He used to reach up for me at the daycare door.
Arms up, body leaning, that universal toddler language for “carry me.” And one day — I don’t know exactly when — he stopped. He just walked in. Backpack on, head down, already moving toward his friends. Like he’d quietly made a decision without telling me.
I stood at the door for a moment longer than I needed to.
Nobody warns you about this part of shift work motherhood. Not the missing of big milestones — first steps, first words, the moments everyone photographs. The missing of the small ones. The tiny, unrepeatable moments that happen on a Tuesday afternoon while you’re changing a patient’s dressing and your son is at daycare learning who he is becoming.
The Moments That Catch You Off Guard my experience
- The daycare photo where he looks different. Not baby anymore. Something shifted in his face — more boy than baby — and you weren’t there when it happened. You just see it, suddenly, in a photo on your phone between patients.
- The new word he already uses naturally. You come home and he says something — a real word, used correctly, like he’s known it forever. And you realise: he learned that without you. He just grew.
- The song. The habit. The preference. He has a favourite now that you didn’t know about. Something became his while you were at work. That’s not bad. It’s just a reminder that his world is bigger than the hours you share.
- His sleeping face. You check on him at night and something is different. The roundness is going. The baby softness is leaving. He looks like a little boy now, not an infant. And you think: when did that happen?
- The photo album moment. A busy few months pass. You scroll back through your camera roll and stop. “When did he get so big?” And you sit there longer than you planned to, just looking.
The Grief Nobody Names
There is a quiet grief in shift work motherhood that doesn’t have a proper name. It is not the grief of loss — he is here, he is healthy, he is growing exactly as he should. It is the grief of time. Of hours that moved without you. Of a childhood that is happening in real time and you are not always present for all of it.
You are allowed to feel that. It doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It means you love him. And you are paying attention.
What You Are Not Missing
You are not missing who he is. You are present for that — in the pickups, in the bedtimes, in the bath time chaos, in the way he runs to you specifically when he’s hurt or scared or proud of something. He saves things for you. The best things, the truest things — those he brings to you.
The Tuesday afternoon you missed does not erase the thousand ordinary moments that have made you his mum. He knows who you are. He knows you come back. That is everything.
“You have noticed everything.” That is what it means to be a mother paying attention — even when you can’t be there for all of it.
✝️ For the mum who stopped at the photo: God is present in every moment you miss. He is with your boy in the daycare room, in the nap, in the moment he learned that new word. His growing is not happening outside of God’s sight — or His care. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” — Psalm 139:16. His days are held. Even the ones you couldn’t be there for.
You are not missing his childhood. You are living it — in every moment you do have.
For more on nurse mom life in Australia: → Nurse Mom Life in Australia: Balancing Shifts, Motherhood & the Guilt Nobody Talks About
Shifting with Grace — for the mum who stopped at a photo and felt it all at once.