Keeping the balance

I had one of those "I'm a terrible mommy" moments this morning. I was invited by some other ladies in my playgroup to join their team in a women's bowling league. I figured that I will welcome the opportunity to get out especially during the winter, and plus they have in house babysitting, by a women who happens to be the mother of a friend of mine.


So today was the first day, and overall it went well. I dropped Sofia off with the babysitter and told her that she was probably tired cause I had to wake her up to get her ready to go, but she had just eaten so she shouldn't be hungry for a while. I gave her the diaper bag and went on my way. I checked on her a couple times, and at first she was fine. The second time I went in the babysitter told me that Sofia was crying a bit but not bad. I should have known that she was hungry but I was too preoccupied with my turn coming up and I said she would be fine. I guess I thought that the babysitter would let me know if Sofia was getting upset or anything, but she didn't, probably cause she had several other children to look after.

When the last game was over, I rushed in to see how things were going and I found the babysitter rocking Sofia, who was screaming bloody murder. I scooped her up and tried to comfort her, but she was way past comforting at that point. I knew by then that she was hungry and tired. The babysitter said she kept almost falling asleep but waking up again. I tried feeding her but no way, she was just plain upset. So we headed home. As soon as we got home I fed her and she passed out in my lap. She was exhausted.

I felt so bad! I know I should have fed her when she was starting to get fussy, and I should have checked on her more often than I did. It was the first time she was ever with a stranger for longer than a few minutes, so she probably just wanted me too. Even though my instincts were telling me to check on her, I didn't.

I'm sure everyone has these moments when their baby is upset and they know they could have prevented it, but I still feel terrible. I feel like I neglected her. I'm definitely going to do it differently next week. If I have to, I'll bring her out with me for a bit. It's so hard sometimes to balance everything and keep it balanced. Sometimes you accidentally lean the wrong way a little and everything falls to the ground. That's just part of parenthood I guess, but it sure is upsetting when it happens.