Firsts and Lasts

My wife’s last day of maternity leave coincided with our son’s first day of childcare. Last Friday was going to be a big day for us all.

One great thing about H is he is a pretty good night sleeper. Maybe once do we hear him stir in the night and we go in and settle him (more often roll him away from the corner where he is stuck) and he’s back to sleep. However, on the night before his first day he was screaming at 3am and wouldn’t go back to sleep. After both parents tried to settle him, change his nappy (nothing) it was eventually decided it must be his ever-emerging teeth and to give him a shot of Panadol Kids. This sent him back to sleep just after 4.

What this meant was the boy who is usually awake between 6 and 6.30 slept all the way to 7:30am. Naturally, as his super organised parents we hadn’t labeled any of the items he was taking to childcare. Nor had we packed his bag. Nor had we even found the picture we needed to give them to go up on the family tree. So our dream of dropping H off just after 8am for his first day was already looking very shabby. The mad rush of Mum feeding H and Slightly Mad Dad busily trying to affix the iron-on labels and print off photos began.

Just after 9am we made it to childcare and dropped H off. This was, I suppose, the moment I had been thinking about for a while. How do you let your child go? I know as parents we had discussed this moment a lot. Having worked as a teacher I always hated the parents who hung around outside the classroom on the first day (or any day after that!) and I was determined that I was not going to let this happen. We were going to drop and run, the band-aid was being ripped off, call it what you will!

Only problem was the staff wouldn’t let us run away. There was extra paperwork to fill in – the can your child sleep on their stomach, permission to give nappy rash cream, what are your 11 month olds favourite activities etc etc etc. We were there for about ten minutes and the best part of it was in that time H began to play with the other kids. He was then lifted into a seat to partake in one of his favourite activities – eating. He was happily distracted and we were able to exit the building after a brief farewell to staff and our son along with a quick reminder to stick with the Marquess of Queensberry’s Rules.

What do you do when your child has his first day in childcare? We went out for breakfast and as we drove away from the centre I quickly did some mathematical calculations that it had been 351 days since my wife and I had been in a situation where we were going to be childfree for a day. And this was where the nerves really kicked in – because after so long becoming conditioned to being a parent and caring for your child we were now adults again with the day ahead of us. What did we do? It took a while to decide but we treated ourselves and went to the movies. Something we hadn’t done since well before H was born. Was it good to sit in a cinema? Oh yes, especially because there was not another soul there except the two of us!

We eventually picked H up after his first day just after 4. We (sorry I) had made one phone call to check in on him (cried after we left, but then played and was now asleep) but other than that no news. Of course this is good news. However, the anxiety of being a parent kicked back in here. Will he not like us and give us the cold shoulder when we pick him up? Will he have hated it and cried all day? Of course these are things we put in our own heads because we when we arrived to pick him up he was happy to see us. He seemed to have had a good day, he was smiling but he hadn’t eaten much lunch or drank his afternoon bottle. These are things he does at home sometimes so it seemed like a good day.

When we put him down to sleep that night it all seemed fine. He was the same happy boy who had woken up in the morning. He’d had new adventures, his parents had got over their anxieties and he was ready to go to sleep and he did all the way through until the next morning - the joy of being exhausted. Now we can’t wait for next Friday when the boys get to do it all on their own.