Leaving your baby!!! (kind of a rant)

[THart]

I'm with the majority. As a mom we all should know better than pass judgment. The child is certianly not being neglected and has a lot of people who care for it.

So they leave their child more often than you leaves yours. Neither is right or wrong it is just different life styles and parenting styles.

I honestly fond this thread ridiculous so I'm going to bow out.

Take care everyone.

 

[Bex84]

I personally wouldent do it. The first time I will have properly been away from lo is when I give birth to my little boy. I get judged a lot for it as lo is 3. People coviniently forget I wasn't particularly outgoing before had lo haha. I wouldent judge someone for doing it. I know people desperate for break and I think for some people its a huge life style change. As I said before I am not outgoing and to be honest am not a fan of going to pub etc. If I go to shops me and lo go together and I am dreading her going to school. It doesn't mean I am a better mum just a different type. As long as baby looked after and loved that's what is important

 

[Larkspur]

What an interesting opportunity, OP, to think about why this triggers so many strong emotions in you.

You don't seem to think the baby is being neglected or harmed - after all, there are obviously family members very happy to spend time looking after baby - you seem most mad that these parents are "getting away" with an easy time, sharing the load among willing helpers instead of doing everything by themselves.

Why is it important to you that your friend should have "the bad" as well as "the good"? Why do you think what happens in the first few weeks of the baby's life tells the whole story about whether the parents can be "bothered raising her"?

What will happen if they "get away with this" - if the baby grows up and apparently suffers no ill effects? How will you know if it has affected her negatively or not?

It seems like the only person experiencing negative effects here is you, stewing away and getting "very very angry" about something that's really nothing to do with you, and that you have no way of knowing whether it will ever actually be a problem for anyone. So why is this worth your time and energy?

It might be worth looking at yourself to see if there's any resentment that you're projecting onto your friend because you don't feel you're getting things "easy enough" or have enough support? Perhaps you're finding it hard getting through the bad times and the way you subconsciously motivate yourself is to tell yourself that it makes you a better parent/that your kid will turn out better if you "do it all"?

I don't know. Your question just seems like one that a person can only answer for their own family, not someone else's.

 

[NoodleSnack]

I don't really think it's fair to tell the OP not to worry about what other people do with their kids. I think it shows more that she cares about the child in question (or children in general). If everyone in the world actually stepped back and didn't worry about the wellbeing and happiness of other people's children, I think it would be pretty sad. I don't understand how anyone starting a family can google anything about motherhood and not get a return about how little time you have for "me" things when the children are young. Whether the baby is difficult or not, the parents signed up for it. It's not the baby's fault that (s)he's having a difficult time and may be difficult for the parents, the baby still deserves the intensive care of the parents. I don't think there's really a hard line for "how early is too early" or "how often is too often", but I definitely can say I know a couple people who are so far over the line, it's alarming, so I get where the OP is coming from. I would probably cringe a little knowing a baby that young going to overnights each week and not getting lots of weekend family time with the parents (at least one of whom I assume works full time).
I don't philosophically consider there to be "good" times and "bad" times-- I think those are usually pretty indistinguishable in hindsight. But I think it should be the general standard that both parents spend lots of time with their children and not very frequently leaving lo to have lots of baby-free time. Balance is important and will look different for every family, but I do think that some people get balance confused and unfairly put their general freedom and enjoyment ahead of their kids.

No I think the OP was congratulating herself on being a brilliant mother because she wouldn't do what this mother does.

I agree with everything else you've said though as that's how I see it too for my family but it's not for everyone and the child is not getting neglected so the concern for this baby is unnecessary.

Excuse me but you don't know me so don't right harsh comments!!!! I am askings peoples opinions on if they think it's right. I am far from congratulating myself. I have been suffering with severe pnd and still find what this family is doing to much.
I don't think pre planned events are an issue such as weddings etc... But this isnt a sleep out one night a week for time as a couple. Everytime they leave the house they drop off there baby girl off with someone else. Even just to pop to tesco or collect chinese. Her husband is my husbands work partner. They work a 60hour week every week and they get two days together and most of that time the baby is with other people.

I just dont understand how you can leave your newborn baby so willingly and so often. To me it seems crazy. I dont think they have actually taken care of there baby for 24hours in one period without leaving her with someone else. Yes she has reflux but as a mother whos child had extreamly severe reflux due to misdiagnoses of LI I know how hard it is. We didnt get correct diagnoses until 3.5mo so all that time was hard. But her baby now is on the correct medication and is not suffering.

