When is it best for a new mom to return to work?
The question of when it is most appropriate for a newborn mother to return to the workforce will have different answers depending on the situation of each family and the different temperaments of each mother. If you think purely from the baby's point of view, when is it most appropriate for the mother to return to the workplace?
Usually when the child is brought to about 6 months, the mother will obviously feel relieved. At this time, the child's development changes greatly: the child can sit on his own, can add complementary foods and slowly reduce the amount of milk, and can also slowly begin to understand the adult language and communicate with adults a little.
Mothers who are more enterprising and afraid of social disconnect will be a very good choice if they return to the workplace at this time.
If we miss the opportunity for our child to be about 6 months old, then we may have to wait for the child to be about one year old. Why? Because 8-10 months or so, the child will come to the critical period of developing the concept of object permanence, and changing the main caregiver at this time will destroy the baby's sense of security and trust in the environment and interpersonal relationships.
In simple terms, the concept of object persistence refers to the child beginning to realize and understand "this object is in front of me, but it does not always exist, it may disappear; this object disappears, but it does not disappear forever, it will still appear." Along with the concept of object permanence, the image of the "good mother" develops, that is, the child will realize and understand that "the mother has always been by my side, but she is not always there, she will disappear; the mother will disappear, but she will not disappear forever, she will return to me." ”
The two concepts developed together, but it takes time to establish them. During the whole period of concept building, it is not that the mother needs to be in front of the child all the time, but when the child needs the mother, she must appear in time to let the child know that "although I have disappeared, but I am not disappearing forever, I will come back to you." ”
If this belief is well established, the image of a "good mother" will be engraved into the child's psychology, providing him with a sense of security and trust throughout his life.
It is worth mentioning that at this stage, the child also begins to have the ability to crawl, which is a major milestone in the development of the child's movements, meaning that they have the ability to leave the adult who cares for him through their own ability.
When a child crawls away from his mother to explore the environment, he needs to be able to look back at his mother at any time; if he looks back and finds that his mother is gone, he will feel very panicked: "Is it because I took the initiative to leave my mother, so my mother disappeared?" When such things happen repeatedly, the child will be insecure and begin to cling to the mother without exploring the environment, which will affect the child's subsequent development.
So, throughout the critical period, we try to make sure that the primary caregiver is immediately available to the child when he needs it. After this critical period, the child's sense of security is established, and it does not matter much when we return to the workplace at this time!