Maternity leave is a crucial time, both for the mom and the baby. It gives the mom enough time to recover from the birth before going back to work. It is also a time for both to bond, learn and explore each other.
If you have an older child, you might be conflicted in deciding whether you should spend with them together as well. If your child already attends daycare, you may be tempted to pull them out for the time you are on maternity leave.
Why you Should not Pull Older Sibling out of Daycare
1. Avoids Disrupting their Routine
Your child is already used to a routine. When kids are enrolled in daycare, they start and adapt to a schedule and routine that brings in some consistency. They get used to a routine for everything including play, nap, and learning.
You do not want to disrupt this routine and keep your child at home. You will not be in a position to provide and cope with the same level of activities that your child is used at the daycare. They get to keep their friends, his teachers, and his playtime and activity levels up instead of being forced to stay at home.
Focus on keeping your child’s life consistent as much as you can, seeing that there is a new addition in the family. A newborn child in the family is already an interruption that your older child is already dealing with and it will help if the routine of daycare is maintained. By doing so they will handle the transition of the new family member much easily.
2. Keeps Your Daycare Spot Secured
Day cares are not only hard to get into but hard to stay into as well. If you already have a child at daycare and want to take a break, high chances are that you will lose your spot. There is no telling whether you will be able to get that spot again once the maternity leave is over and you want to take your child back to daycare.
Some waiting lists are as long as 2 years and you will probably have new challenges of getting childcare once you are ready to go back to work. It is one of the reasons why withdrawing your older child from daycare while on maternity leave is not recommended.
The safest way therefore to keep your spot at daycare is to keep your child in daycare, even if you will be home all the time on your maternity leave. Some day cares will require you to pay to keep your spot even if your child is not attending daycare. It does not add up to pay for daycare without your child attending so it’s best that your older child keeps attending daycare while you recover on your maternity leave.
Read: Getting Daycare Slots Easily
3. Gives You Enough Time with the Newborn
A newborn is a new addition to the family. As a mom, you need to come to terms with the new addition by spending time with the baby as you care for her/him. You need to bond, explore and learn your new child. Your child needs love, care, and attention as they adjust to the new environment.
Such would be hard to provide if you have another child demanding your attention and care. It is one of the reasons why you should always let the older child stay in daycare to give you adequate time with the newborn during your maternity leave.
Remember that your older child also had the same experience with you and hence it’s only fair if you do the same for the newborn.
4. Gives You Enough Time to Recover
In addition to needing time with your newborn baby, you need time for yourself. You need to recover by taking care of yourself. You need to rest, eat well and have adequate sleep.
Already the needs of the newborn may be still stealing some of this away and you hence do not need another child calling for your attention. You need to be able to rest and sleep when you need to and having another child in the house will prevent you from doing so.
Therefore it is best to keep the older child in the daycare to speed up and optimize your recovery during your maternity leave.
Read: How to Best Spend your Maternity Leave
5. Good For Child Growth and Development
Daycares are packed with activities that stimulate growth and development for your child. Further, the interactions and time spent with other kids help in social growth for your child.
Your child needs these activities and interactions for optimal growth and development. It is something that your child will terribly miss when you keep her/him at home during your maternity leave.
You will not be able to offer the same stimulating activities and play as you have not fully recovered and also have the newborn to take care of as well. In addition, your child may become socially averse to staying away from kids. It is hence recommended to allow your child to stay in daycare.
Read: Reasons to Put Your Toddler in Daycare
Reasons to Keep Older Child at Home during Maternity Leave
1. Eliminates Daycare Bugs that are a Risk to the Newborn
Daycares are home to all kinds of bugs. Kids are pretty and adorable but filthy all the same, making daycare high breeding and transmission zones. Your child risks catching these bugs quite often and will often bring them back home.
Now with the newborn, you may want to be more cautious to avoid infecting the newborn whose immunity is still developing. It is especially crucial if your new baby was born with health complications affecting his/her immunity.
Therefore for the sake of keeping the bugs away from the child, it is safest to keep the child at home rather than continue with daycare. It is one the benefits of withdrawing your child from daycare when you are on your maternity leave.
Nonetheless, it is safe to practice high hygiene at all times once the older resumes daycare after maternity leave. Practice the routine of coming inside, shoes off, changing out of school clothes, washing hands.
Read: Getting Rid of Daycare Bugs
2. Saves You Money
Childcare is expensive. Daycares especially in towns and high-demand areas are particularly expensive. The period offered by maternity leave is heaven-sent and convenient for many to be able to save by keeping their older child at home.
You may feel you do not need to pay for your child’s daycare anymore and can instead save up that amount for the period that you are on maternity leave. If money is a big constraint at the moment, it is a relief to be able to save some few months’ daycare costs.
However, there is the risk of losing your daycare spot once your maternity leave is over and you want to take your child back to daycare.
3. Helps Child Bond with Newborn
The period during your maternity leave is a good time for your older child to process and come into terms with the fact that there is a new family addition. They need to deal with the disruption the newborn brings through bonding.
The period is hence vital in helping your older child welcome their younger sibling. You may hence choose to pull your child out of daycare during your maternity leave. It’s really special to spend time with the newborn and withdrawing them from daycare make this possible.
4. Quality Family Time
Getting quality family time off the busy schedule of a working mom is hard. There is just so much to do in so little time that we rarely spend any time as a family at the end of the day.
Maternity leave offers a temporal solution to this by offering time to spend with family. Some moms hence choose to take advantage of this opportunity and keep the child at home instead of daycare. It is an opportunity for you all to be home with no work obligations as a family.
There is just so much time now to do as a family before the maternity leave is over. The older sibling will particularly love this time as they get close and form a bond.
Read: Preventing Work Calls During Maternity Leave
5. Avoid Daycare Drop Off/Pickups Challenges
To have your child in daycare, you need to wake up early and deal with the hassle of having your child ready. Next, you need to deal with commutes to and fro which can be exhausting especially if the daycare is quite a distance from your home.
The hassle and the time lost are just too much, especially since you are still to fully recover and have an additional baby to care for. The benefit of keeping your older child at home and not the daycare while you are on maternity leave is saving from the challenges of daycare drop-offs and pickups.
If you do not have anyone helping, daycare can be quite a hassle to navigate with a newborn in the picture. Instead, you can spend this together as a family such as having breakfast, preparing brunch, etc.
An Alternative
Instead of entirely keeping your child at home or daycare, a better approach is cutting back on daycare to balance out daycare and home. This way you, your child, and your newborn will enjoy the benefits of both worlds.
You get to keep your spot at daycare and spend adequate bonding time as a family. Also, you can come up with a plan to help your older child adapt to the newborn baby in the family. Your child can stay home for the first 1 to 2 weeks and then resume daycare.
How to Prepare Older Sibling for New Baby Arrival
- Be honest and tell them that they are going to have a brother or a sister
- Teach them about family and how they will be related. At the very least, your child will become familiar with words like “sister,” “brother,” and “new baby.”
- Allow them to feel and play with your belly
- Excite them by explaining they are going to love each other
- Tell them they will have someone to play with
- Take the child with you to buy baby stuff to psychologically prepare them
- Allow your child to do time tasks such as choosing the baby room so that they feel part of new changes
- After baby arrives, allow the older siblings to see, touch and play with them safely
- Give your child as equal time and attention as the newborn
- Make your older child feel that she has a role to play in caring for the baby
