Daycare

I spent two years trying to have a baby, and now I’m spending time trying to find someone to hire to take care of my baby. I can’t believe I’m doing this, and every time I think of actually leaving my baby girl at a daycare center, I get a little nauseous. But it is what it is. I’m going back to work when Alex is three months old, and there’s no going around it. And I’ve looked into nannies (too expensive, and I don’t know anyone personally that would do it that I would trust, so no) and au pairs (not too expensive, but unless I knew someone personally, I wouldn’t do it) and home day care centers (no – definitely not. Unless I knew someone personally who ran the daycare, I wouldn’t trust someone with a home daycare, I’ve heard way too many awful stories). So we’ve decided that a daycare center is the way to go. It took me a few months to come to this conclusion, and I’m definitely better than how I was awhile ago. About two months ago, I started doing research and saw some videos of a local daycare, and they were showing the fabulous shots of the infant room. All I saw was the row of cribs and I burst into tears, thinking it looks like an orphanage… So I’ve emotionally progressed beyond that point, but it’s still hard.

I finally started calling around to local daycares, and determined that although many places have spots available for February, the spots are limited and are filling up, so we definitely need to make a decision soon! So for the last two weeks, I’ve been touring daycares around my area during my lunch hour. Then I’m supposed to narrow it down to three places, and the hubs and I will take off an afternoon and go check out the three top places. He works an hour away from our home, and my commute is 7 minutes, so I definitely have an advantage for looking at all these places. Plus as he told me yesterday, “You know I don’t really like talking to people, and lots of babies make me nervous!” So for him to agree to go to three daycares is pretty good. When I first started this process, I thought he would want to go to the one that I picked, and that’s it! One nice thing is there’s a woman at work who is due three weeks after me, and she has a four-year old that has gone through daycare, so she has been going with me and asking good questions. Her boy is in a preschool that doesn’t accept infants, and she didn’t love the daycares that she used when he was younger, so she’s also looking. So it’s been nice to have her along for the tours. (Although if I have to hear again how getting pregnant must be in the water at your company or some other bullshit line, I might scream. She got pregnant with her new boyfriend accidentally, while on the pill…)

After going to five daycares, which are the only ones that aren’t too far out of my way (which isn’t saying too much - I really like my 7 minute commute) and take infants, I’ve narrowed it down to three.

Daycare A: Franchise of a national chain.
Cost: $260 per week
Infant room: In room until walking, and then will graduate to higher room. Some daycares have babies all the way up to 12-13 months together, so crawlers/walkers are going all over 6 weekers!
Ratio of teachers to infants: 1 teacher: 4 infants, up to 8 in the room.
Location: best location – on the way to work, no increase in commute.
Curriculum: Nationally set curriculum, teach baby sign language, structured days as kids get older. Most curriculum-based of the three.
Pros: Location; very professional company; curriculum-based education; very efficiently run company, which appeals to me as a business woman, not sure as a mom.
Cons: Smallest infant room (very small); rumors of high turnover of staff, but the infant teacher has been there 1 ½ years, and seems very good; don’t know anyone personally that uses center.

Daycare B: Church daycare.
Cost: $225 per week
Infant room: In room until crawling, and then will graduate to higher room until walking, and then will graduate to walking room.
Ratio of teachers to infants: 1 teacher: 3.5 infants, up to 7 in the room.
Location: good. Adds about 5-10 minutes to commute.
Curriculum: Teacher-set curriculum. For babies, no real curriculum, not very structured days. For older kids, have schedule, but doesn’t seem to be a main focus.
Pros: Not-for-profit, which is a huge decision-maker for the hubs, and I’m not sure (he believes that in not-for-profits, more money goes to the babies as they’re not trying to make money, which I can see his point, but isn’t always true); Church-based, which isn’t a huge deal as we’re not super religious, but I like the idea of kids being taught right from wrong from others outside of parents; Most home-like environment (the infant room reminded me of a big living room as opposed to a school); really liked the teacher, who has been there over five years; have very good recommendations from people I know, including people who have their babies there now.
Cons: Not a big focus on curriculum, so as kids get older may not learn as much as in other preschools; can’t really think of any others.

Daycare C: Only location, for-profit.
Cost: $220 per week
Infant room: In room until crawling, and then will graduate to higher room until walking, and then will graduate to walking room.
Ratio of teachers to infants: 1 teacher: 4 infants, up to 8 in the room.
Location: furthest away. Adds about 20 minutes to commute.
Curriculum: They use a national curriculum that they purchase from a curriculum provider (not sure exactly, but this is my impression). Very structured. Teach baby sign language, and every class has Spanish lessons. Teach some using DVD’s – every classroom has a TV, which is a bit odd – different than any other daycares I toured. But they said the TV is on a program maximum an hour each day, the rest of the time it’s on music only.
Pros: I really liked the director, who seemed very good; it’s small but very structured, which appeals to me as I like the curriculum focus; I know one person who gave a glowing recommendation about this place.
Cons: Location, but that’s probably about it.

This is a hard decision. I think I’m leaning towards Daycare B or C, and it really depends on what things I want to focus on. No, the curriculum isn’t very important for my 3-month old when she first starts daycare, but what about my 3-year old? Won’t I want her to get more of an education at that age? I’m sure Daycare B won’t give her a bad education, but if I’m paying almost $1,000 per month, shouldn’t we get something more out of it than safety and well-being? I don’t know – I’m hoping hubs can help me decide, but he’s completely prejudiced about picking the church-based one, I don’t think he’ll listen to anything else. Do any of you have advice for other things I should be asking? Or things I should be considering other than the items above? This is so hard, and I feel like it’s such a big decision.

And I would really appreciate it if you would not question my decision to go back to work. I’m having a hard enough time with it myself… Thanks!