Questions for parents with children in child care?
I will soon be returning to study and trying to decide weather i should place my DS in child care one day a week or to leave him with a family member, i would love to hear about ur experiences with ur children in child care.
- How old were they when they started?
- Did they get upset?
- did they benefit from it? for eg. speech? social skills?
- did it have any negivite effects on ur child?
my little guy was just over 15mths, and started for a day. He is now 2 months of turning 3, and goes three days/ week. For me, I feel it takes a village to raise a child, and consider where he goes to day care, as part of my village.
Initially he did get upset, and they were wonderful, and would ring me to let me know that he had settled down. I think its important that YOU feel comfortable with where you put your little man. That makes a massive difference. I can ring at any time to see how Aston is, and have never felt like I shouldn't have. I have recently split from his dad, and they have been fantastic through all of that as well.
I think its been great developmentaly for Aston. Definately has helped on the TT front. He has a big sister (13) and a big brother (11) so has been in a hurry to be able to do everything they can do anyway. hth
I have found that it has had no negative affects on him at all. He happily runs off now waving goodbye.
Initially he probably cried from the first week or so, but once he was used to the carers was more than happy to go to them.
He has been a chatterbox right from the start, so I dont think it has influenced his speech, but it has influenced his ability to interact with others, to make decisions for himself (sometimes good, sometimes bad!), to be independent and to have fun! He comes home with great stories of the days activities!
Hi
I'm sure every child is different, but from what I've read they don't really benefit from social interaction until 2 or so.
If you have the option, I would say go with the family member if you can - the main reason being that, based on our experience, your DS will probably be sick, sick, sick from being at daycare
DS started at about 16 months, 2 days a weeks. In the first 5 weeks he missed half the days due to illness. He then did 4 weeks in a row and finally settled in (not crying when I dropped him off anymore and starting to smile and talk to the carers). He's off sick again this week
I think at this age most kids are upset when they first start, but will settle in once they get used to it. DS does have fun playing there.
It has defnitely caused a spike in speparation anxiety - he has taken to cuddling a special toy all the time. He never did this before. This has also upset his sleep a lot, as he doesn't want to be left alone at night. It's particularly bad on daycare nights. This too is easing up now, though, as he's getting used to going.
I should add - my negative opinion is very much biased by the mummy guilt I feel at sending DS to daycare....
How old were they when they started? Darcy was 17months old
Did they get upset? No actually. We did a couple of mornings there and she was fine straight away. Actually this morning (two years later) was our first tantrum lol.
Did they benefit from it? for eg. speech? social skills? She could already count to 10 and had a vocab of about 50 words at one so her speech skills were pretty good, however her social skills have been improved as has her routine. She TT in 2 days at 2 and 5months as well.
Did it have any negivite effects on ur child? While her interactions with other children are great, she is our oldest (no older siblings to model off) and quite a gentle child. Learning the 'rules of the yard' so to speak often gets her quite upset. However, I'm glad it happened now and not as her first interaction at big school.
well my little one was 6 weeks old when she started.
she is now 2 and loves school
i believe she has gained alot fo ocial skills and communication as they do alot of talking and reading and very interactive things at school which i prob wouldnt do at home.
she also learns what is acceptable for a child her age,
yes she gets a runny nose but nothing bad enough to keep her home. i think she gets sicker at home from the bugs that are on my uniform when i come home from work. lol
so far only negative is she doesnt want to come home of an afternoon so its a struggle at pick up time but not drop off time. lol
We have used a combination of child care and grandparents and I think both have advantages and disadvantages. It depends on the child too. Both my boys love being around other kids and having stimulation, so child care has worked well for them both. They also enjoy spending time with their grandparents, but I think they find those days less interesting as they don't have much structure, or as many activities. I would love it if my ILs would do more craft and singing etc with them, but they find it tiring.
