Kids Ain't Cheap

But They Sure Are Worth It

Why I’m Glad with My Decision to Put my Child in Daycare

| Leave a Comment

Are you scared to put your child in daycare? If so, I want to let you know it's not as bad as you think. Here's why I'm happy I put my child in daycare.Last week my daycare provider contacted me about being a reference or another potential family. One of her kids is getting ready to leave in the spring and interviews for the open spot have started. I couldn’t be happier to provide the reference since I am so happy with my experience in her caring for our daughter while we’re at work, pursuing our careers.

I’m of the opinion that a mother should never have to choose between a career and a family. I have never wanted anymore more than to be a mother but I also feel like I have a lot to offer my community in my career. Life is about balance and for me that’s balancing motherhood and my job. With both my husband and I working, me four days per week, him five, daycare was essential.

I already wrote about my process for choosing our provider but never talked about the positive experiences we’ve experienced since she started, 19 months ago.

She Gets to Play with Other Kids

Our daughter is our only child. When she is home with us, she gets undivided attention which, as an only child, has its pros and cons. Other than her dad and I, she has no playmates at home. While we love playing with her, interaction with other children is crucial. I love watching her interact with her peers. I see natural qualities in her (like leadership and silliness) come out that I believe get masked at home playing with her much older parents. The fact that she gets to go to someone’s home and play with two other kids her age, four days a week, makes me happy. She has so much fun.

She Gets Used to Outside Authority

No two parents, parent the same way. I enjoy having diversity in her upbringing. I like having an added variation in authority for her to get used to. Life will throw millions of different personality traits at her in meeting and dealing with new people, starting young can only help this.

She is Safe and Loved

My husband and I don’t know everything. We’re first-time parents. The woman who is caring for her not only has two children of her own but has cared for many children over the years. She is far more experienced in parenting than I will likely ever be. I genuinely appreciate what her babysitter brings to the table in terms of her parenting abilities. She is a loving, sweet woman who cares for our daughter as one of her own, I could never thank her enough for this.

Our daughter is in a safe, loving , environment where she is free to explore and learn, allowing my husband and I time to pursue interests of our own in our careers. For us this is a great balance. There was a time I was extremely reserved about sending her somewhere while I was far away from our home but I couldn’t be happier with our decision to send her to daycare.

Are/were your kids in daycare? What was your experience like?

Choosing Daycare: Finding the Perfect Fit

| 2 Comments

With my return to work fast approaching, my quest in choosing daycare for baby girl is top priority. Choosing a childcare provider is one of the hardest and most thought through decisions parents make. No one would argue that the ideal candidate for proving childcare are the parents, but in today’s world, it is more common that both parents return to work after their child is born.

I consider myself very fortunate that here in Canada I’m allowed to have a full 52 weeks off after my child is born for maternity leave. Spending the first year home with her has made my choice to breastfeed possible and dealing with her sleep issues a little easier. Having it come to a close is sad.  (For reference, women in the United States get 6 weeks of paid family leave and 12 weeks of unpaid family medical leave to care for a child).

 

Choosing Daycare Options

My husband and I sat down to discuss what type of daycare we wanted our little one to attend. Did we want a registered, licensed center with many children and providers (or employees) or did we want to find a place within someone’s home? There are pluses and minuses for both but ultimately we decided we would focus our efforts on finding a home-based care.

 

The Benefits and Risks when Choosing Daycare

Both my sister and I were raised going to someone else’s home for daycare and loved it. The benefit is that my husband and I have the choice of finding a place very close to our own home, few children, more one-on-one care, and in my mind, a more natural transition from being at home all day with mom to daycare.

The downside of looking for a home based daycare is that we as parents have to be that much more careful. Though many do, a home based daycare isn’t required to abide by the same regulations as a traditional licensed center. Choosing to look for a daycare based out of someones home means we’re required to double and triple check everything. Do they have a criminal background check? Do they know child CPR? How are their references? These are just some of the many questions we’re making sure we have answered.  Questions that should almost go without asking if we were looking at a licensed center.

Even with all this extra homework we decided to continue our pursuit to finding the perfect home-based daycare. If we came up empty handed we would re-direct our efforts to something else.

 

Jackpot!  Finding the Perfect Daycare

One of the downsides of a home based daycare is that they usually don’t have much of anything in terms or advertising. They rely a lot on word of mouth or mutual contacts. I did manage to find a few who were advertising open spaces via our online classifieds, but nothing that would work for our family. Most of them were located too far from our home.

I decided to place an ad, listing what I was looking for and managed to find what we think will be a perfect place.

The home is located two streets from our house, no more than a five-minute walk. She is a former elementary school teacher, her husband a current vice principal. She decided to stay home after her youngest was born and take a few kids in to watch while at home. She has full criminal and child abuse registry checks done, up-to-date CPR and for us Canadians, offers income tax receipts. She takes a max of four children at once. Our little one will be number four, she’s had the other three for a few years now (another good sign). We’re excited that she comes from another culture and may be able to introduce experiences, food and traditions to our kiddo we otherwise wouldn’t.

Finding a place that my husband and I were comfortable with is going to make my return to work that much easier. Though it hasn’t happened yet I have solace in knowing she’ll be close to home with a trusted individual learning new things and interacting with other children.  I’ll be sure to report how it actually goes after her first few days!

How did you chose the daycare for your children? Any tips for making my back to work transition easier?