Today Cara went to the babysitter for two hours. She met the lady who will watch her earlier in the week and she suggested I leave Cara for a couple of hours today to see how she does. Cara stayed with her from 10:00-12:00 and did fine. She did so well, in fact, that I'm a little worried about it. She took her diaper bag/backpack with her. It had a couple of her favorite toys in there and a few snacks. I helped her take off her coat and she went to put her juice in the fridge. I only stayed with her about five minutes and then I left. She didn't cry or anything. When I came back at noon she was busy playing kitchen on the floor with the other little boy this lady watches, who is also 3. The lady (I will refer to her as C from this point forward) said Cara never cried and was fine the whole time. She ate whatever was offered to her and went potty in the potty chair. I let Cara know it was time to go and helped her clean up what she was playing with and that was it. I asked her if she had fun playing at C's house and she said yes. I guess I'm worried because it went so well. We have been working on attachment since we got her a little over a month ago and I know it takes a long time for healthy attachment to occur. I guess it was a wake up call for me on how far we still have to go since she wasn't too concerned that I was leaving her with someone new. She won't start daycare until November 30th and even then she will go 4 days a week. We are fortunate that my husband only works 4 days a week and I work in education so I will have 2 weeks with her at Christmas, spring break, a chunk of time in the summer, etc. I just feel like things have been going so well with her and I realized we definitely have work to do in the attachment department. She came home and is completely fine. No tantrums or anything. One of her cousins came over and they fed apples to the horses, collected the egg from the chicken house, and drug out all of the toys from the toy closet. When her cousin left, she went in and took a nap like normal. After her nap she found my sunglasses and was hamming it up for the camera (pics posted above). We'll see if there is any fallout from today at bedtime! ;)
Definitely a mixed bag of emotions. Our son sobbed when he went to daycare and I had worked at the transition by first sending him to our grown daughter's house for two weeks and then sending him with her and her sons to daycare (she is the asst. director and had been home on maternity leave). It was incredibly traumatic for me, too. If Cara were your biological child, I'd say this is great! She trusts you to return for her and that's why she's not worried. And you know what? That could actually be true. But I understand your concern. Best of luck,
ReplyDeleteRuby
I would say that's awesome. She's been home a month already? Wow, she seems to be doing great for her short time home.
ReplyDelete