Originally posted September 13th, 2010 on Yahoo! Answers Blog.
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for your helpful advice on the topic of Nanny or Daycare. I did find a wonderful Nanny that we are really happy with although as many of you pointed it in your comments, there is never going to be a good enough substitute for Mom.
Every morning as I kiss my daughter ‘Chloe’ good day and head to the door, I have to fight my tears from rolling down as I watch her cheerful smile and happy cooing turn into an unhappy protest. She loves waving goodbye and is happily sharking her little hands until she sees me open the door and realizes what this particular bye bye actually means. She then starts screaming and fighting her way out of the arms of her Nanny in an attempt to follow me and well you can pretty much picture my heart break as I head for the elevator. I guess as a Mom, you can never totally get over this guilt, but each of us finds her own ways of dealing with it.
For me, it is the comfort of knowing that I am still sharing the special ritual of breastfeeding. Ironically my biggest fear of motherhood was always breastfeeding as I had very sensitive breasts and had heard too many horrid stories from my friends who ended up with infections such as thrush, mastitis and staph. (Lucky for me, everything went fine for me in this area!).
My daughter has gained a lot of independence since my return to work and she absolutely refuses to be fed solids and prefers to do it herself, but when it comes to breastfeeding, it is almost like she is a newborn. Although these moments are absolutely precious for me, I cannot help but start to wonder if I am overdoing the breastfeeding? Swamped with too many meetings at work I eventually gave up pumping around 7 months and my body stopped producing milk during the day and now I only have a small amount in the mornings and evenings. What do you think?
I did a search on Answers and came across this helpful conversation initiated by one of our community members, on how long should one breastfeed?
In my case I know there is little milk left and she is mostly doing it for the comfort—so the question is do I let her continue? I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic so please start typing those great suggestions.