Babble

What are you using for childcare? Are you happy with it? How did you arrive at your decision? We use a daycare center and are mostly satisfied with it. There are benefits and drawbacks, as with any choice.

I share a nanny with another family and I love the care she provides for my son. He is a very happy baby. That said, I must say my choice has been an expensive one. I've never been so broke!

we have a housekeeper / nanny. my husband and i are both freelance and at the moment we're working at home, but not a lot...so our 8-month old gets time with all three of us each day right now which is great. our baby loves our housekeeper / nanny. i guess i don't really know what to call her because she does both. my parents gift to us for the year was to pay almost 1/3 of our housekeeper/nanny for the year. it is by far the best gift i've ever received. right now things are running smoothly, but today i panicked for a moment when i thought about the fact that she's currently seeking political asylum in the united states and if she doesn't win her case in june, she'll be deported. i would be devestated for her and it would be hard on our household as well. we feel so blessed to have found the right person to integrate into our family life.

Our 18 months old daughter is at a homedaycare, which she absolutely loves. When she started at around 15 months, she was the only kid there. We liked that for the first little bit, just 'cause she wasn't used to being with tons of other kids all day long. Once she felt at home there, we were ready for her to have some playmates, but it took a while before that happened. Now, there's one little boy there, one day younger than she is, and the two of them are great together. She loves going there much more now and as soon as they see each other in the mornings, they start screaming (joyfully) at each other, laughing their heads off and start playing before I even have a chance to take off her coat.

For us, it's more of a mixed bag, though it's got more good things in it than bad ones. Our daycare provider usually is great, but every once in a while she does something completely bone-headed... like call us on a Sunday night to tell us that she forgot about her doctor's appointment on the following Monday, but that we shouldn't worry 'cause she got her neighbour, whom we don't know, to take the kids for the time she'd be at her appointment.

This kind of thing doesn't happen often, but we are a bit torn about it all. The thing is that we've checked out other homecare places as we were looking around the first time and were appalled. Also, I'll be going on a year's worth of mat leave as of the end of June, so we don't really want her to go some other place for just half a year. If it weren't for the occasional bone-headedness, we'd happily leave her there.

 

We're exploring this approach right now.  Could you say a few words about the ages of the two children? We can't afford a nanny just for our infant.  But I'm wondering how it works to have one caring for two, since I find it a full-time job when I'm taking care of her.  Does a shared nanny work best if both children are the same age (say, two infants)?  Or is it better for them to be different ages?  Many thanks!

Our 14 month old has been in daycare since she was 3 months old. We're very satisfied now, with only a few gripes. I feel like she interacts with other kids so well because of it... and I can see a marked difference in her behavior vs. some of our friends' kids who have very limited interaction with other kids. It's also been great for helping us get on a routine, etc. because the center is highly structured by necessity.

It all depends on the center... I was on a waiting list for our current center for 18 months (got on the list as soon as I found out I was pregnant), and our time at the "Plan B" center while we waited for our current spot was  horrible. I cried every day when I left her and seethed every afternoon when I picked her up. I know it was also due to adjusting to leaving her anywhere, but I was wholly unimpressed with the staff, and I hated feeling like I didn't have options.

Our current center is wonderful, more like a pre-school than a baby warehouse. And NO SCREEN TIME! It was worth the wait and worth the extra money. The only consistent gripe is that we don't eat meat at home, so I send a packed lunch and still have to pay for the cafeteria food. If we have another baby, though, there's no way we could afford it. Then I'll be the one posting the questions on the board!

My 8 month old has been in the same daycare since he was 10 weeks old and my maternity leave ran out. I absolutely LOVE the daycare that he attends. It is part of a k-12 private school and it is very well structured and as someone earlier mentioned - no TV time. :-) All of the teachers are very loving towards the children and the student/teacher ratio is great. I've also enjoyed getting to know the parents of the other children in my son's class. As a new mother, I have gained a bit of wisdom from some of the other parents that I probably wouldn't have had access to if my child had a nanny or au pair. The downside of daycare is the illness. I was warned about how bad the first year would be while my son built up his immune system... but nothing anyone can say will prepare you for how bad it can actually be! They also don't tell you that you will end up sick with whatever your child brings home too! So far we've dealt with bronchitis, pneumonia, pink eye, thrush... and the list goes on! I do think that it is a fair trade though for how socialized my son is. He's great with people and I like that he can observe children who are just a couple of milestones ahead of him. I think it is a great way for babies to learn!

One of the reasons we send our kids to daycare is to build up their immune systems.  They bring all kinds of crap home, and I swear I end up sick more often than they do, but I'm betting that they'll be better off in the long run. 

