I am starting back at work soon, for 2 days per week. I had not expected to have to return to work, so I haven't done any investigation into childcare.... sooooo, where do I start?
I'd be looking at sending dd for one day per week.
Am I better to look at centres close to home or close to work (still bf, so it'd be great if I could pop in during lunch for a feed rather than expressing, is this possible?)
Can anyone point me in the right direction, or share how they went about it? Any helpful tips? Questions I should be asking?
I would look anywhere and everywhere and if they have a space go and look at centre and get a vibe for the place. (you will get a vibe I looked at 1 and felt strange gave it benefit of doubt and went back a few weeks later and still felt same and kids clung to me, where as another I instantly felt at ease and kids ran off and joined in!)
I asked about meals, bullying, sleep, themes, staff turn over (a good centre will retain staff).
Good luck its stressful and hard but when you find a centre you love it makes it easier to leave them.
i'd start with the mychild.gov.au website - you can put in your address (postcode i think) and find all the places in the area, who has spaces, i think they list the costs too
If you work in th CBD just be aware that a lot of the centres have a 2 day minimum. You need to ring around and get in to have a look. If you can be flexible with the day that will help your chances a lot.
First find out what your options are (who has space, who will take your DD for the number of days you want, etc) and then figure out which is the best fit for your poppet.
The way we did this, is that when I did the ring around to suss out capacity, I asked who did tours and when I could come (ie: when during the day could I *not* come, and who do I ask for when I arrive).
Then I did a very basic hand drawn table of all the places we were going to be checking out (about 10) and then a column for all the things we were specifically sussing out, with room for comments.
The things you are specifically going to be asking about will be determined to what your priorities are, and the age of your DD.
So it might be whether they use cloth, how they store EBD, how much outdoor play they get, what their policy is about sick kids (ie: at some places, if there's any hint of illness they are effectively banned for 24 hours - whereas other places, provided panadol brings down any fever and you send them with antibiotics, they can come ... some people prefer the first option - less likely their kids will get sick ... others prefer the second - you don't have to take time of work for coughs and colds or when your child gets teething symptoms like fever and diareah).
Other things you might want to ask about is what they *do* during the day, how that's managed, what food they get fed, whether you can substitute (eg: if you don't want her having cake or muffins for afternoon tea can you send fruit or yoghurt those days?), how do they manage toilet training, do they take photos, do they do excursions, how do they manage nap time, etc ... what is their policy on biting, on bullying, on
And when you go for your visits, listen to your gut, and really look around ... one place when I went in, there was an instant unsavoury vibe which I just couldn't shake, and when we got back to the car, DH said he didn't like it and couldn't put his finger on it ... their programs seemed great, the people were well qualified, but both of us just had this really, really bad feeling when we were there ... needless to say, we didn't send our son there! But another place seemed ok, until I realised that the lighting was rather low right throughout the centre, and the outdoor area was small and had almost nothing to play with ... it wasn't anywhere near naptime, and when I talked about it with a friend, she told me that a common method of handling elderly people in less reputable homes is to keep the lights low ... it makes the patients sleepy and easier to manage ... the thought of anyone doing that to my son is not cool with me! And at one of the place, the woman in charge clearly didn't seem to like kids, from what I could see and how she interacted with them - even right in front of us!
The place we went with had qualified staff, less qualified assistants, but people who appeared to love their jobs, and really love children. They were enjoying playing with them, and excited about coming up with different things to do. They had plenty of toys and the toys were clean and well maintained - but not the most expensive ones. Plenty of old fashioned things, like blocks and farm animals, things to climb on and over, cubbies made of boxes, etc. There were the right number of carers to children, and the rooms weren't overfull. They play outside once or twice every day, weather permitting. Meals rotate, and are done in 4 week blocks, so there's no real chance of him getting sick of things! Meals are cooked from fresh, whole ingredients and while they are given some things I don't approve of (sugary icypoles when it's hot, biscuits every few days) it's not too often and they're not too bad ...
Maybe these things sound like snap judgments, but if someone is going to be in charge of my son's wellbeing for a serious length of time twice a week, then I want to be as sure as I can be that he's with people who are going to take great care of him, keep him interested and happy and let me know when things go wrong.
Childcare - where to start??
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