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1. MAKE A CALENDER. Be religious about it. APs want predictability. Tell them exactly what hours they must be fully available to you and what hours they can watch tv and surf the internet. I love google calendars.

2. SCHEDULE TIME OFF. I wasn’t good about this at first, because I felt like my AP had lots of time off. About 2 weeks in, when I wrote on the calender, “AP’s day off” my AP was so excited and planned a trip to the mall. I realized she wasn’t bold enough to schedule her own activities during downtime unless I was explicit about it.

3. SCHEDULE TIME ON. Schedule her for a lot of hours, at least as many as you will expect her to use when you go back to work. You don’t want a variation of the summer AP problems that have been discussed on this site — when APs are resentful of suddenly having to work more.

There are lots of good ways you can use the AP when you have an infant less than 3 months of age. I found that my AP was anxious to work without me hovering over her. We have a office in our attic, and I spent good blocks of time down there. I napped. I prepared nice dinners while AP entertained the baby. I made it clear that when she was scheduled to be on, diapers and everything else were her responsibility. I was breastfeeding, so she would interrupt me to feed the baby. I would also leave the AP with your toddler and take the baby out. Much easier to lunch with friends, dinner with husband with only an infant in tow. I also would run errands — those 5 stop days where you are in and out of the car and leave AP in the car with the baby. No struggle in and out of the car seat, no waking the sleeping baby. Made my life so much easier.

I will try to think of how else we transitioned, but it was worked really well for us.

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new HM — you made me LOL. While I love nothing more than eavesdropping at a coffee house, I’ve spent many more hours there than I really needed to, or even could afford to, simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of going into the house, interrupting the flow there, and then getting sucked into Mommy role. My other trick is to take the laptop out to the car, b/c I can catch my home’s wifi from the street without being seen and catch up on email or do other house management tasks. You can also usually find free wifi spots near public libraries.

I have always found it helpful to kindly but clearly tell the kids– during those times when they run to me for conflict resolution or to lobby for something– that “AP is in charge right now. Mom is working. Go ask AP.” With repetition, and if you do not engage in the issue at hand, it really does work to extinguish that playing off of one adult against another.

I would say relish that time you have free from kid duty as well as free from working duty! Schedule coffee and lunch dates with your friends. I’m not a planner, but I’d seriously get gift buying out of the way for the next winter. Stock up on wardrobe staples for your job. I would go to the library and just sit and read all the things I know I won’t be able to later. Fiction, parenting, the New Yorker, whatever. I would also do a lot of cooking ahead and freezing meal-size portions (wow, that sounds pathetic, but it’s seriously what I do on my days off, to save myself the stress during the week of figuring out dinner).

Because when you go back to work, it’s right back onto that hamster wheel of schedule.

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Remembering what it was like for my eldest when the baby finally arrived, I’d like to seriously second the advice about Mom spending extra time with her. You’re going to need to figure out how to do this from now on, so getting into the habit of it now will make it much easier in the long run. Actually, the baby’s arrival and first several months were fine — but oh, when that baby starts to become his own person! It’s very hard on the older kid, no matter how sympathetic a child she is. Tune into that and carve out special rituals and routines.

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