 Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. So today I'm gonna be talking all about returning to work, just how I feel about it, how I've been planning for it and preparing for it. And some of the questions that you guys have asked me, either on a YouTube video or on my Instagram, how I'm planning on doing things when I do go back to work. So I thought I would address kind of all of those questions in this video and I'm gonna go ahead and just get started. So today is February 2nd and I returned to work in exactly 10 days from today. By the way, sorry if you see my dog's kind of going around the room and cash is right here. So if you're hearing him talking, that's, oh, there he is. So I go back to work in 10 days and I have a lot of mixed emotions about going back to work. I'm gonna actually tell you guys how I have prepared for when back to work and answer some of the questions before I get into how I'm feeling about it just because it's kind of emotional and I wanna get all of the good stuff out before I get emotional. So first of all, a lot of you have asked me about childcare and how cash is going to be cared for while I'm at work. So a lot of you know that Scott will be staying home. His schedule is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. He works four 10s a week and then he is home Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. He works from six a.m. until four p.m. So during the weekend days, he is actually home for a good amount of time. He's home in the evenings and through the night. So that's awesome. So on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Scott will be home taking care of cash and on Mondays and Fridays, my mom will actually be here because we are still going to be living here in my mom's house until May. So my mom will be able to help us with cash on Mondays and Fridays and then I'll have the summer break and then beginning the next school year, we will have cash in a daycare on every other Monday and Friday. So my mom will be watching him every other Monday and Friday. So he will only need to be in daycare about four days a month and that won't be until he's almost a year old. So he'll spend most of his first year of life in the care of a family member. And when he is in daycare, I don't know if he'll be in a daycare or if he'll be watched by somebody that we know because we do have a lot of friends that are stay at home. So they might be able to watch him on those days that my mom can't. So that's answering that question. Another question people have asked me is, are you planning to continue breastfeeding when you go back to work? And the answer to that is yes. I do plan on breastfeeding continuously. Obviously I won't be able to actually breastfeed but I will be pumping and bottle feeding him and we are gonna supplement with a little bit of formula because he does still eat about every two-ish hours and I'm probably not going to be able to pump enough for that. So he is gonna be supplementing with a formula and we are using the Happy Baby formula. It is an organic brand. It has no corn syrup in it. It has all the good stuff in it. It's not like similac or infamil and no offense to anyone that uses those but I'm just personally trying to do the organic healthier kind of route. So we use Healthy Baby or Happy Baby and you can get those at Target. I think you can get them at Sprouts and they're an awesome brand. And because I'm gonna be pumping, I'm gonna show you guys what I have to kind of assist me with that. So I did just go to Target today and picked up a couple of items just to kind of help me with my pumping because right now I don't really pump that often. Maybe once or twice a week because I'm home with him. So I do have the Medella... Oh yeah! So I do have the Medella backpack breast pump and it comes in the backpack. It's already in here and it does come out but there's no reason to take it out but it is just this Medella pumping style I guess you'd call it. I believe you can get this at Target. I got mine through my insurance company so if you have insurance, I would call and see if they cover a breast pump. Mine was covered 100% and then I upgraded to this one. So it comes like this. It has all these pouches so this is where the pump tubes are and then it also comes with this big compartment which has a little ice chest in it and the ice pack actually is in the freezer right now because I am going to my classroom tomorrow all day so we're gonna try out the schedule and so my ice chest is in there but this is a little ice chest and then I will be bringing my nursing pads with me just in case I weak or anything and then I have an extra nursing or pumping bra in here and then there's a little like battery pack thing which I probably won't use because I'm gonna be probably leaving this at work honestly during the week because I don't need it here so I have the cord that plugs into the wall and it's nice that it's a backpack so that when I'm carrying it back and forth it is easy to carry. So this did come with the brush shields and the membranes and the valves so I have two of those already and then I also have two hand pump valves so I plan on bringing all so I went to Target and bought a couple more so these are just the brush shields with the valve and the membranes already in them and so I bought two more of these these are $10 kind of expensive but I'm gonna be, there's about three times in the day that I can pump so I figured if I had three sets of valves and brush shields then I would be able to not have to wash them so I will be bringing these back and forth to home and school so that I don't have to use dirty ones and if for any reason I did forget to bring a pair or needed to wash them I found these Medella Quick Cleaning Wipes and they're made for cleaning your breast pump pet things, shields and accessories and just for like a quick clean like if I forgot to bring something and I needed to wash it because you do need to wash your valves and your shields between every use so I did buy two of these so I will be taking those with me as well so I'll show you guys the nursing or the pumping