taking babe to work

[shad]

Anyone out there take there babe to work with them or know where i can find those who do?

[earthmamafor3]

I took my baby to work when I worked. I wrote the policy for the agency I worked for and they approved it. It is still in effect!
It was still hard, kind of a blur. Looking back I don't remember her baby time very well, we were always on the go. She is very secure and happy tho, I just get sad and felt like I didn't get to enjoy it like I did my other babies I was home with. I would definately prefer NOT to work at all, but it was better than having childcare. She came full time until she was about 9-10 mos old and then still came every day, just not all day. My dh would come and get her for certain meetings, she had gotten verbal and noisy and squirmy!! She was fine in my office, tho. Everyone loved having her there, (well almost everyone!). I felt very lucky and blessed to have gotten this chance to be with her.
anything else you wanted to know?

[shad]

Yes, I would love to know the policy you wrote. Did you feel the need to write it? Did someone ask you to write it? What were those circumstances (if you don't mind my asking). And when did you find it getting to the point where you needed your dh to come get her. Maybe i am trying too hard to plan for the future! I wonder though how things will become, he is 5 months and at this point has to be held the entire time..it's getting harder!

[earthmamafor3]

Hi Shad
No one asked me to write it, altho my supervisor suggested that it would be safer and less of a hassle if there was a policy rather than me just "doing it" which is what I planned to do. So I gathered info on other companies that allowed it an dhad policies, including Mothering, Peggy wrote me a great letter that I included in my proposal. I wrote up a proposal that had three other policies from various business plus my own version for the agency I worked at. They revised it and approved it, changing very little. They didn't really stick to it as time went on, but that was to my advantage. I had one woman who during staff meetings would give me dirty looks while I breastfed and one of the four men on our staff was very careful about where he looked! Everyone else loved having her. I guess I had one complaint about taking her to a conference and not being able to participate as much as others. That was the only one.
She started to be too wiggly, distracting, even in a cute way is a distraction and verbal during meetings and classes. Even in my office, she got too busy for me to talk on the phone effectively or get much computer paperwork done. I felt that my small office was limiting and I wanted her to experience life outside, etc. Part of my job was to facilitate a mom's group so we did have some time wiht other moms and baby's. She came every morning, we had breakfast and she played while I worked. We usually took a walk down the halls to say hi to people and visit, a snack and then I would nurse her to sleep in my office on a small mat I had made her. I had my own office and just put the sign on the door, but sometimes people still walked in. It was fine, tho, for th emost part. I played music while she slept and kept the sign up so everyone who came in was quiet and it worked out fine.
When she was your son's age, I kept her in the sling until she was reaching out and messing with my paperwork or hitting the computer etc. One woman I worked with kept her son in a backpack and he was really happy there. My dd didn't like being behind me. I had a small toy box with toys I changed weekly and lots of the other people I worked with kept toys for her to play with when she visited them in their offices. I used a gate as soon as she could crawl, but everyone seemed to enjoy watching her crawl down the halls!!
If you want a copy of my policy, I can email it to you as an attachment, pm me your email if you want it!
Good luck, anything else I can help with I would be glad.

[Akayasmama]

I bring my ds to work with me. I had to write a proposal and list how it was all going to work out and how I would expect myself to react in certain circumstances. I work at a Waldorf school part-time. I do like having him with me because it is better than having him in daycare, but it hasn't been all that I excpected either. I went back to work with him when he was only 8 wks old. It was way too soon! I wished that I would have stayed home with him longer. I really don't work that many hours a week, but the hassle of getting everything ready plus myself and the baby was really hard at first. He did sleep a lot at first, so that was nice. One of the stipulations of me bringing him was that he had to be in a sling or baby carrier at ALL times. Plus I had to agree to take the children outside everyday unless it was like 30 below, and some of the days were really too cold for him to have to be outside. I almost quite after hearing their rules, but I stuck it out and they never really followed the rules, and plus, they really needed me to be there so even if I wouldn't have followed them, there wasn't much they would have done. He is a large boy 20 pounds at 5 months and it has been pretty hard lugging him around for days that I sub or work longer hours. Dh comes to get him when he is done with work and that seems to work out nicely for us.

DD goes to the school that I work at. She is 7 3/4 and by far much worse to "bring" to work. She looks at me as her mommy not her teacher and it has taken her a very long time to get over being upset at her friends when I have to redirect them or give a time out and they get mad at me and say that I am mean. :) She is ultra sensitive and is bothered by things like that and gets even more upset that I am not! :0

My sil works at a daycare and brings her son with her to work, but they are in separate rooms. She has lunch with him and when he was a baby, was able to nurse him whenever he needed it. She loves it and has never had any problems.

I don't have very many co-workers, and one in particular was/is really against me bringing the baby to work. She was the one who was pretty adamant about the "rules" I had to follow. I think now she is better, once she has realized that I am not sick, I show up to work on time, my baby does not get more attention than the other children.

Right now, I think it is a toss up as to whether or not I would do it again. I think not because I missed out on that snuggly alone time with a new baby. I still had lots of it, but not 24/7! And now that he doesn't need all that attention, he is so big that it is hard to work with him...I think it would have to be the perfect situation, kwim?

Good luck to you , though. I hope it works out well for you!

[phathui5]

I'm a breastfeeding peer counselor for the WIC Program. I take my 6 week old dd with me. I only go to the clinics on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tues, my 3 year old ds is home with dh. On Wed, he goes to his great-grandparents' house. It works pretty well so far taking dd with me. She sstill just spends the day in the sling at this point.