How to Leave a 6 Month Old for 10 Days

I have had to make similar choices as a mom who travels frequently and extensively for work. I hope it helps ease your mind to hear that your baby will be FINE. Your husband, parents and brother love her and will care for her properly in your absence. At this age, your baby will miss you, but your absence for a few days will certainly NOT scar her for life! It would be different if you were leaving her with a brand-new nanny or something, but that is not the case. You are leaving her with people she trusts, one of whom is her father.

Under no circumstances should you quit your job over this. That's just a crazy thing to contemplate in this economy. Set up a Skype account, and "visit" with your baby every day on Skype so you can see that she's okay, happy, healthy. Of course you will miss her, but 10 days in the grand scheme of things isn't a terribly long time. Think about parents who are in the military and are gone for a year or more at a stretch - and their children still know their parents love them. Your baby will be fine. It will be harder on you than on her!

Meanwhile, I'll keep my fingers crossed about the passport. Ugh! Bureaucracy absolutely SUCKS!

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Absolutely positively go. Hopefully you can get a passport for her - your trip is still 2 months away. But if not she will be FINE. PERFECT, in fact. It will be exponentially harder on you than it is on her.

I think that you would be nuts (pardon my being so frank) to quit your job in this economy over one trip. You could do much more lasting harm to her by putting yourself in dire financial straits than by going away.

Try to take a deep breath, know that you have time, and know that no matter what this trip will work out just fine. Good luck.

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I would go. I understand your frustration and anxiety, but your baby will be all right and is young enough not to remember this incident. Go on the trip and don't look back with regret. I wish you luck.

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In order to change the birth certificate I would go directly in person to whatever office with CA Health Department. Don't even try to do this over the phone or through the mail. You might need to take a day off work but that might do the trick. Take every paper you might need and identification. Once you get that sorted out you should have no problem with the passport. When my baby was born we needed a passport right away so my husband hand carried all the paperwork to the records department and got the birth cerificate, SS card and put in the paperwork for the passport all in one day. In today's world there is no reason this should take 5 months, everything is computerized and all it takes is one person to correct the error and print it out. Good luck!

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Regarding the passport, I was able to renew mine in less than 24 hours, by going in to the regional office in San Francisco. there was a small expediting fee (under $100), and you gotta go early and wait like 90 minutes, but it was done. I was hoping I could get it that same day, but I might have missed the earliest window and had to return the next day to get it. i don't know anything about the birth certificate issue, but if you can get that settled in time, you can get a passport with mere days' notice.

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Have you called your congressman and Senator Merkley. He and his office are very responsive to citizens needs.
I had a great deal of difficulty ins SFO getting a passport for my six year old. They turned me down because her father could not be found (no internet in those days). I called my congressman he looked into it. A few days later I went to the passport bureau filled with people and the Headman clicking his heels told me to come back later.
I turned to the people and in a loud voice told them all my troubles. Within twenty minutes the head of the bureau in SFO handed me my child's passport. Kick up a fuss. This is a breastfed baby. You ought to have some rights in the matter.

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So sorry for the annoying roadblock to taking her with you. As others have said, you have nice support and your baby will be fine if you go. I breastfeed and took a trip away from my little one recently. A couple helpful things were to make any adjustments in routine (ie for us eliminating a middle of the night nursing as she really was old enough to go without), prior to my departure so she just had this one thing to adjust to prior to my leaving and then had one less thing to adjust to when I was gone. I also got uncomfortable engorged. Bring your breast pump with you!

Good luck :)

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You have two levels of gov't that you need to be working with, so you should contact people in both systems. With regards to the birth certificate, contact your state representatives or assembly people along with your state senator, as well as the governor's office. I won't reinerate how important it is to check those documents when you get the original for errors, time for that is long past. So contact all of those folks to move the California Dept. of Health on the issuance of a corrected birth certificate.

Second, contact both of your U S Senators and your Congressman or woman and ask each of them for their assistance with the agency that issues passports. Have them intervene on your behalf and see what can be done. You have certified statements from your doctors, your hospital. Your maiden name is on the birth certificate, your identification, SSN, ect will confirm who you are as her mother, your last name is spelled correctly... ask for their help.

If all of the above can't garner you the pass port for your daughter, then leave her with your Mom. Finding a job in this economy is tough and it would be a long time before another family wage job could become available. And there is no guarantee that you would get unemployment benefits, as this is a voluntary quit, one based on your circumstances, not your employer's. So don't count on UI benefits to back you up.

I wish you well. Make the calls to all of those people, both federal and state.

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i would say, if you can't take her with you, don't go! she will be developmentally right at the separation anxiety stage then, and it could be extremely traumatic for her for you to disappear from her life for so long (babies can't conceive of that kind of time), and it could have lifelong impacts on her and on your relationship with her. she is far more important than your family's financial plan! and it seems like if your job would fire you for not going on this trip, it is not a job worth having. plus, since you can collect unemployment, you can stay at home with your baby for a while, which could be seen as a wonderful bonus from this whole thing! she, and i think all of you, will be forever grateful.

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You sound like you are trying to be a really good mom. Tell your job to take a hike if they won't let you get out of this trip. Its probably better for you and your baby if you stay home anyway. That way you get to be her full time mommy, instead of part time mommy.

I travelled and left my 8 month old breastfeeding baby at home. I was in pain and spent alot of time pumping. It was a miserable trip. If you decide not to go on the trip, could you take a medical leave of absence rather than quit your job? Leaving for 10 days without your baby puts you at risk for mastitis, and if you are working and far from home, you won't have time for the self care you would need to stay healthy. Plus, you may be unable to resume nursing when you return. Just some things to think about.

Hi N.,
It sounds like your daughter's 'official' name is the one that is misspelled, even though it is a mistake. Perhaps you can treat it as such for the purpose of this trip. have you considered what would happen if you got the passport with the misspelled name and took your daughter to Costa Rica, then worried about fixing it after the trip? I might be totally mistaken, so be sure to seek other advise before following mine, but it seems like as long as the passport is official, she can get in and out of the country regardless of how her name is spelled. When I got married I changed my name through the Social Security office and applied for my passport with the new SOcial Security card. It didn't take that long. Is that an option?

Goodness, if I had this much support from my family I would have comfortably traveled without a worry. You've got 2 months it'll all work out and you could start to give your daughter breast milk with the bottle now to make the transition even easier. Have a great trip.

I hope it works out for her to travel with you!

If I had to choose and we could financially swing it for up to a year, I'd stay with my baby. Jobs come and go. Just my two cents about what I would do.

Would you regret leaving her? Would you regret leaving your job? I don't have a judgement on you as a parent for whatever choice you make. Just questions to consider. :)

Good luck, I really hope this works out for you!

I have been unemployed for 14 months and in that time have had exactly 4 interviews. DO NOT QUIT your job over this. Others are saying it's a great time to stay home. Yes, if economically feasible but that must not be your case if you are a working mom. Don't let the guilt trip sway you into something that may harm your finances. I agree with the poster who said you might not even qualify if you voluntarily quit.

I was unable to breastfeed so I don't know how much extra you can pump over the next 2 months. Your daughter with still be with a parent as well as other family. Not the end of the world for either of you. Keep plugging away at the passport. Something good will come out of this either way.