bras that I have I have two of them and they look like this and they just have like the opening for the pump to go in and I don't plan on wearing these on the daily I'm just gonna bring them and what I usually do is I pull the nursing bra like I open it and pull it down and then I just kind of strap this around me so that I don't have to wear this at work because it's kind of uncomfortable but you guys see what it is so I will be pumping at work and I do have, so the way my schedule is set up is we have specials at 9.30, 9.35 and then we have lunch at 12.35 and then school is out at 3.30 so I do plan on pumping every three hours which is gonna be perfect that'll get me three feedings and then my mom will be supplementing with or my mom and Scott will be supplementing with two formula bottles and three breast milk bottles so that will be perfect for cash he'll get plenty, he'll get enough and he'll be fed and happy so that is what I'm planning to do as far as breastfeeding goes and pumping goes and it should work out just fine you know I'm just gonna have to put a little sign on my door that says do not disturb and just let my principal know and my instructional specialists know that if I have this sign on my window just don't disturb me or wait until this time because I plan on pumping for a good like 10, 15 minutes in my break time so that will obviously make prepping and such a little harder and difficult if I'm not planned and prepped so I do plan to get to school at seven o'clock every day between seven and 7.30 so that I have a good hour to prep for the day so I did start planning lesson plans about a month ago and I do have the first two weeks of lesson plans planned out and that is so that I can be kind of ahead and that way before and after school if I'm already prepped I can plan for the next week hi baby so my thoughts and feelings about returning to work are I have mixed feelings obviously you know I love my job I love my students and I'm very you sound like you're burping oh you got hiccups and I'm very eager to return to my students and my work because I'm not a person that likes to just sit around and do nothing and where caring for a baby is not doing nothing but it is a lot of sitting around and where I get bored and stuff sometimes I truly truly have enjoyed these past three months of being with my son and bonding with him and I feel that we have bonded a lot more in the last couple of weeks because he's gotten to a point in his development where he recognizes me and like he smiles and he laughs and he's chatty and you know he's gonna start getting to a point where he plays and sits up and crawls and I'm really scared that I'm gonna miss all of that and you know I don't wanna be at work when something happens and a milestone is reached and I miss it so I'm really I'm looking forward to returning but I'm broken hearted that I have to leave him and everyone said you know is there a way that you can stay home you know and no I mean you guys know teachers already don't make a lot of money and if I stayed home financially we would just be stressed and you know we need two incomes and my little princess business on the side just doesn't really cut it and so I have to return to work and fortunately for us he's gonna be cared for by a family member you know for the most part and until he's old enough to go to preschool or you know old enough to be in a daycare for a couple of days a week he won't have to be there every single day so I do have peace with that information you know with that arrangement and I'm very thankful for that and I feel very blessed because not a lot of teachers get to say that their baby stays home with their family member like they go to daycare or like childcare and that's sad you know like I'm glad if somebody's gonna experience and witness those milestones in his life that it's gonna be his dad or his grandma you know and I told them that if he crawls or does something when I'm not there they're not allowed to tell me about it they have to wait until he does it again when I'm home so that I can experience and it can be his first time with me so but I have you know the last couple of days well about the last week I've been getting a little bit emotional about it you know I don't want Cash to not know me I don't want him to I don't want to not be his favorite you know but I know that there's tons of moms out there that work and they're still their baby's love of their lives and I just have to remember that you know he is going to know me he is going to remember me and love me because I'm his mama and it's just it's hard but you'll be okay right? you'll be okay and the fact that I can still give him my breast milk and give him the best nutrition that he can get is awesome a lot of people work at places that wouldn't allow them to do that or they wouldn't have the time to do that and I'm really glad that I do huh boogies he's like infatuated with my ring light which is super distracting on my glasses I know what look at him he's getting so big he's through 12 weeks old he's almost three months old guys he'll be three months old when I go back huh boogies and as far as sleeping goes like he's sleeping pretty good through the night like he gets me up once in the middle of the night and then he sleeps he goes about like 9.30, 9 o'clock he wakes up around two or three and then he goes back to sleep until about six or seven so really I'm gonna be able to get a good night's sleep and he's probably gonna start sleeping even through the night pretty soon too so we'll be okay huh boogies huh boogies so anyway guys that is it for my how I am planning and preparing for my return from maternity leave and if you guys have any other questions please don't hesitate to leave them in the comments down below and I uh I look forward to getting back into teaching and to getting into my teacher vlogs and everything like that so you guys will see lots of lots more teacher content on my channel when I return and hopefully that's a baby stuff too so thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you in the next video see you bye bye see you bye bye