Stay or move long day care centres? Thoughts appreciated please.
Hi all
Just wanted some ideas about what you might do in the following situation:
I am presently on mat leave and have a DD who is one in Feb and a DS who is just over 3.
DS is a quiet sensitve child and has been historically reserved in groups but socialises quite well once "warmed up" with one or two friends.
Atm he goes to long daycare 2 days a week. Dh and I both work in the city which is about a 35 - 45 min drive from home. We initially had DS going to a centre in the CBD which was huge but moved him about a year ago to a smaller centre closer to home. It's taken him a good year to settle in but he has seemingly just made a couple of good friends and his carers report that he is also doing better in the bigger group (his group is currently 20 kids). The centre offers a proper accredited 4 yo kinder program. Both of my children will be going to kinder through the childcare program.
He is finally happy most days about the prospect of going to childcare and in particular about seeing his friends. This has only developed in the last month or so.
DH and I are not overwhelmed w joy by the centre, it is a bit of a gut disatisfaction. There has been alot of staff turnover recently (although the staff in his room is at this stage still the same, we know one of the girls is going overseas for a couple of months next year who knows if she will come back for long). We have had some issues with staff ratios at beginning and end of day. This has been obvious as DS has been toilet training and we have been met w accidents on pickup many nights in the last few months. I have raised the issues w the director a couple of times and i believe that she has attempted to deal w it. The issue has improved somewhat
We are not super excited about the current staff in the baby room which is where DD will go when I return to work next year.
The company that runs the centre is presently building a new 4 yo kinder building which will be ready when he starts in 2012.
The centre is one of 5 run by this company.
The other issues I have relate to convenience for DH and I. The upsides of the current centre is that it is closest to home and public transport giving us the most options to collect the kids and is open until 6.30 which gives us options in the event of bad traffic or train problems (at least one of us will drive and one will train) if once of us leaves right on the dot of 5. It is unlikely we could leave earlier than that.
The centre we have looked at as an alternative close at 6.00pm which makes things very tight in the event of an unforseen emergency. It is also not within walking distance of our home (which would only be a problem in the case of emergency) and a real stretch from the station as well.
I suspect that some of my gutteral misgivings are generally that I have never 100% loved putting him in childcare and I am feeling trepidation about moving him and also starting DD as well. The reality is I need to work and we have no other options, family day care is booked out in our shire and all shires between home and the city with huge wait lists. I don't see any benefit in moving the kids back into town as the reality is we will have to juggle school etc closer to home in a couple of years.
What would you do?
