My youngest daughter has recently started at nursery and while she seems to be enjoying it, boy has it resulted in her hating me. For the past year, we’ve had a special bond. Mostly because of a sling. But a special bond nonetheless. For the first two months after she was born, she slept on me from 8pm for a good four hours, sometimes six if we were lucky. It was a particularly hot summer in Bristol and so I put her in a sling and went for walks every night, exploring the city, getting to know its nooks and crannies, and I burned through a lot of podcasts as she slept. (Aside: thank you to Mostly Lit, Book Shambles, Another Round, Code Switch, Made of Human and No Country For Brown Men for soundtracking those long, tiring walks.)
The point of the walks was to ensure our household got some sleep and so did she. Sure there were bad times, like when it was raining, or when she did an explosive shit all down my favourite T-shirt and I had to bin it and rush home topless, accidentally running into work colleagues all having a fag outside a pub, bemused at the sight of me, topless with a baby resting on my beer belly, asleep in a soiled babygrow. There were also great times: like how she met Neneh Cherry and went to watch an early doors stand-up set by Jonny and the Baptists.
It got to a point where, if she was ever really upset, all I had to do was cradle her into my chest and the familiarity of sleeping peacefully in that position would instantly calm her. Even though the walks ended, because my-oh-my they were not a sustainable way of ensuring a baby slept, we still had a special bond. That is, until she started nursery. It was sensibly suggested that in the settling-in phase we establish consistency around her being dropped off and being picked up. So, I drop her off at the same time every day – we take my eldest daughter into her room and then we go to the baby room and I hand her over. I always make sure she sees me say goodbye so she knows that I’m going and coming back and that the person I’ve handed her to is to be trusted. She has the same routine at pick-up, too. And it’s really helped her to settle in. She will like going there in the same way that our eldest does. It was the same for our eldest: for consistency, I’ve always done the drop-off.
Since I have become the abandoner, the special bond has been broken somewhat. Perhaps it needed to be, so she could begin her journey to independence. But bloody hell it’s hard when she strains to get away from me, pushes me away, runs away when I say goodbye on days she’s not going to nursery. Sure, it’s not consistently like this, but the change is noticeable. If we’re ever in the same room as the person who picks her up, she will run away from me and insist that they pick her up.
It was the same with my eldest daughter. I have vivid memories of dropping her off at nursery, her bursting into tears and me leaving and walking down the road to the sounds of her crying her eyes out. It filled me with such intense sadness that I was abandoning her. The nursery staff always insisted that the tears were shortlived and, soon, sure enough, she made friends and was running to nursery, into the toddler room and playing with her best mate before I could even get her coat off. We got through the other side.
Of course, children will go to school and begin their own lives, away from their parents, and develop their personalities and friendships and experiment with independence away from us, and while my youngest daughter settles and processes what is happening to her, the easiest visceral reaction will be to view me as the abandoner.
I know it’ll change. And I also know that she won’t always be that tiny precious bundle, tightly strapped to my chest as I walk around Bristol, cuddling her and whispering my internal monologue in her ear. And yet, to me, she always will be.