I am just trying to work out if I myself am crazy or if in fact other people too think this isn't right when you signed up to be a mother????

To me it seems crazy why people get all hyper-emotional about other people's business who's not hurting anyone. Do you have evidence that the child is mistreated? If you don't, then what is there to be angry about?

Maybe she doesn't believe in the nuclear family like you do. Maybe her family wants to spend time with the baby and she wants them to have time to connect with her baby as well. Maybe she's just smart enough to realise that she doesn't have to "take the bad" if there's help around. You could stand to learn from her. You say you have PND like it's a batch of honour, if you really find things hard, give yourself a break, it won't make you a bad mother.

The way I see it, my job as a mother is to raise my children to become happy, caring and productive people. Having a caring family for the child to model after and a mother who allows the child to connect with her family are all great lessons for the child.

 

[NoodleSnack]

The irony, you don't want me to make judgements on you but you're judging this mom based on your view of her life.

Carry on.

Actually your trying to make it sound like I'm proud of myself so you really don't get the question. Do you seriously think a baby should be with anyone but it's mother and father in the most crucial age of bonding???

Yes. Why shouldn't a baby be with other people who care about her and are a constant part of her life? Is there an upper limit on the number of people a baby can bond with? Do you not realise that in many cultures, the grandparents and aunts and uncles, if not the whole village, play almost as big a role in the children's upbringing as the parent/s?

Anyway I have seen your comments on a lot of threads in the past and arguments always seem to spark off from your comments so I will just ignore your "opinion" from now on as you clearly like to be harsh with posters.

I think felix is one of the nicer posters.

 

[felix555]

The irony, you don't want me to make judgements on you but you're judging this mom based on your view of her life.

Carry on.

Actually your trying to make it sound like I'm proud of myself so you really don't get the question. Do you seriously think a baby should be with anyone but it's mother and father in the most crucial age of bonding???

Yes. Why shouldn't a baby be with other people who care about her and are a constant part of her life? Is there an upper limit on the number of people a baby can bond with? Do you not realise that in many cultures, the grandparents and aunts and uncles, if not the whole village, play almost as big a role in the children's upbringing as the parent/s?

Anyway I have seen your comments on a lot of threads in the past and arguments always seem to spark off from your comments so I will just ignore your "opinion" from now on as you clearly like to be harsh with posters.

I think felix is one of the nicer posters.

Thank you! For all the tongue biting I do when I post I didn't appreciate the false insult

 

[NoodleSnack]

The irony, you don't want me to make judgements on you but you're judging this mom based on your view of her life.

Carry on.

Actually your trying to make it sound like I'm proud of myself so you really don't get the question. Do you seriously think a baby should be with anyone but it's mother and father in the most crucial age of bonding???

Yes. Why shouldn't a baby be with other people who care about her and are a constant part of her life? Is there an upper limit on the number of people a baby can bond with? Do you not realise that in many cultures, the grandparents and aunts and uncles, if not the whole village, play almost as big a role in the children's upbringing as the parent/s?

Anyway I have seen your comments on a lot of threads in the past and arguments always seem to spark off from your comments so I will just ignore your "opinion" from now on as you clearly like to be harsh with posters.

I think felix is one of the nicer posters.

Thank you! For all the tongue biting I do when I post I didn't appreciate the false insult

Sometimes I can sense that tongue biting - or maybe I'm projecting.

 

[Kate&Lucas]

Without reading the entire thread, I really don't see the harm it's doing. Some parents are more hands-on, some aren't.

Lucas spent a fair bit of time without me as a baby. Mostly due to his stay in intensive care immediately after birth, and then my breakdown as a result of severe PND. I left him with family willingly (because to be frank, I didn't want to be around him very much). Thanks to treatment and the the amazing support of my family/friends our relationship now is fantastic. I fucking dare anyone to judge me for leaving him

Personally, I'd distance myself from this friend. She sounds like she could use more support around her, and a lot less judgement.

