The beautiful thing about pets is you can give them a morning walk, feed them breakfast, place them in a large crate with a comfy blanket and a few chew toys, and go on your merry way to work. Now that I'm having a baby, it's time to face the reality of making day care arrangements.
The first six months are set. ACNM has maternity policies that encourage breastfeeding, so I'll be bringing baby boy to work with me until he's six months old. (Well, he's not allowed to stay if he's an inconsolable screamer, but two boobs, a vibrating chair, and a sleep sheep say that won't be a problem.)
Mid October is when baby boy will have to enter the real world of full-time day care. This past week I took my first tour of a place 1 mile from my office: Quality Time Early Learning Center. It was awkward. I had no idea what to ask. The building was nothing special, but clean and nicely decorated with children's crafts. The director led me down a basement stairwell to the infant room, where six babies and two staff seemed content enough. There were swings, cribs, lots of toys, and educational posters hung at baby eye level. The price is right. The location is great. The online reviews are overwhelmingly positive with an average 4 out of 5 stars, and the few negative ratings aren't tagged to anything relevant or specific.
But I'm still hanging onto my checkbook with the deposit fee that would guarantee baby boy a spot in October. I have a bad feeling that I can't pin to anything specific. Is it the mediocre appearance of the building? Is it the merely adequate level of friendliness the director showed me? Is it my hesitation to let anyone besides me spend 40 hours per week with baby boy?
I was hoping my first day care visit would be overwhelmingly positive and spare me the chore of looking for more options. Waiting lists are long and prices are high. Because I waited so long to get started, I'm not even sure that I have many options.
What would you do? If you're already a mom, what did you do when it was time to make this decision?
It is such a challenging decision. When I went back to work (when my youngest was 3), we found that an in-home licensed day care met our needs really beautifully. I felt like my children had consistent care from someone who was fully invested in them. We much preferred it to the high turnover of many daycare centers and we felt that she was much more open to listening to our preferences in regards to our children's care.
ReplyDeleteLow child to caregiver ratio and low turnover would be important to me. If I needed full time child care and could afford it, I'd hire a nanny, with an in home day care that didn't take many children (and ideally no other infant) my second choice. The trade off is no back up when the caregiver is sick/unavailable. It would be important to me that my child be able to form an attachment to the daytime caregiver and not have to deal with a lot of transitions. I'd also love it if the place would be close enough for me to go nurse at lunchtime.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a good pump? I really like my Hygeia Enjoye (and my Pumpease hands free pumping support, use code BOGOcHERRY for 2 for 1 pricing on the Verry Cherry print during February). 3 year warranty is pretty awesome and they're WHO Code compliant. Before this I had the Lansinoh pump and the Hygeia is nicer.