On January 30th, Miranda and Eleanor will start daycare at a preschool affliated with the hospital where I work. They’ll be almost six months old. Originally, we had put the girls on the waiting list to start last October, when they were two months old, but we were able to postpone their entry because my mom has been able to take care of them. There’s a bit of apprehension for all of us. Certainly, my mom will feel badly if things aren’t ideal at the daycare, but I think it would have been difficult to sustain things as they were. She went from being a part-time preschool teacher to working full-time for us–unpaid. It will be nice for her to get her life back.
Last week, I went to the daycare to fill out a huge stack of forms. Everything becomes so official when there are strangers taking care of your kids. Lots of policies and procedures. They needed to know all the details of the kids’ schedules–when and what do they eat, how much do they eat, when do they nap, how do you put them to sleep. I wasn’t sure how to answer the question, “Does your child have any unique behavioral characteristics?” I interpreted it as, “Is there something weird about your kid that we should know about?” I’m sure most parents answer “no”, as did I, so I’ll be curious to see if I’m actually right.
The daycare hours are 6:30 am until 6 pm, which will work out well for our occasional long hours at work. I have to admit, I had no problem going to work when I knew my mom was taking care of them, but now, there’s definitely a bit of anxiety. I guess one good thing is that our kids are somewhat used to being “institutionalized”, i.e., they are on a schedule, they have to go to sleep and sleep through while another baby’s crying, they have to wait their turn, and they’re used to not being held that much. I’m also looking forward to their socializing with other kids, and, like all parents, I’m hoping that we’ll hear from the caretakers that our kids are “a joy to have in class”.
Well, we’ll see.
We did something similar to you guys. A friend of ours from the hospital watched each baby until they were about 6 or 8 months old and then we sent them to day care. It was great for me to have it that way; it made it much easier to go back to work when they were just being watched by the nanny at first when they were so little. But it was still hard to have them at daycare at first. We love our daycare and the kids love it too, but it was still hard. Just the nature of the thing I think.
There are advantages and disadvantages to daycare of course. The advantages are the fact that they get to socialize with other kids, they do projects with them, they have more and new toys to play with, and you don’t have to worry if one of the daycare providers is sick (unlike with a nanny!). The worst disadvantage is how many viral URI’s they get. This year seems better than last year (knock on wood) but last year Isaac had a runny nose from November through March. Art had to stay home with him quite a few times because he had a fever. But they say that kids in daycare don’t get as sick as other kids when they start kindergarden, we’ll have to see about that! Maybe this won’t be a problem for you in sunny California. Another disadvantage here in snowy upstate NY is having to bundle them up in the morning to bring them to daycare, quite a pain when they want to stay in their pajamas!
I’m sure the girls will be fine with daycare, it’s harder on the parents! Good luck!
By the way, I love your blog, I try to read it every few days! Thanks!
Jessica