I agree. We all know that in theory if we have some 'me' time, it's good for us and it's good for our baby/child/children.

In practice, it's a bit harder to coordinate or to achieve without feeling guilty.

But when I've gone off to a cafe for an hour with a (semi)trashy mag, I am SO much more refreshed when I come back. I've had time to read articles, time to think about them and after a glass of wine time to rewrite them in my head and imagine telling my friends about them. I'm a different person when I get home and I have stuff to share with DP either about what I've read or what I've had to eat, what the service was like, who was in there etc.

It sounds trivial but life is made up of little things like this.

Last night I went to the pub and caught up with people I hadn't seen for ages. Today, I feel lighter. I can reflect on what we talked about, funny things I said, funny things they said. It makes bottles and nappies seem much more do-able because today they aren't my sole focus.

So I think do try the creche option and just see how you go. Unfortunately, it's up to us to create that 'me' time which just adds to things we have to do but no-one is going to create that time for us so we have to do it ourselves.