I appreciate you articulating this! I thought I wanted another baby right away, but now that we’re tiptoeing into toddler years (a 14-month old), we’re waiting for a while (maybe forever?), because I feel like I’m drowning.

If I could do that time period over again, I would have started our daughter on monthly overnights at grandma’s as soon as I was doing breastfeeding (we did eventually start, but it came much later). We too often did the weekend morning blocks “off” (Saturdays for me, Sundays for my husband) where the other person would take the kiddo out of the house. And I think Laura was exactly correct in identifying that you need to just…schedule something fun in instead of waiting for the time to open up, because it won’t. In my experience, it doesn’t even need to be that often…I have a lot of stuff that happens roughly monthly (and often less frequently than that), like dinner with a certain friend, movie night with another, date night with husband, etc. Just having that stuff on the calendar to look forward to helps my mindset a ton.

My work had ‘backup care’ hours available and it happened to be at the same daycare my child was already attending. Since I worked part-time and had some flexibility in my schedule, I often shuffled around work hours a bit, and then would use the backup hours for an extra day to run errands, do a little work, or catch up on appointments for myself (haircuts, etc) or just SLEEP.

YES – I love those ‘mommy days off’ where my work is off for a random day (like Good Friday) but daycare is still open. (And I have a 2 year old so I’m right there as far as this article goes).

@Ruth – I definitely agree that there are mental upsides to keeping the career going. Talking with adults during the day for instance!

YES valid points!

Also I am with you that I am happier being a working mom. I don’t necessarily think I’d be going for #3 if I were the one home with them all day. I would probably be quite happy being the SAHM of school age kids (like A&C’s age or older), doing my own thing on the side, but not during the baby/toddler phase. Do I LOVE my kids and am I excited for another one? YES! But would I relish being the on-call parent 24/7 during the baby phase for 2+ years? No. And I’m cool with that 🙂

Personally, I loved 12-24 months, but that was because I was back in med school and saw my daughter exclusively on evenings and weekends, like a typical man sees his children. We hired an au pair and finally had that missing family member to take care of all the childcare crap I hate doing (cooking, cleaning, schlepping) and provide babysitting so I could spend time with my husband. I am, as far as I can tell, the only woman who says she loves that age. So, perhaps your listener would be happier if she worked more and did less toddler care too.