In terms of what they have got from child care, certainly it has helped their social skills a lot, they have both been early talkers and DS2 particularly toilet trained amazingly quickly and early from being around older kids. DS1 started kindergarten this year and the transition was so easy for him after being in day care so I think that's a huge plus. On the flip side I guess they do also learn some of the bad habits - DS2 went through a squealing phase that he picked up from the other kids - but realistically they are going to come across these things anyway and it has never been too hard to teach them what's ok and what's not.
So from my experience, I think child care is a good option for many kids. There will always be some children who don't do well with the group situation, so it's not for everyone. Often you don't know until you try - some kids can surprise you. Most kids will take some time to adjust, and I think more so as they get older, so it's best not to take them once and never again if they cry! Also I have found that kids adjust quicker if they go at least 2 days a week - a week is a long time for kids that age.
My daughter was 3 months old when she started going to family day care 2 days a week, and then she was 4.5 months old when she started going full-time (because I had to go back to work).
Up until now (she's 18 months) she's always been the youngest at her FDC and I find that she has really benifitted from it. She started counting to 10 at about 14 months old and she's usually played well with other kids and shared well. She's very social and confident. I don't think she would have been as social and confident if she hadn't been to daycare from a young age.
DD1 has been to childcare since she was 12 months and settled in well from the beginning. She demonstrated social skills very early but that could just be her. She went through phases of not wanting to go (especially when I was heavily pregnant and on maternity leave).
I have found the main benefits to be that they do things that I wouldn't think to do with her at home eg. some of the messy painting things and they do group activities which obviously you can't do with just one child. She has also developed trusting relationships with other adults and knows that there are other adults who care about her. She also has developed some really strong friendships - as have I, with the children's parents.
She has been pretty healthy and only caught a few things but then she also got the flu from DP who brought it home from work and gastro from me so the worst things haven't been from childcare.
Have you considered family day care? If you find a good one, I think its nice that they are smaller and more flexible.
Alot of cc's have minimum of 2 days.
My dd started childcare at almost 3 and she goes 2 days/week. There are family daycares here, but no vacancies.
I found the quality of childcare centres varied hugely from centre to centre, and I looked at many before I found one that I was really happy with, and had vacancies. It took a couple of months. I guess you could use a relative until you find one you love. Then your DS will be more used to being babysat when he starts.
Dd's childcare was good about orientation, and then for the first two weeks she only went half a day. After that she was right, and had no troubles sleeping at nap time. They stroke them on the back if they need it anyway. We took it slow, because another one i started her at was pretty horrible, they wouldn't let me stay, and dd cried alot and was pretty upset by it.
She is generally happy about going, although her room has a new group leader, and a new assistant, so she is still getting used to new faces. She loves the new assistant though. You could ask when you look how long the staff have been there for?
I am glad she's getting to be around other kids, because we don't have alot of friends with kids. I think that is a big advantage of cc when they are this age. I have a friend who used to get her mum to mind her daughter, but the mum used to sit her infront of dvds most of the time, so Im glad she's doing more than that at cc. They don't really do activities, just some craft and alot of free play. I don't think the new group leader really has that many activity ideas, because the other rooms seem to do heaps/
Disadvantages: I don't like the food they give them, and dd has started 'killing' everything. Well she calls it 'cool', but they will bring things like that home.
I do think it depends on your child's personality. I tried putting DS into daycare at 10 months and it was awful. He wouldn't sleep for them or eat for them and was very anxious and clingy for days afterward around me at home. I actually decided not to return to work because of his reaction to daycare, fortunately I was in a position to be able to do this.
He experienced childcare again at 18 months when he was participating in a language study for RCH. The first week he was perfect (much to my surprise), the second week not so much and by the third week he was crying hysterically before I turned the car off in the parking lot (confirming my original opinion that he still wasn't ready for childcare) so I completed the rest of the course with him on my lap (he was incredibly well behaved). The carers did say this was fairly common, once the initial novelty wears off, some kids realise Mummy is leaving again. Once again, it took him 2 or 3 days to get over just a couple of hours of childcare. Very anxious if I left the room, panicking if he didn't know where I was.
