Donovan starts daycare

I can't believe that my maternity leave is OVER.  It was a very fast 15 weeks.  And, honestly, I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be over.  But it is, and since we are accustomed to our lifestyle, and I couldn't handle two babies all day, and I like my job, my leave is over.

Which means that Donovan is now in daycare.  We send him to the same place we send Jocelyn.  But Jocelyn never went to daycare as a baby since my MIL moved down to take care of her.  She started up as a toddler - already walking, saying a few words (and I mean a few.. Mama, Dada, milk and more, maybe a few others), etc.  She could play with toys.  She could flip through books.  She could communicate what she wanted fairly clearly (or clearly enough).

Donovan, on the other hand, is 15 weeks old.  He can't even sit up.  He is still mastering thumb-sucking!  He can hold his head up, and is huge, but he is truly just a baby.  And it's not that the caregivers aren't great.  They seem really good.  And most of the babies seem happy (and some are only happy when held, and you can't hold a baby all the time).  I just feel bad that most of his day is spent strapped into a bouncy chair, or hanging out in a crib.  They don't even get to all be held while eating because sometimes more babies need to eat at once than there are grownups to feed them.  When that happens, the caregivers give bottles to babies in bouncy chairs.  They can hold two bottles and satisfy two babies, but the babies don't get the cuddles. 

The director does pop into the baby room fairly frequently and lend a hand.  I think it is because she loves babies.  She comes in, gives them cuddles, comforts them, etc.  Today she was rocking with one in each arm.  It was very cute.  With a director like that in place, I have a lot of confidence in the facility.

Donovan's first day didn't go great.  He was fine at drop off, but when we popped in midday, I could hear him crying when we walked in the main door.  We bumped into one of Jocelyn's old teachers who was all, "I just saw him, he was fine, that's not him crying."  Well it was, because I know my boy's cry.  We got in there and he wasn't crying anymore, but had the look of a baby who was.  He hardly ate anything, hardly slept, didn't poop, and was very cold.  I nursed him while we were there.  He ate hard and then passed out.  Then at the end of the day he fell asleep in Mike's arms and slept there for quite some time.  We only had about an hour of Donovan awake time before he passed out for the night.

I was sort of a wreck this morning when we dropped him off, but he seemed perfectly happy to be there and was laughing with us before we left.  So if there was trauma, he didn't take it with him.  He did MUCH better!  He drank just about all of the milk I sent in, took two short and one good nap, had a poop and was much warmer (I dressed him in long sleeves and jeans today).  We popped in at lunch again, and he was screaming again, but it was because he was hungry.  They had just gotten his bottle from the fridge and hadn't warmed it yet, so I just nursed him.  Again, he ate hard, but this time he didn't pass out.  And he had eaten well all morning, and had a nap already.  We played and laughed and cuddled for a bit before heading back to the office. 

The moral of the story is that I think he is going to be fine.  They said that he is adjusting much faster than most children do.  He is already laughing with them and smiling a lot.  He loves it when they wash his hands after diaper changes.  He giggles away (we don't do that, so the newness might be part of it).  My little man is a champ! 

He has been extra tired since starting, though.  I don't know if it's that he doesn't sleep as much while there (he takes lots of nursing cat naps with me during the day), or if he is coincidentally going through a growth spurt, but he has been asleep for a big chunk of the evening.