Thursday, January 27, 2011
Finding Child Care
I knew right from the beginning that I would want to return to work. Return to my career, my work structure, that thing that has made me tick for all of these years. I really do love my job. There are times when it is trying. But who has a job that isn't?!
But now embarking on this new adventure of parenthood has me completely confused. How do you know when you have found the right person to take care of your little one while you are away? Dayhomes? Daycares? Which one is right? At one point, I thought that I should just stay home and open my own dayhome service. But then quickly realized that this is not for me. Not right now anyways.
Interviewing people to take care of your children seems intimidating. And being a person that my judge before I get there thinks. What if they are just putting on a show because I have made an appointment and they know that I am coming? Why can't I just show up unannounced to see what day to day life is really like. Which is why I though daycare. But.....the daycare doesn't have the flexibility. What if my baby girl needs to nap in the morning? She can't do that at daycare. Uh. So here I am a week before I am "suppose" to start calling dayhome agencies and I wonder....should I go to the appointment that I have booked to talk to the women who was willing to hold my spot for three months? Is the spot still open as I spoke with her over a week ago? If the spot is still open why? I know why she will hold the spot...because she will want me to pay to hold it. I can't afford that. So today we will cancel with her. I have a daycare spot. An expensive daycare spot. So my search now includes dayhomes and ensuring that we find the best care (in our opinion) for our little girl.
Wish me luck!
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Well, all I can tell you is that they are both good options :) When we had to put Taylor in some sort of care at 14 mths we were fortunate to find anything at all so we took what we could...a dayhome. When we went to talk to her we didn't ask any questions really about the childcare, rather we let Taylor and her interact a bit (as well as the other kids) and mainly just talked random things with her. We figured if we got along with her so would our daughter. Once we got that feel (you will know if someone is being fake)we then talked the details. Sadly, a year later her husband was transferred and we ended up in a daycare. For me, looking at the daycares was more a feel i got from the location (cleanliness) as well as the menu. All the kids at this daycare have to be at least 2 and in that class they still get afternoon naps. Because it is also a montessori school, Taylor is learning things that continually shock me and she has made many friends. She actually misses daycare on the weekends :) Overall we have been lucky with both. I think the dayhome was ideal for us at that age bse she got more one on one time and was able to nap when needed, but now I think the daycare is ideal bse of all the structure and learning activities she does---although it is a lot more expensive!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your hunt and trust your gut :)
Yeah for starting a blog. I hear you, so not fun. I hear the anticipation is worse than the actual going back and have someone else take care of your baby.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post really i was waiting for this kind of post so long.thanks for the post.sharing with us.
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