What your wife has is guilt, it’s not about how the baby is adjusting. Your baby is just fine and will be just fine. In fact, picking up baby at mid day is disruptive because it’s usually when babies nap.

Anonymous wrote:OP - I am assuming that this is your child as well. Did you understand that you would sometimes need to parent this child? And that it wouldn’t always be convenient? You are in for a long road if you can’t handle the inconvenience of transitioning your baby to daycare.

Nope. Mom's ask is ridiculous and stems from her own feelings of having the child at daycare. It's not tenable.

OP - I am assuming that this is your child as well. Did you understand that you would sometimes need to parent this child? And that it wouldn’t always be convenient? You are in for a long road if you can’t handle the inconvenience of transitioning your baby to daycare.

Anonymous wrote:5 months is very young for institutionalized care.

And yet millions of it and turn out fine.

At my workplace I am generally required to have childcare during my telework hours. They make some exceptions for unusual situations but if wouldn't be allowed as a routine thing.

Your wife sounds like she's struggling with daycare but your kid doing their afternoon nap at daycare versus having to go home and potentially have it disrupted isn't worth it and it's way too much to ask from you.

The transition to daycare is hard on everyone, but keeping two good jobs is important for the family too. For myself, I would make sure I was still showing up at my job the best I can, because there are lots of time the kid will be sick and you’ll have to be at home (which you should share with your wife so the impact of that is spread across your jobs, not just on one). My kids are in elementary school now, but I remember the daycare days!

If you pickup early, does your wife expect YOU to care for the baby?

We are working parents. We both took max FMLA without pay for each child which got us to 6 months. Then at daycare we split shift; DW went to work really early so could leave at two and I went to work a little later so she would start daycare around 930. It was hard and we sacrificed work advancement but made it work. Once child was ambulatory it was better being at daycare because they could move around and explore and entertain themselves better.

Friendly reminder OP,
Whatever you all decide, please ensure you have a back-up check on where the baby is at all times. Especially in the summer heat!

Try to have a set schedule and ask your daycare how they handle if the baby is not there during those schedule hours.

Anonymous wrote:Makes no sense, The baby naps in the morning and the afternoon. That’s 4 hours minimum of her time there asleep.

What time is drop off?

Pick up from 1-3 just interrupts the nap

You could agree to a 4:00 pick up for a while.

Did u take paternity leave?

This. I also felt guilty as a first time mom and picked up my oldest after lunch. Big mistake. Sometimes fell asleep in the car, sometimes managed to keep awake until home. But every day drama.

Tell your wife that you wish you could spend all day with your baby. Tell her you understand how she feels.

But leave the baby in day care until at least 4.

5 months is very young for institutionalized care.

OP this is a broader emotional struggle for your DW that is not just about the daycare schedule. I was like this and it almost led me to go PT at work. It's a shock to the system when they first start daycare and you go from 24/7 together to feeling like you're apart almost all your waking hours. My kids are a little older now and sometimes I still feel that way.

You can't do what she's asking but try to understand this is bigger than that and see what can work. Staggered pickup and dropoff between you for a shorter day? Using leave for a day off or early day here and there, etc.? Outsourcing other stuff so the time at home is really with baby and not chores. You both need to figure out how to making this a manageable situation emotionally.

FWIW I also took 5 months mat leave each time and while yes that's a robust infant who can clearly do a full day at daycare it's still very hard for the parent when you're dealing with that new transition.

Anonymous wrote:Makes no sense, The baby naps in the morning and the afternoon. That’s 4 hours minimum of her time there asleep.

What time is drop off?

Pick up from 1-3 just interrupts the nap

You could agree to a 4:00 pick up for a while.

Did u take paternity leave?

This right here. It’s hard to answer this question without knowing more about the family dynamic at play. Is the wife asking OP to show a willingness to appropriately put family ahead of work? Or, quite possibly struggling with transition and/or not truly comfortable with being a 2 working parent family? If OP didn’t take any leave or took it minimally, I strongly feel his wife is in the right here.

Kind of an aside but on the naps I never had a baby who napped well enough at 5 months to be reliably down in a crib for any stretch beyond 30 minutes…. Was this just my three kids?

Makes no sense, The baby naps in the morning and the afternoon. That’s 4 hours minimum of her time there asleep.

What time is drop off?

Pick up from 1-3 just interrupts the nap

You could agree to a 4:00 pick up for a while.

Did u take paternity leave?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our 5 month old is in daycare now, my wife recently went back to work but she works a part time hourly job. I’m full time with a hybrid work schedule. She wants me to both drop our baby off and pick her up doing half days because she’s young and my wife is trying to ease her in to it. But this is not working, I have a varied schedule with lots of meetings, sometimes I need to be in the office, and it’s overall very disruptive to my work flow. My wife is part time but sometimes has a meeting in the early afternoon. I’m telling her that if she can’t pick up the baby halfway through the day then we will need to leave her at daycare all day. But she’s afraid of leaving our daughter there for so long. What do we do!!! This is so frustrating.

Dude. You need to make it work. Block your diary. Make it known you have pickup on such and such days at x hour and make them respect that. This is what normal workers do.

Signed, another dude who was doing that shit 20 years ago. It's not that hard.

Also, quit whining. Man up already.

Yes, when you have a hard stop at 4:30pm because you need to pick up kids, people understand. It’s not normal to block out 1pm-? to pick up your baby and then take care of them because your spouse is scared of daycare.