Day Care, Days 2 and 3

First of all, allow me to state the obvious - it's snowing!!! What in the world is going on !?!?!  Who would have ever thought that EH's first snowfall would come before his first Halloween???

Now that that's out of the way, the real topic at hand - EH's day care experience, on days 2 and 3.

For days 2 and 3, I took him in the afternoon, to give DH a chance to practice picking him up.  We went around 2:30 p.m. each day and DH pick him up around 4:15.  I went with him both times, but the second time I just observed, and only went mostly because I like to go and observe how things operate there.

Both days went we picked him up he wasn't crying.  That has helped me immensely.  Yesterday someone was even holding him when we arrived to pick him up.  But there were at least 2 other babies screaming and crying that weren't really getting much attention, so it could have just as easily been him.  Yesterday he didn't take a nap at all while he was there - no real surprise to me - so of course he fell asleep on the car ride home, and then woke up soon after he got home and was somewhat fussy for the rest of the evening.  Thursday afternoon they said he had taken a 30 minute or so nap in the swing he was in, which is amazing if it's true because we can't get him to nap in his swing for the life of us, but he did seem considerably less fussy that day compared to Friday so maybe it was true. 

Both days that he spent any amount of time at day care he ended up going to sleep for the night at 6:30 p.m.  Prior to this he was going to bed usually sometime between 7 and 8.  I have a feeling that 6:30 or shortly after is going to be his new bedtime, which will be really sad for me, since I won't get to spend much time with him at all in the evenings once I get home from work, but I know that a well rested baby is important.  It may just mean that I won't start cooking dinner until after he's gone to bed for the night, instead of cooking as soon as I get home.

His night time sleep is something that I can definitely get used to.  Although it's not perfect every night, most nights he is still sleeping 5 to 8 hours straight after we put him to bed.  On Thursday night he slept from 6:30 to 3 a.m. (8.5 hours!!! too bad I couldn't enjoy it - I was in pain and only slept 3 hours that night) and Friday night he slept from 6:30 to 1:30 (7 hours, still amazing).  He goes back to sleep fairly quickly after his middle of the night feedings and usually wakes for the day around 8 or 8:30 a.m.  That routine, of course, will be thrown off once I have to start waking him at 7 a.m. to take him to daycare.  That's going to be hard because I really ingrained the "never wake a baby" mantra into my head (care of the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby book.) 

So, day care is not going to be perfect.  It's something that both of us are going to have to get used to.  I hope that EH adjusts quickly and well, and that in no time we start getting reports that he's napping for at least 3 hours throughout the course of a day, in his crib, without much crying. 

Wishful thinking?  Perhaps, but it would definitely make me feel better about leaving him all day while I'm at work....