 

[MommyJogger]

I'd like to interject with the observation that everyone here seems to be focusing on the original post as though it's a criticism of the mother leaving her baby with people for periods of time, when that's not really what it's getting at (at least from my POV). It's about both parents, at the same time, deciding to go out and leave the baby with people for periods of time. Honestly, these two are distinct to me. If the mother needs to get out to feel human, she could always have left the baby with the father. If the father needs to get out to feel human, he could always have left the baby with the mother. If they need one night a week to heal a relationship that they feel is suffering from lack of attention, that's one thing. But really read what she wrote. Both parents, overnights each week, and then days out multiple other days of the week where they're both away from baby, and then weekends without the baby. That really does seem like it would be objectively excessive for BOTH parents to need to be away at the same time at such a young age.
It's not about whether the parents are there for the "good" and the "bad", it's about whether the baby has a parent there during the baby's "good" and "bad". You can't assign times for bonding. Bonding just happens when it happens, but you have to be there for it. I would never object to a baby being taken care of by another loving adult caregiver, but at such an early age (especially by any tribal community standards because that was brought up in a previous post), when the baby can see, what, a few inches from its nose, there's no reason the parents need to leave for hours at a time to achieve that and "the village" effect takes place at an older age than 24 hours, when the village would instead be focusing on taking care of the mother's needs so that she can competently and happily care for the baby.

 

[catty]

I'd like to interject with the observation that everyone here seems to be focusing on the original post as though it's a criticism of the mother leaving her baby with people for periods of time, when that's not really what it's getting at (at least from my POV). It's about both parents, at the same time, deciding to go out and leave the baby with people for periods of time. Honestly, these two are distinct to me. If the mother needs to get out to feel human, she could always have left the baby with the father. If the father needs to get out to feel human, he could always have left the baby with the mother. If they need one night a week to heal a relationship that they feel is suffering from lack of attention, that's one thing. But really read what she wrote. Both parents, overnights each week, and then days out multiple other days of the week where they're both away from baby, and then weekends without the baby. That really does seem like it would be objectively excessive for BOTH parents to need to be away at the same time at such a young age.
It's not about whether the parents are there for the "good" and the "bad", it's about whether the baby has a parent there during the baby's "good" and "bad". You can't assign times for bonding. Bonding just happens when it happens, but you have to be there for it. I would never object to a baby being taken care of by another loving adult caregiver, but at such an early age (especially by any tribal community standards because that was brought up in a previous post), when the baby can see, what, a few inches from its nose, there's no reason the parents need to leave for hours at a time to achieve that and "the village" effect takes place at an older age than 24 hours, when the village would instead be focusing on taking care of the mother's needs so that she can competently and happily care for the baby.

I have found some people do exaggerate though. A girl I went to school with leaves her child very often but really it's maybe only once a week but it *looks* on Facebook that she is always out having fun, having drinks in the day etc. But actually it is maybe one or twice a fortnight which for me is alot but she had her child young and maybe struggles more. How do you actually know how often someone is out unless they tell you every single time?

 

[MommyJogger]

\

I have found some people do exaggerate though. A girl I went to school with leaves her child very often but really it's maybe only once a week but it *looks* on Facebook that she is always out having fun, having drinks in the day etc. But actually it is maybe one or twice a fortnight which for me is alot but she had her child young and maybe struggles more. How do you actually know how often someone is out unless they tell you every single time?

I think on internet forums, you kinda just have to go with the information the OP presents. Besides people posting every meal they eat and every bowel movement they make on facebook, depending on the size of the town, it's hard to miss seeing some people every day sometimes. Not to mention, if the people the couple are leaving the child with are having some of the same feelings as the OP, it might be a point of discussion among the social circle. I know when the couple I mentioned were leaving their child a lot, we had discussions with each other just because we were trying to figure out exactly how much childcare as a group we were providing because for a while, each of us thought we were the only ones and didn't realize we were part of a network of people they were cycling their LOs through.

 

[sue_88]

But what can't they both be feeling it's too much?

What if they both are absolutely shit scared of bring alone with a newborn and therefore they both go out together and leave the baby with friends?

What if they think that it's so hard they're not sure what they've got themselves into?

There's too many questions to point blank say that the baby is spending too much time away from their parents, and if they're both struggling then it's fantastic they've got the support and honestly they've got a long time to form a loving bond with their parents....for now it could all be about survival.

 

[Tiff]

Tbh, I wish I had the strength to go out without my daughter when she was that young, it would've done me a world of good. I was not in a good place when she was a newborn.

