Gentle transitions: Transitioning your baby to a nanny or babysitter

A reader wrote to me for some help transitioning her very attached baby to a new caregiver. Here is what she said (bold is mine to emphasize some of the things I'll touch on in my answer):

Our baby has always been afraid of strangers -we attributed this to him getting sick & hospitalized very young and we were literally told by docs NOT to take our baby anywhere out of the house for 8 weeks (we were so scared we even asked the doc if it was ok to kiss our baby)! But as he grew older and we started taking him out, we noticed he gets startled easily, cries if someone gets too close to him to smile and look at him, and will scream if picked up by anybody else. He gets acclimated to people only if we wear him and after an hour he gets curious and wants out, and then he will be friendly and even play with a guest.

For his one year birthday party we went to a restaurant with about 12 guests at the table and our son cried about 90% of the time even worn in the wrap!

Now, the situation:  I work from home - always have, and plan to always do this. However, I'm a high-strung, type A personality. I enjoy what I do (entrepreneur with multiple biz that I've been in process of transitioning as much virtually as possible, but I'm not 100% there yet). We live in California, have a big mortgage, and there's no way that we can afford NOT to both bring in income. My husband works in a very narrow industry, which translates to "we need to stay in this area so he will have a job". I on the other hand can do a lot virtually, and have adapted and built a business so that I can leverage a lot of web technology.

I needed me-time too, because I was getting stressed more and more as our son becomes mobile and extremely active. He gets into everything. I thought the solution was: have my mom come help me for 6 or 7 months. She is now here and will be staying for 7 months.

I also listened to my mom's advice and on the 3rd day she was here on how I was supposed to get baby used to her. We totally disrupted our baby's routine and she forcibly took him (i.e. while he was screaming bloody murder) out of the house in order to "get him used to separation from mommy". Before the end of the week we back-pedaled and began to acclimate him more gently, by keeping the routine mostly the same while my mom stays nearby. He slowly got used to her  presence, even smiling and playing with her. In the meantime I've cried twice from the emotional pain I personally felt from inflicting pain on him.

But he still will scream bloody murder if he loses sight of me for too long, or if he thinks I'm about to leave. He ended up being more clingy than he's ever been, probably because he got terrified that he'd lose me. I want to be with my baby too - separation is hard for me - but I also want at least 3-4 hours during the day of uninterrupted time to myself and to work because I now need to.

Where and how do I make this transition? I want to hear from people who practice attachment parenting and know how I feel and what I'm talking about, instead of advice like "just leave for an hour and let him get used to it". Since my mom is here, I want to work with her and the baby on the best way to transition this.

Thank you soooooooooo much for reading this and for whatever help and wisdom you can offer!

I'll start off with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you are lucky to have the luxury of being able to make a gentle transition. The bad news is that I have heard from many day care workers that around one year is one of the more difficult times to transition into daycare or any other new care environment. This is particularly challenging for a lot of people around here, since there is up to 1 year of maternity leave in Canada and a lot of people take the maximum amount of time and then abruptly transition their kids into day care.

I stayed at home full-time for 3 months with my son and 6 months with my daughter and then transitioned back to work. I own my own business and work partially from home and partially out of the home. My children were cared for by a combination of my husband and my mother while I was working.

Here are some of the things I would suggest, based on our experience, to help your son become more comfortable with your mom:

• Start slowly: Have your mom interact with him while you are wearing him or doing things with him. For example, the three of you can sit and eat meals together and have her pass him some of his favourite foods. Go to the park together and one of you can put him up to the top of the slide and the other one can catch him. She can play peek a boo with him while you are wearing him in the wrap.

• Enticements: My mom spoils my kids and they love it. I'm not suggesting that your mom has to do that too, but if there were some fun things that your son only got to do with her or if you were going to get him a new book or toy anyways and could have her present it to him, then that might be a way of getting him to open up to her. My mom often brings books for my kids and they love to hop up onto her lap to read them.

