Tomorrow is back-to-work day.

Get hair cut: check.
Unpack clothes: check.
Iron shirt: check.
Test baby carrier: check.
Pack bag (shoes, phone charger, mouse, snacks): check.

It’s a strange feeling, going back to work after such a long period of leave. It’s not at all like coming back from a holiday. It feels more like starting a new job. I have no pending projects, I have no idea what’s going on or what I will be doing. A clean slate.

I’ll be working part-time, three days a week in the office (Tue–Thu) and one day at home (Fri). Ingrid will be in a day nursery when I’m in the office, but on Fridays I’ll be working and taking care of her. In practice I expect I will get about half a day’s worth of work done with her at home (even if I save the most interruptible tasks for Friday) and do the rest either in the evening or during the weekend.

But even if sharing my day between Ingrid and work is inconvenient and leads to late evenings, I’d rather do it this way than have her in day care another day. I want her to spend more time with family than with “strangers” – I don’t want the strangers to become more familiar than family. That just feels wrong. In fact if I was forced to choose, I would rather stay at home than work full time at this point.

There is a nursery where I work, offering mainly backup care (in case your nanny is ill). But they also offer a place for mums returning to work, for the first month. So that’s where Ingrid will be for the next four weeks. The main advantage is that this way I can go on breastfeeding throughout the day for another month. And of course I can go down there to see her if I start to worry about her – but her first half-day last week went so well that I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.

After the first month she’ll transfer to a nursery close to home. We found three nurseries within reasonable distance and visited all three, and liked this one best. (Ingrid didn’t have an opinion because this happened months ago – there are sometimes long queues to these places.) The place looks bright and cheerful and relaxed, and I imagine that I would like to be there if I was a kid. The staff seemed to enjoy their jobs, and the kids seemed to like the staff.