Barring a quick dinner for my 30th when our kiddo was 6 weeks old (gone maybe 2 hours, tops) I did not leave her side until she was nearly 9 months old, and only for a dear friend's wedding.

What works for one, doesn't always work for another. If they want and need the help, to me I'm happy that they recognize it and are accepting it. I needed help too but was far too stubborn and in fear of judgement to actually ask for it. I was worried that either people would take my daughter away from me if I admitted I was struggling, or that people would think I was unfit and try and take her away via that route.

And really, what business is it of anyone else's? From what the OP posted, it wasn't like they were throwing a shout out over FB or social media asking for some random stranger to watch their child for them.

Would I go out as much as they are? Definitely not. But I wish I had the strength to actually do so without the fear that I'd be judged as a parent for it.

 

[MommyJogger]

But what can't they both be feeling it's too much?

What if they both are absolutely shit scared of bring alone with a newborn and therefore they both go out together and leave the baby with friends?

What if they think that it's so hard they're not sure what they've got themselves into?

There's too many questions to point blank say that the baby is spending too much time away from their parents, and if they're both struggling then it's fantastic they've got the support and honestly they've got a long time to form a loving bond with their parents....for now it could all be about survival.

They can both be feeling it, but that's why I say it's different than if they were going out separately.
If they're having so much anxiety about being alone with the newborn, there's no reason they can't invite family over while one or the other goes out to help build that confidence. Beyond that, if they're having so much anxiety about caring for their own child that they'd rather leave the child with friends, that's something that they need to seek help for. This is also where "helpers" caring for the parents so the parents can learn to care for a newborn comes into play. There's simply no logical reason for the "help" to consistently be taking the child rather than taking on other household responsibilities when both parents seem to be available for involvement (rather than the father being back to work long hours or deployed, for example).
Even if they're struggling, this is quite simply a poor way to cope. I'm not saying they're bad parents if they can't figure out a better way to cope. She asked if we thought it was wrong. You can do things "wrong" and still love your child. But, yes, I think what they're doing, even if it's a coping mechanism, is objectionable in light of the fact that they seem to each be available to share the load and instead choose to "unload", as it were, on others instead of taking the time (when it sounds like they may each be on parental leave) to learn how to cope more sustainably and be there more for their newborn.

 

[sue_88]

I do see what you're saying, even though I don't agree.

Perhaps the people round them don't wish to do chores or haven't been asked or haven't offered.....it's just all too blurry to say it's wrong.

I do agree deeper help might be needed if they're struggling, but also at the end of the day they could be a couple of idiots who want a doll to dress up so pass off baby for the messy bits. We just don't know.

I wouldn't do it, my job as a mum was 24/7 from the off, but my opinion is I don't think it's wrong or neglectful what they're doing.

 

[Pearls18]

Haha I haven't even read the replies but I'm just laughing at the jump from leaving baby for TWO WHOLE HOURS to them not raising the child. Honestly I find when people make these kinds of judgements it comes from their own insecurities or jealousy.

 

[MommyJogger]

I do see what you're saying, even though I don't agree.

Perhaps the people round them don't wish to do chores or haven't been asked or haven't offered.....it's just all too blurry to say it's wrong.

I do agree deeper help might be needed if they're struggling, but also at the end of the day they could be a couple of idiots who want a doll to dress up so pass off baby for the messy bits. We just don't know.

I wouldn't do it, my job as a mum was 24/7 from the off, but my opinion is I don't think it's wrong or neglectful what they're doing.

I can see where you're coming from, too. There's definitely a laundry list of reasons that could make their actions make some sense. We'll never know.

 

[MommyJogger]

Haha I haven't even read the replies but I'm just laughing at the jump from leaving baby for TWO WHOLE HOURS to them not raising the child. Honestly I find when people make these kinds of judgements it comes from their own insecurities or jealousy.

I think the stress on 2 hours wasn't about how long they left the baby for, but how long it took to go buy milk, lol. It made me chuckle a little because just the day I read it, I'd gone out on a ~2h "milk" trip just prior. Made me blush a little.

 

[catty]

I also see what your saying MommyJogger I just felt like the post came across as the poster possibly jealous, I mean she feels 'very very angry' and feels that there crap parents basically. Just came across like she wanted more help and it wasn't really about the friend?

 

[sue_88]

Very true which does link us in nicely to most people first thoughts that it's not very nice to be so judgmental and angry about is as OP seems.