Who Wants to Watch a Baby?

With our trip rapidly approaching, it means summer is winding down and, unfortunately, so is my maternity leave. I feel very fortunate that I was able to stay home with Connor for almost 14 weeks, and I am eternally thankful to my husband for assuming the lion's share of our bills for the past several weeks when my money ran out.  As difficult as it will be for me to return to work, all good things must come to an end and, truthfully, I do miss my job and the adult interaction that comes with it. Plus, if I stay home too much longer, I think I'll be really fat and addicted to daytime television.

So, that being said, it's time to get serious about child care for Connor.I figured we have three options: (1) find a nanny to come to our house and watch him; (2) find someone who babysits a group of children in her home; and (3) daycare. I've been spending a lot of time in the past few weeks researching daycares and looking at ads posted on craigslist and care.com, as well as talking to other working moms about what they do with their children. Ideally, I'd like to have someone come to our house to watch Connor. But, since I haven't been able to trick anyone into spending 8-10 hours a day watching my baby and my dogs, and doing some light housekeeping before making us dinner, for $20-$30/day, I think we will have to eliminate that option for now. 

At first, I was thinking that daycare would be a last resort. I had horrible images in my head of a facility where all the kids have runny noses and just mill around with minimal supervision. And, in my head, the facility smells like pee. There's really only one daycare I was interested in/would consider enrolling him in, and earlier in the week I called to see if they had any openings because I had heard they usually have a waiting list for infants. Turns out, they do have an open slot, so I went to tour it yesterday morning. Here is a link to the website: http://www.bostleyschildcare.com/ I was very impressed! At first I thought I preferred having someone watch Connor (and other) kids in a private home, but my tour really got me thinking. Some positives of daycare:

• They are always open. You don't have to work around their vacations, doctor appointments, etc.
• They have set hours, so you know what is expected of you. As Ryan will tell you, I often underestimate the time it will take for me to "finish up" at work. With daycare, if they say they close at 5:30, I know I HAVE to be there by 5:30 or else I will appear to be the shameful mom who forgot her child. Or, even worse, Connor will be forced to sit on the curb and wait for me. I think if he was at someone's house, I'd tend to think "well, 10 minutes doesn't really make that much of a difference."
• At Bostley's, there are several different rooms, grouped by age. There are no more than 8 babies (under 1 year) and they have a ratio of 1 staff member for every 4 babies. Even though some days I feel overwhelmed with attending to my ONE baby, I like the idea that Connor will have the opportunity to be given plenty of attention and will be in a room solely with other kids his age. I also like that they keep a daily log for parents, indicating what they did all day (in the case of infants, they report naps, # of wet & dirty diapers, times and amounts of feedings, etc.).
• At Bostley's, I know that he will be safe. It is a secure facility, and every staff member is trained in first aid/CPR. They have to adhere to strict standards of cleanliness, staff to children ratio, and safety protocol in order to maintain their license issued by the state. It is on the hospital's campus if there was an emergency, and, as an added bonus, many hospital employees take their children there and are popping over at random times so the staff has to always be on good behavior because they never know when a parent will show up.
• I have concerns about sending him to a private home where he may be the only baby - both in terms of playing and learning. At Bostley's, they start a preschool curriculum at age 3. Since he will be exclusively grouped with other children his age, he will be on the same developmental level as all of them, and will hopefully get a head start on fundamentals before entering kindergarten.
• Bostley's is only 3 blocks from our house and about 1/2 mile from our offices. They encourage moms & dads to visit at any time. I could easily go see him over my lunch break, especially if I'm still breastfeeding.

I still plan to call a woman who watches children in her home in Williamsport and whose name was given to us by Ryan's assistant, but at this point I'm actually leaning towards daycare, even though it is more expensive (although daycare is less expensive than hiring a nanny to come to our house). I'm still struggling with the decision but after talking with some of my professional friends who have enrolled their children in various daycares and are pleased with the decision, I feel better. Looks like Connor can also sleep better knowing that he's not going to be home alone all day when I go back to work.

 

It's really a shame he can't get comfortable.