I dread leaving my baby for work

DEAR BEL, MY MATERNITY leave is coming to an end and I’ll be back at work in a few weeks. I’m 25 with a beautiful daughter of nine months.

It took over four years and a miscarriage before God blessed me with her.

She is very clingy and hardly ever goes to anyone except me.

This might be because I’ve spoilt her, let her become too attached — and now I will pay the price.

The plan is for a family member to look after her while I go to work.

All I can think about is how she’ll be crying for me but I’ll be at work.

I’m trying to get her to build a relationship with the family member, but still I keep thinking about her wanting me, and that just breaks my heart.

My husband and I have a mortgage and there’s no way we can afford to live on one wage, otherwise I wouldn’t go back!

I keep looking at her sleeping, thinking she has no idea what will be happening soon, she probably thinks she will have me around always.

This is killing me. I keep wishing women hadn’t decided to enter the workplace and stayed at home to bring up the kids.

I haven’t left her for five minutes since she’s been born! I feel for the family member having to look after a screaming child who just wants her mum.

My husband says she will be fine after a week or two and I’m worrying too much.

I keep crying at night and keep thinking I’ll break down at work.

Any advice you have would be helpful. ANNE

Ah, where to start? My heart is full of sympathy for a young mother who went through so much to hold her adored baby daughter in her arms. She is indeed a blessing, as you say.

On the other hand, my head is telling me that you must face up to this stage in your life as countless other women have done, and collapsing in a heap at a perfectly normal situation will do no good to you, your husband or your child.

It’s a wonderful thing for a mother to be so full of love, but you must also realise that it can be quite destructive in the long-term for a child to be ‘spoilt’ and clingy.

You say you wish women hadn’t ‘decided’ to work. As one who entirely supports the decision of any woman to be a stay-at-home mum, I must also point out that working women in previous centuries juggled child care and the workplace because they needed the money. Just like you.

Not ‘choice’, but necessity. Countless devoted mums have felt the initial tearing in their hearts when they first say bye-bye. And you know what happens? Baby frets a bit at first (as babies will) then just settles down happily with the person looking after him/her — as long as that person is constant.

By the time my adored first child was nine months old (this in 1974) I was screaming up the walls and longing to return to freelance journalism.

So I got help. Believe me, I felt guilty from time to time, but today I doubt a mother and son could be closer than Dan and I.

he learned valuable social skills from different people, learned that Dad went away but came back, knew from every cuddle and bedtime story that Mum just adored him.

Can I gently point out that you are writing a scenario of your daughter screaming in your absence because you secretly want this to be the case? That’s not good.

You need to visualise her playing happily with her carer, having fun at a local playgroup, learning that the world is full of other people.

In time she will go to nursery, then pre-school, then primary school — and you really cannot collapse in a heap at every step of the way. Love isn’t weakness; grown-up love is strong and lets go with a smile and a cheerful wave.

This is how it must be. Please listen to your husband because he is absolutely right.