Having a baby totally changes your life. In my case it went upside down! From an active working woman who spent late hours at work, I became a "house potato" (as in couch potato) stuck in the house with as little infant 24 hours a day.
Every thing is around the baby! What does he eat, how does he sleep (how does his mommy sleep…or not...) is he filling enough diapers? Why is he crying? Is he hungry? Does his tummy ache, does he have gas? Or maybe he just wants your company. If you want to go anywhere, you need to find a solution for the baby (so who can we "screw up" into baby sitting this time? Definitely do not have a baby if you do not have some help potential). If you have any intelligent conversation with an adult at all it is usually about the baby – the new experience and your new role in life as a mother fills you up! You are concerned with it 100% and always. And yet, despite all the happiness and newness, it is boring!!!
All alone in a house with a baby who does little else but eat, cry and sleep (not to mention the diapers…) can drive an active female adult crazy! Maternity Leave can be a very lonely experience.
Before I had my baby boy, I thought the hardest part in the beginning will be the lack of sleep. However, it was not, as during maternity leave I could catch up on my sleep in the middle of the day when Jonathan took a nap. The hardest part is that you are all alone! Jonathan was also born in winter so we could not go out so much. Also I was after a cesarean cut so carrying the stroller downstairs was out of the question for the first month. As a result of these two factors we went out even less and the "stuck at home" experience was even worse than your normal new mother.
My solution was to ask everyone I know to do their best to come and visit me during the day (most people work, so they could not come but I do have some friends and family who managed to fit me into their busy days anyway). This way I could always hand over the baby to someone else (like his grandma, who did her best to come at least once a week to visit – after all she lives two hours away and in Israel that's pretty far) and relax a bit from the routine of caring for him, or just enjoy some conversation with an adult (doing my best not to talk about Jonathan). In his second month I got a new stroller that was easier to handle (my advise, do not try to save anything on a stroller that is comfortable for you, as you will be using it quite a lot in the child's first few years of life! The investment is worth it) and the weather began to get better, so we started going out more and that was great! Suddenly running errands became a fun thing to do – taking Jonathan in the stroller and getting things done while being exposed to people was great for us both, besides the stroller carried all my shopping. (Maternity leave can also be a monetary trauma, as you tend to spend more when you have time to roam. My credit card bills sure got higher when I was on maternity leave.)
In Israel the paid maternity leave period is 14 weeks. Afterwards you have to return to work if you wish to keep getting an income. This is what I have recently done. Now I had to face a new kind of trauma. I had gotten used to having Jonathan around me all the time, and despite the exhausting task of caring for him, I had gotten comfortable and we developed a sort of routine. (We got up at 7:00 and had breakfast, went back to sleep until 8:30 and then got up. Mommy arranged some things around the house and after Jonathan's 10:00 o'clock meal we out to get errands done and get our daily dose of sun. We came back home in time for lunch and then had a nap, mommy slept too. Then we played in the afternoon, got a bath every second day and went to sleep around 20:00. At this time daddy got home and so mom and dad could have a nice and quite evening until 23:00 when Jonathan got up to eat again, and then it was the 3:00 in the morning meal and back to bed till the next morning.) Suddenly, with the prospect of returning to work, Jonathan started attending a daycare center. The first two days he was there just for half a day, so I did not miss him much and got busy on errands when he was away, but then he was away the entire day! And my heart almost broke! (I actually "practiced" parting from him when his dad and I went for a weekend together at the Dead Sea and Jonathan stayed two nights at his Grandma's the weekend before he started going to the day care center – I cried in the car for 10 minutes after we left him behind!)
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, but also forgetful. As long as he was not there, I got busy and did not miss him. But when I put him at the daycare center in the morning and when I came to pick him up in the afternoon I had a lump in my throat and even cried a little! It was hard to part in the mornings, and in the afternoon came the realization that we had been apart all day. Another issue was the fact that we had very little time together now, a very frustrating experience for any new mom.
We make children so that someone else can raise them for us. My son Jonathan spends more time with his care takers in the baby kindergarten than with his parents! And this will continue his entire childhood (daycare center, kindergarten, school and then they grow up and leave home!) But what can we do, we need to earn a living!
We are now in the process of developing a new routine. As my husband and I are not morning people, the mornings are minimal and we spend them just getting ready for work and preparing Jonathan for the daycare center. He gets his breakfast and a diaper changed and off we go! Sometimes his daddy takes him so that he can see more of him and mommy can get to work earlier. In the afternoon mommy and Jonathan have a bit of time- to be exact we have almost 3 hours, depends at what time he finally falls asleep, dead tired after his long day! I pick him up at 17:00 and he usually needs a short nap and a meal. Then we have about 1 hour to play and then its bath time. Jonathan does not really seem to enjoy the bath. He tolerates it quietly and does not play in the water, so "bath time" is a short and functional process for us. Then we watch a TV show that mom enjoys about food or play a CD/DVD for Jonathan and then it's more or less time for supper and bed. Jonathan still gets up at night, so my sleeping is still cut down to 3 hour ratios. I get groggy at work and have taken to drinking coffee on a regular basis, although I don't like the drink at all. Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, they say, and they are correct!
Fridays are shorter at the day care center and I pick him up at 12:00 (In Israel the weekend is Friday and Saturday and we work Sundays). So then we have more time together (and they say weekends are a time of rest...). This also means he takes his midday nap at home. Actually it is now Friday afternoon and Jonathan is napping. I am using the time to write, but now I will go join him and get a bit of sleep… Sweet dreams…
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