Comments on Family Day Care?

[AnyDream]

Love it love it love it!
I prefer it to a child care centre because I feel it's important for bub to have a home-like environment, not an institutional environment. They have a one-on-one bond with their carer, unlike a centre where the carers rotate. And they usually have exposure to a number of different age groups, unlike a centre where they are in with children of the same age. I also feel that because it's a smaller group of children, they pick up fewer illnesses in FDC (JMO).

The other huge difference is FDC can be a lot more flexible with times. We live far from family and our carer has been happy to have DD1 occasionally of an evening so I can attend class/go out when DH is away, or for us to have an evening out together. This is a lifesaver when there's no one else to look after your kids. Having said all that, we have used child care centres occasionally, and DD enjoyed it, I just prefer the total FDC environment, for me it's much closer to the care that I would be providing at home.

[christy]

I'm a fan of FDC as well. A few reasons for us, one is our carer. In our house Lizzie is a much respected individual. Before I signed on with her, I went over & discussed philosophies on child rearing... so what I believed, how I spent the days with my children at home, what things I thought were important for Matilda (at first). She spoke about her children & how she structured her time. She is a very organised woman & sets a rhythm of the day according to the children she has there. She keeps details of everything they have done, but brings out activities such as painting and watering gardens as special times during the day.

She look after Matilda from 14 months - 3 1/2 and started looking after Jovie at 8 months. She is flexible with times for us & we've never had any problems with her.

I have had to use emergency care with other carers before & I haven't been as happy leaving Matilda places I don't know. One place was just half a house and the kids were just let loose to roam & go nuts, no structure or organisation.... which is okay as well but Matilda gets scatty when she doesn't understand what is happening. At home, I'll say "Its a home morning" and she knows exactly what that means.

So it does depend on the carer, but we love ours and will be devestated when Jovie hits kindy age.

[Karina]

We use family day care for our daughter, who is 14 months. She has been for about 2 months now. I like it as she gets to know the carer well and since there are only a few kids she gets familiar with them too. She gets a bit flustered when there are too many people around her so I dont think she'd go too well in a day care centre at the moment. There are usually only 4 kids a day at ours, but sometimes 3, sometimes 5 depending on school holidays and stuff. Its also nice because the times are a little more flexible than the day care cenrtes in our area and the fees are a bit less too.

[ajw0108]

Good question Nox, I've been wondering about FDC & have a few questions too... DD is 5 months old and we'll be looking at putting her in childcare part-time in a couple of months.

With regard to kids of different ages being with one carer - those of you who have had babies in FDC, do you find their needs are met when there are older children who can vocalise & express what they require, are more mobile & independent and more assertive in their play?

Also, how much interaction do they have with the other, older kids?

I'm worried about 'too much' but this didn't actually occur to me until an encounter at the park last week where a 2ish yr old snatched a toy from DD who was strapped in the pram, refused to give it back to me when I kneeled down to ask (while scanning for apparently absent parent) and then proceeded to poke her fingers in DD's mouth and flap (not slap) her on the face/eyes, making her cry...all the while her mother who appeared tried to extract the toy from her grasp with one hand, balance a full cup hot coffee directly over DD's pram with the other and yelling 'Gentle! Gentle!'. Yeah, right.

I am not too keen to go for the institution-style childcare centres as I think a smaller group, one-on-one care & a home-like environment would be far better for DD, but feel that she might have a better chance against rougher, more snatchy kids if they're all roughly the same age & size (even though I know they are all shapes & sizes!)...especially when babies don't interact and play with each other too much until they're older. Is this totally misguided??

Any experiences/advice very welcome.


AJ

[nox]

just to follow on from what's been mentioned already...

Have you all put bubs into FDC when they've been older? Do you think that's better?

Also a friend mentioned that at 12-18 mo that maybe ds would get more out of normal day care because of activities etc. Hat has been anyone's experience about this? He is already very very active.

Thanks again

[AnyDream]

I actually found DD was better off in Family Day care, in a child care room there are so many more kids and stuff happens that the carers don't always notice. But in FDC, they dob each other in straight away LOL. My DD was in FDC with a couple of big boisterous boys but our carer was brilliant in teaching them all to get along with each other.

My DD1 started when she was 8.5 mths and DD2 will be starting soon (7.5 mths). DD1 was in right up until she started school and now goes for afterschool care too. We've moved around a bit and every carer we've had (with one exception that we started at because they told us there were no other vacancies and I was desperate for care - we requested a new carer a couple of months later) have been fantastic in providing a whole range of activities, both at home and out and about. But that's something you need to question each carer when you interview them because some have different ideas about what constitutes an activity (parking them in a room with pencils and a colouring in book doesn't count IMO).

[christy]

Okay... try to get the questions

Matilda started FDC at 13-14 months after a few awful months at a regular centre. She was bitten once, and got recurring infections.

Our FDC accepts babies from 6months but will only have 2 under 12 months. ATM Jovie is there and she is the medium kid. There is generally 1-2 older (up to 4yrs) and 1-2 younger (under 12 mths). True the younger ones take up more attention from Lizzie, but I've watched her work it out. The bigger kids know the rules... they know the no snatching thing, the no hitting etc... They also know the routine of the place, so they know when things happen next, when toilet time is, morning tea etc etc. So they don't need to be monitored as closely. Having said that, our FDC is in Lizzies granny flat, she's set it all up so its a big room with a lounge section, an eating section and her desk, a cupboard with all the "stuff" and a bookcase with boxes of different toys in it. A change station, and through a door is the toilet, washing up facilities and fridge for food.

The 12-18 months at a normal day care centre... I guess I didn't feel safe after what happened to Matilda at 11 months. I tried her at a normal kindy just before she turned 3 and we had a pretty bad time. It was a community day care/kindy. Because it wasn't as structured, and the "rules" weren't laid out for her she fell apart, couldn't focus on any one thing, didn't eat while she was there, wouldn't use to the toilets, cried more.... and came home a complete mess. We pulled her out & put her back into FDH with Lizzie until she was over 3 and went to Montessori, She went 1 day to Lizzies and one day to Montessori for a few months and now is at Montessori 3 days and is almost 4yr old. So much better for her. The defined structure worked better for her.