Shopping for daycare (hell)

I haven’t forgotten you. I’ve been stuck in a tornado of shopping for a day care, planning a birthday party, and baby-proofing our home. Somehow I made it out alive--probably with a little less hair than I had before. All of it has been physically and emotionally exhausting. Shopping for a new day care and coming to grips with the fact that my baby isn’t a baby anymore has called for more than one double chocolate cookie. Another time, I’ll delve into first birthday party planning and baby proofing (we got super creative). But right now, I’ll focus on the task of shopping for a new day care.

A super duper shmooper good friend of mine is a stay-at-home mom, and the moment I told her I was pregnant, she offered to take care of the baby so I could work. When my son turned three month old, he started going to her house two afternoons a week, and later, two full days. With clasped hands, we hunkered down through the tempest called nap training together. She kept my breast milk in her freezer, cleaned poop and puke, and tolerated “fussy time.” Her soon-to-be three-year-old entertained my son endlessly, and now my son lights up like a Christmas tree they are together. But alas, nothing lasts forever, and it was time to move on.
My husband and I talked about the possibility of me quitting my part-time, work-from-home job, but that conversation was pretty short. Working gives me the opportunity to do something intellectually stimulating, stay connected to my field (which will make going back to a full-time job easier some day), and it gives me a chance to miss my son. I would die for my son, but let’s be honest--sometimes work feels like a break, right?


Cue the Great Day Care Shopping Challenge of 2012.

The first challenge was finding a daycare that could take a baby. It sounds silly, but In Massachusetts, a day care provider can’t have more than three babies unless he or she has an assistant, and at least one of the babies has to be 15 months old and walking. And to be quite honest, a lot of providers don’t want to take care of babies. They’d rather have older kids who can follow directions, use the potty, and play independently (wouldn’t you?). That shut out a lot of potential daycares for us.

My husband and I made a list of criteria to guide our search, but as we called and visited daycares, our criteria changed. For example, I was looking for a small family daycare with a provider who was licensed to have six or fewer children, but I ended up strongly considering a provider who was licensed for 10. I didn’t consider the importance of the children eating lunch together (social skill building) until we visited a daycare in which they didn’t. But there were two criteria that we didn’t budge on: the daycare should be within a 20 minute drive of our home (since I work from home, it’s rather silly to have a long commute), and our son should not be exposed to television.

Our tours of local day cares went something like this:

#1: Lovely woman, immaculate home, plenty of toys, nutritious food, five minute commute. What’s not to love? I walked away feeling good about the interview, but my husband didn’t get that warm fuzzy feeling. I kept her in my mental Rolodex as my backup if nothing else came through.

#2: The provider was warm and affectionate with the children (all 10 of them), she celebrated all holidays and birthdays with the kids, and she had separate bedrooms for napping. The house felt pretty busy, and I was looking for something a little more mellow, but the big problem was the male assistant. It’s terrible--men should be able to do whatever they want for a living without judgment (well, excluding some mob or sex-industry related jobs), but I just couldn’t get past it. I have no other explanation other than I couldn’t imagine myself walking out the door of that home without my son. It is what it is.

#3: Two televisions were on when we visited, and the provider made no effort to turn them off. The kids at at separate times and at separate areas of the house. I pointed out twice that one of the kids had over-stuffed his mouth with food before she did anything about it.

#4: Loved the provider, didn’t love the basement environment. To get to the door, I had to walk hunched over under the deck (try that with a 22 pound kid and a equally heavy diaper bag). The provider followed a curriculum and worked on social, fine motor, and gross motor skills with the kids, but our son would have had to nap in the unfinished part of the basement next to the washer and dryer.

#5: We took a break from visiting family day cares and visited a center run by a church. Clean, pleasant, organized, structured. We both agreed that if our son was two, that would be the place, but with 48 other kids there, we felt he would get lost at sea as an infant among the toddlers. It could easily be over stimulating, and it was expensive.

#6: Hallelujah. The provider is warm, affectionate, organized, structured, and is only licensed for six. She has a curriculum that includes days of the week, colors, weather, crafts, outdoor play, songs, dance, and books. There is a separate room for naps (a must-have criteria), and best of all, she does not use the TV. If one of the button-happy kids accidentally turns it on, the others tattle.

After 30 phone calls and six visits, we finally chose a day care. I got the blues the night before his first day, thinking about my adorable, dimpled, toothy-grinned little man fending for himself at a new place, but the day went smoothly. When I dropped him off in the morning, he shed not a single tear. The two little girls who had already arrived flocked to him and doted on him all day. They wanted to help hold his bottle, push him in the swing, and hand him toys. The provider texted me throughout the day to let me know how the baby was doing, and when I picked him up, I got a little report card detailing what he did and when. I was floored that he had napped in a new place with only minimal crying and ate every last bit of his lunch. His second day is tomorrow.