I think daycare offers other benefits as well.  Kids learn to interact with other children and respect adults.  The routine and structure of the day gives a sense of order to their lives.  Rules about appropriate behavior are probably enforced with more consistency than at home.  And ultimately, I want to be a parent who teaches, not a teacher who parents.  The kids learn plenty at home, but much of the reinforcement and rote learning is done at school, so it takes a bit of pressure off and allows us to concentrate on exploring creativity and indulging curiosity.

We've had a handful of part-time arrangements for our 3 1/2-year-old twins since they turned 1. We have a 3-4 hour gap to fill between my night job and the end of my wife's (usually office-based) freelancing. I suppose we've been lucky. We weren't 100% thrilled with the first local day care we used (some inattentive girls, TV), but they were flexible and since the kids were only there a few hours a day, we were OK with it. After we moved to another nabe in Brooklyn, the first place we dealt with was an improvement, but they weren't nearly as flexible and we got stuck when we needed to change our sked, say, if my wife picked up some extra work. We tried a little nanny-sharing and baby-sitting, but it wasn't reliable enough, all in all. Luckily, we found another day care in October that seems to be able to take them whenever we need to hand them off (and is quite good with activities) ... at $9 an hour each.

Next stop, pre-school angst! We're a half-block outside the zone for the "good" pre-k. We're zoned for a school in which 15% of kids read at grade level, so either we get in by lottery somewhere, or move.

I researched au-pairs, nanny agencies and all the best day care centers in Dallas when I was pregnant last summer and then found my nanny myself by placing an ad on Craigslist and doing my own interviews/reference cehcks/background checks.  My thoughts on each service-provder type are:

Agencies.  Nanny agencies charge $500/week, with only $400 going to the nanny.  I'd much rather pay the nanny all $500 as she's the one earning it.  If/when we have another child though, I may use a nanny agency to get a night nurse for the week after I come home from the hospital so I can heal/get some sleep.

Au pairs.  Growing up, my friends from wealthier families all had au pairs and they were great.  But I think they're better-suited for older children, not infants.  The way the au-pair visa process is set up now, you must use one of the 3 or 4 au pair agencies approved by the US government to bring the au pair over.  Then you can only use the au pair for 30 hours a week and are only allowed to pay him/her $300/week.  So the propcess is pretty micro-managed, but in bigger US cities, there are au pair networks/social gatherings so your au pair won't get lonely.

Day care.  I toured 6 centers near my home and found the price varies from $200-$330 per week.  I initially liked the 2 day cares that were franchises of national chains (Primrose and Creme de la Creme) better but here's the thing about franchise day cares--they have slick marketing materials but 15-20% of what you're paying to the daycare goes back to the franchisor, not into the quality of care the child recevies.  Later this year, when my nanny goes back to Romania, I'm taking my child to the montessori school near my house that's a woman-owned-and-run sole proprietorship.  I'm a montessori child myself and I know its a great way to learn.

Find your own nanny.  Most of my friends have also found their own nannies by taking out and ad online or in a paper.  The concensus is to avoid younger girls as they tend to have more absenteeism and illness.  My nanny is 54 but is very active and has never been late or missed a day.  The other thing I've found is to make your nany feel at home--let her use your tv, phone, computer, and raid your fridge, and be flexible.  Happy nanny, happy baby.  Especially when you have an older nanny who raised her own children already, be ready to at least listen to her thoughts and advice.

Care for sick baby.  Its not an issue for me right now, but once baby is going to day care and is too sick for day care (and neither me nor my husband can take a whole day off from work), I discovered that the children's hospital near my house offers day care for sick children for $6/hour (SIX dollars!  so CHEAP!).

 

Could you let me know what center you are using? I will need child care at the middle of August and would like to have some options.

 Thank you so much!

I send her to Preston Park Montessori Academy--so far I really like it:

 http://www.prestonparkchild.com/

Child care is being a serious issue in this society where life of every individual is being mechanical. Daycare centers, Nanny care, au pair care are the major alternatives every parent is looking forward for their child care. 

A day care business can be quite a lucrative one, and quite a personally rewarding one as well. Helping parents find the affordable and high quality child care, their need can provide a great deal of satisfaction.

An au pair is a young man or woman who lives with a host family and helps with the family's childcare, household chores, and other small tasks while staying as a guest. Typically, an au pair will receive a small allowance, but is thought of as an extended family member rather than an employee. 

A nanny is someone experienced and/or qualified in child care. 

Child care is more than a service that allows parents to work. It is a world that is bound to affect a child's development in many ways – physically, emotionally, intellectually, and socially. Read the steps to choosing quality Child Care.