• Being busy: Once he has a basic level of comfort with your mom again, he will still prefer you. He may be okay with her reading a book to him, but would rather you read it. If he brings you a toy or a book and asks you to play with it with him, tell him you can't right now because you are busy doing [fill in the blank], so he can either play with Grandma or wait until you are finished. We were recently on vacation with my kids and my parents. My daughter has always been scared of my dad, but started to open up to him on this trip. When we were sitting around having a drink or a coffee, she would often get bored and want to go for a walk. I would tell her to wait until I was done my drink, but my dad would often offer to take her right away. She hesitated the first few times, but eventually took him up on his offer.

• Taking over parts of the routine: I would absolutely suggest keeping the same routine that he has had with you, but over time you can have Grandma take over parts of that routine. Get her to give him lunch, give him a bath, change his diaper, go outside to play, etc. You can start by her taking over these activities with you present and then gradually find reasons to leave for brief periods of time. First go to the bathroom, then go to check your e-mail, then have a shower, then go to the store for some milk. Start with the easiest times of day - those when he is happiest and most independent.

• Getting out of the house: You obviously don't want a repeat of your mom forcibly taking him out of the house. However, it may be a good idea to find reasons for them to go out of the house together once they are more comfortable with each other. Rather than these being completely new things, you should start these outings together and then you can slowly remove yourself from the situation with time. For example, join a playgroup, go to story time at the library, go to the playground, go for walks.

• Establish ground rules for interruptions: Once you have made the transition and he is mostly with your mother, there will still be times when he needs you and the nice thing about you working from home is that you can be there then. You may wish to establish some ground rules with your mom on when you want to be interrupted. For example, when I was working from home, I always nursed my kids down for their naps. When they were really little and still nursing regularly, I would also take breaks to nurse them (or nurse them on a boppy pillow while at the computer) whenever they needed. However, I didn't really want to be interrupted each time one of the kids got upset over something. Once they had trust in my husband and my mom, I expected them to be able to comfort them in most situations unless it was something really traumatic.

I hope these ideas help you to get started. It seems from your question that you are now on the right path. It may take a while due to the rough start that you had, but I think with time your son will come around.

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Comments

[mom@36]

Thank you so much for taking the time to compose such a thoughtful post to my question! You are spot-on about the turn of year one being a tough transitional period - that is what I'm observing with my bebe and he recently turned one. He's developed very strong recognition of "mom" versus "not mom". Sometimes when he's upset, even my husband couldn't console him as quickly as I could.

We started out rough, and that's made stumbling blocks, but now that I know I personally believe attachment parenting works for my bebe, I'm better able to choose words of advice.

[Less than Perfect Parents]

I worked in a daycare and was a nanny for many years and have seen a lot of this. One big thing is to make sure that you don't pass your worries onto your son. I completely understand how horrible it is to see him crying (my son was the same when he was small) BUT if your body is tense and nervous when you're handing him to your mother he will sense that. This will probably be the hardest thing to do but consider having her take him for small periods of time (even just 15 minutes at first) and when you hand your son to her give her a big smile, make sure your body is relaxed, say, "Yay it's grandma!" and walk away without looking back. I know it will be tough but this shows him that she is a trusted caregiver and he will be safe with her.

[Gina]

mom@36 I don't believe that this has anything to do with those early weeks when he was sick. I have two children and the first was so independent and never at all afraid of strangers. He never really even suffered that separation anxiety that babies often do at 6-12 months. When we were out he would smile at everyone he saw - people loved it. If I was at a playgroup and needed to go to the loo I could happily leave him with another mum while I went.

Baby no.2 is the complete opposite. She has wanted mummy above all since she was about a month old. She will accept daddy but only for limited times. She cries whenever she sees a stranger, and is only now just getting used to my mum at 5 months old, even though she sees her regularly. I haven't kept her indoors at all. She is just a different baby - I do believe this is how she is, just as my son was the way he was. It had nothing to do with what I did because I did the same with both of them. It is hard for me to get used to as I remember how my son was, but I'm not blaming myself and you shouldn't blame yourself either.

[Emma]

Often, it is not possible to make such a transition slowly. In this case, I have found that if both parties can understand the baby, the situation becomes a little easier. Realising that http://thecoupleconnection.net/articles/new-from-thecoupleconnectionnet" rel="nofollow">baby talk is often not about learning to speak, but learning what the baby is trying to say before he has the words to do this. If your mom were to realise what actions your baby uses to try and communicate specific things can help her to bond with your baby quicker and easier.