Imy Wax & Associates

The first rule of thumb that a mom uses in decid­ing when is the right time to involve other peo­ple in car­ing for the child is after there has been a period of time that she has been able to observe the com­fort or dis­tress level of that child… in other words how “fussy” is your child? How well do you know what makes the child feel com­forted? Do you under­stand the child’s dis­po­si­tion? Is it easy going, or does she/he like to sleep a cer­tain way? At a cer­tain time? Do you have a sched­ule and struc­ture in place that would be easy to fol­low by some­one else? For exam­ple, the time to sleep, to eat, to play, etc. When you and the child have a “rhythm” together then you know you are ready to intro­duce a new per­son.


Sec­ondly, pick­ing that other per­son can be a chal­lenge more than you think.
There is noth­ing sweeter to a fam­ily mem­ber, espe­cially a grand­par­ent, for exam­ple, when they are called upon to help in the care of their grandchild…well, maybe. The present gen­er­a­tion of grand­par­ents, while eager to help, are also very active in their own lives. Many are still work­ing, or enjoy­ing the fruits of their labor. They want to con­tribute but feel con­flicted. They want to “fill-in” but do not nec­es­sar­ily desire to give up days each week, all year. Are they the right peo­ple to count on to be con­sis­tent as care­givers?


The child needs a per­son who, from early child­hood, does not nec­es­sar­ily “sub­sti­tute” for the mother but is some­one avail­able con­sis­tently, intro­duced to the child slowly, until they too under­stand the “rhythm” of that child. I remem­ber inter­view­ing care-takers when my chil­dren where very lit­tle. I needed to start back to work but wanted to feel reas­sured that this new per­son was on the “same wave-length” as my child. This took place years ago before hid­den cam­eras. I had hired this person(s) to come over for a few hours when I knew my child was “up.” I didn’t stay in the room with her but sim­ply observed from a dis­tance. I was look­ing to see whether this per­son tried to make my child con­form to her time table of when to play, be fed, or be held, and when my child was ready for this to hap­pen.  If you have invested time in get­ting to know your child, you will see that you can observe and ana­lyze this dif­fer­ence.


It is always dif­fi­cult to “let-go” of your child, no mat­ter how old they are. But the best time to “share” your child is when you feel con­fi­dent that you and your child have “bonded.” You are able to respond to your child as though he/she has been with you for­ever. It’s when you know that your child rec­og­nizes you to be the pri­mary giver, the per­son who can be counted on to return. Chil­dren can develop a timetable of their own that allows them to feel secure, too.