Several months back, I was at a meeting at, oh, let’s just say an academic center close by, and I walked past an unusual post-it on an office door: “Shhhh! Baby Sleeping.” Of course, I couldn’t resist A) peeking in and B) asking the mom how she’d managed to wrangle bringing baby to work. She didn’t want her full name revealed, or where she worked, and eventually took half a year to answer the questions I peppered her with, but here they are: 

1) Name: Sarah, Age: 37; Job: communications; Husband: Paul; Son:Cameron; Older Daughter: Eleanor

2) How long did you stay home?
12 weeks

3) How did you end up bringing baby to work? For how long?
About 2 weeks - transition between work and when the daycare opening was available.

4) How did you make it work at the office? How did he nap? How did you do conference calls? Could you leave your office for meetings? Did co-workers to help out?
He was a great sleeper, colleague enjoyed the breaks to walk him around or stroller him, I was nursing and so was either going to feed or pump about 3 times in any day.

5) How did your boss take it? Has anyone else done this before at your workplace?
My boss was great. It was a chance to get me back into the swing of the office in a slower way. Colleagues enjoyed getting to meet my son and were completely open to having him a part of meetings. No one had done this so specifically before, however, our office does make it o.k. to bring in a sick kid if need be.

6) What’s the most gratifying thing about having baby at work?
I was close to him and it made the transition easier to saying good-bye just 2 weeks later.

7) What was hardest?
I wanted to stare at him and not my computer.
Did you have any hairy moments?
No. I was o.k. leaving a bottle behind in case he needed it.

9) What would you have changed/done differently?
Nothing with him at work. I might have taken more unpaid leave before coming back.

10) Finally, what was it like when you finally sent baby to daycare? Did you miss him at work?
I miss both of them, but I love their daycare and they are sooo happy there. I’m glad I am limited to the time that they can be there (I have to pick a 9 hour slot), I’m the kind of person who needs to know that there are no excuses for not getting your kid at 5 p.m.

Cribsheeters: Any of you have unusual work/baby care arrangements? Or tried and failed? Tell us…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.