He will be 3 next week and I am going to try again next year, but this time I know within myself he is ready to be away from me for a bit and he wants to play with other kids. He just seems to need Mummy that bit more than most other kids. I was telling one daycare teacher about this and she said she herself had a little boy like that...it does happen.
I should also add that it has really only been in the last 6 months or so I have been able to leave the house without DS (say to go to the shops) and actually say goodbye to him (and him being okay with that), instead of sneaking out while DH or somebody distracted him. Before that, if he busted me leaving he would cry and insist on coming with me.
My best friend could never understand, I think she thought I pandered too much to DS because her DD took to daycare like a duck to water.
My DD on the other hand...she is now the same age as DS was when I first attempted daycare and she is so different to her brother...if I were to try putting her in daycare I am pretty sure she would be just fine.
Mind you I do think my DS is an exceptional case...but that's just the way he has always been...he just doesn't do anything the "normal" way! DD is very textbook.
I started using CC with DS when he was 20 months old and I decided I'd get more out of my course by going back on campus.
It is a very small centre (10 places each day for both baby and preschool room) and next year it will be slightly bigger as it moves to a new centre.
I took DS twice a week and he took a while to adjust to drop offs, and only a handful of times at the beginning was I called up to ask if I were in a position to pick him up to keep his experiences as positive as possible.
It's a great centre with access to best practice and a lot of research into child development, which most CC centres don't have. Most staff are qualified, also.
If you can find a place affiliated with the uni you might find this is a better option - you're close by, there will be other uni students using the facility and the cultural diversity is what I found so valuable with our centre. Now that I've got DS in the local community centre I lament the loss of that diversity (it's a bit mono-cultural where I am).
At 20 months when he started last year, he picked up on language and numeracy quite a bit, but really just learned to play alongside other kids, rather than with them till earlier this year when he moved from the baby room to the preschool room. So, for socialisation, I didn't find creche to play a huge role - he got and gets that from my own circles in my local ABA group, homebirth group and fire brigade friends.
This year drop offs were problem-free and he'd wave me goodbye, mostly, with some exceptions. At the new creche it's only one day a week and it's not often enough for him to really be used to being left, so drop-offs are more often than not a teary event. However, that said, he ALWAYS has a great day and the tears last for about 2 mins after I leave!
I did find it hard to concentrate at uni for ages in that first year of childcare, because I found myself thinking about DS, and why it had to be so hard to pursue my academic interests and be with my kid without one of those two aims suffering! I'm just not very good at compartmentalising, yet this is what you seem to have to do well if you are going to make a success of study So, I've been getting mediocre marks and having great days with DS when he's not at CC. Not ideal.
Next year will be a different kettle of fish when I get back to study - the new kid will be even younger going into care, but DS should be fine, as there's an embedded kinder program.
It's not easy, but if you find a great facility, it makes it soooo much easier to deal with what's on your plate
Good luck with study!
I have had mixed feelings about cc - I too feel really guilty about sending DD1, in part because she has been super clingy since about 20months and drop offs have been a nightmare. However she started 2 days a week at 9 months and was completely fine until that age. I went back to work fulltime when she was 2 - we had a combo of 3 days cc, 1 day mum or dad and 1 day grandparents and in hindsight this was too much for her.
The benefits have been huge related to her language and numeracy (not so great in the swearing/killing/guns/you are not my best friend department - however I guess this was always going to happen). Also toilet training and exposure to different songs/activities/food - it has opened her eyes and ours.
I also find it distracting and have trouble shutting off when at work but am getting better at it, well I was...I have been on ML with DD2 and am returning next week.
I work a long day so that also is a difficult thing for the kids - they get dropped off at 7.30am and picked up at 5.30pm, so that may be a consideration for you.
Overall the centre I have used has had fabulous staff who have treated my DD as extended family. They also do a wide range of craft activities that I have no chance of replicating. I could not speak more highly of them - I think it is really important to find somewhere that you are happy with and that will suit your needs. Good luck!
Questions for parents with children in child care?
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So, I've been getting mediocre marks and having great days with DS when he's not at CC. Not ideal.
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