No one puts Mommy in a corner
So our new nanny, CA (to identify her from C, our kid), started today. My initial fears, which included shaken baby, dropped baby, ignored baby and starved baby, have been replaced with the fear of, well, being replaced.
As soon as CA got here she took C (which was great) after washing her hands (which was also great). C immediately started smiling at CA, bigger and better than any smile to me. Basically CA is her favorite person in the world. And I am chopped liver.
Then CA put her down IN HER CRIB (something J and I have never mastered without C waking and immediately crying with outrage that we dare to put her down) and she is still sleeping. Like a log.
Mommy neuroses, which are never far from my mind, are really going nuts over this one.
Why doesn't she smile at me like that? Why won't she go down when I put her down? What can I do to make her love me more?
What if she likes CA more?
I guess this is a good problem to have. I mean at least her caregiver is a loving, skilled person. I just don't want to be replaced as the most important and fantastic person in C's life.
Wow. Immature mommy. Love it.
posted by R @ 9:38 AM
6 Comments:
Wow. It sounds like you found a really great nanny. That is terrific!
Don't worry, she can't replace you in little C's eyes. You are still mommy! :-) I think it's just the guilt most moms feel about going back to work. It was really hard for me to leave Garet at daycare when I went back. I wanted him to cry or at least look sad that I was leaving him for a few hours, but he just *LOVES* daycare! I just keep thinking how fortunate I am that he is so happy!
xo,
Just found your blog for the first time and read through your story. I was in tears many, many times for your losses, but finally in happy tears for the great gift of Charlotte.
I am so happy for you!
NO ONE will replace her Mommy, R...you have bonded with little C & she knows who her mommmy is! But aren't you fortunate to have found someone so great, so soon! You will SO be glad you did once you go back to work. Congrats & try to relax & enjoy your baby Charlotte every moment!
I can totally identify. I put Josh's first caregiver in a head lock after the second day and asked her to never come back. With Maya we had already begun being comfortable with daycare so it was ok. Kidding about the head lock part but I know. I remember that first day back to work 6 very very short weeks after both of my babies were born and I could never remember what happened at work on those days but I do remember I cried to and from work both times days and weeks after I had returned. One day, in the midst of having a "Josh is going to start calling the day care provider Mommy" moments I was driving down Route 9 in my company car as fast as I could to get to him and a song came on the radio that silenced me. Stephanie Mills saved the day with "I never knew love like this before" It was then that I realized that not only had I never known the love that I felt for Josh before but he had never known it either until he met Steve and I. We are the only love that he knows, the only love that Maya knows and sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice to let new peeps in so they can get more and more love. These feelings are good, they intensify the foundation of total fierceness you feel for C and it will only get more intense from here. So, for today, its ok to want to put CA in a head lock.
Let me remind you that CA has more experience with babies than you and J combined. So perhaps her ability to be comfortable with C and get C to be comfortable with her is rooted in that experience, nothing else. 8 weeks after E was born, a nurse came in to teach us a few tricks, and E responded like magic. I felt like an inept fool. But the reality is, the connection between you and C is much more complex, deeper, and will develop over years and years. When no one else is there, you are, in more ways than one. You and J are the permanent lights in C's life, and that will only grow. In the meantime, maybe CA can show you how she got C to sleep in her crib! Milk it, dude!
did you try laying her in the cri on one side and then on her back. I only learned this trick with my second so I pass it on to anyone who might remotely need it. When I lay the boy down he always cried. It activated his falling reflex... Maybe it'll work with C.
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