time, and questioning

Apologies for the lack of updates - it's all busy busy busy here, you know!
So where were we? Well, Friday night was night out time again which was fantastic.
Saturday was....challenging....but we made it through (mostly by going out!).
And yesterday I was really proud of myself after having some great fun just playing with Tasha. I had an hour before I had to go out to an evening meeting and I had loads to do to get things ready, but I decided to ignore it all and we just played. And it was fantastic - we both loved it!
It also sort of made up for a difficult day with more childminder traumas. Although Tasha is fine when she's there, mostly, it is still proving very stressful. I mentioned it to her in the morning, that she would be having fun at the childminder later, and the immediate reaction was tears (her, not me!) and "no no no" which wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear.
I got a bit of a telling off from the childminder for "prolonging the agony" by staying a bit when I drop her off so the plan for next week is to dump her and run. It goes totally against whatever parenting instincts I have to deliberately do something which is making her unhappy, and every time I (or Mark) drop her off it is making her unhappy.
I know all the theory and we've talked it through and we both feel she needs the extra interaction, and to develop more independence to avoid even more traumas when she goes to preschool, but it doesn't make it any easier. Especially not when she is so happy to be dropped off at Granny's or left with Mark when I'm working.
Sigh.
When does this get easier?

1 comment:

Alexandra said...

When I drop Tara off at her new (2 weeks, daily) nursery, I stay with her an average 10 to 15 minutes. I feel this is right, and luckily no-one tells me otherwise. She clings for a few minutes, goes where I go, hlods my hand while she hands over her lunch box, then leads me off to read a book or admire a baby. We play for a few minutes, then I involve her nurse in the play, tell her that "Tina can do it better / too", remind her when I'll pick her up, ask her if it's ok that I leave, and by then she is happy to tell me it is.
While she's new in that setting and I have the time I'll stick with this; I think of it as phasing her into the day just like I phased her into the whole nursery thing in a week of induction sessions.
Nursery is a lovely place to be and play at, and I want her to see that mummy enjoys it too, even though she has to go off later and do other things. It was the same with her old nursery that she was used to (so, when she was Tasha's age), though soemtimes she was happy to match off to play within a minute or two.
So. I disagree with your childminder, big time!