So it’s time for you to leave your little poop making machine for the first time to venture back to work. Your wonderful coworkers who will undoubtedly want to know every detail. If you are lucky enough to have an employer with a good work/life understanding then, as a dad, you probably got a little bit of time off when the new little one came around. Unfortunately not every company has the same views on this. Thankfully for us dad’s it’s starting to become more common.
Regardless of whether or not you fall into the days off, there will be a time when you have to go fulfill an obligation outside of being a dad. This won’t be fun no matter what that obligation is. The first time away from your little one is going to bring on a whole new wave of emotions you are not used to feeling.
“What do I do now?”
There is a sense of confusion that comes with trying to go back to your old routines. How do you go back to doing the same things you have always done when everything else in your life is drastically different now? Well, the short answer is, you don’t. Nothing is going to be exactly the same but that just means its time to find your new normal. This is easier for some people (jerks) than others (the rest of us). There may or may not be a correlation with the sleep you are or are not getting. The important thing is getting to a point where you can start feeling good about where you are operating on a daily basis.
“Tell me everything”
You will get to a point when telling the birth story sounds more like you are reading a script than actually having a conversation. Everybody and their sister will want to know how it went. The closer that person is to you (or they think they are to you) the more details they will ask to hear. Don’t feel pressured to keep the narrative going just for the sake of making them happy. Only share as much as you are comfortable with people knowing about one of your most vulnerable moments.
“Whats the baby doing now”
Whether the new bundle of joy is with mom, another family member, or off to a babysitter there will be a constant feeling of wanting to know what the baby is doing. The longer you were home with the little one before going back to work the stronger this feeling will be. Nothing wrong with missing the kiddo. Afterall, it makes going home every day all that much better.
Overall going back to work is often a necessity we must face. Just know, no matter how you are feeling about going back you are not the only one feeling that way. It is never easy to leave the little one at home but it gets a little easier as time goes on.