Daycare dilemmas

Kurt and I went to visit a large daycare facility. I loved it. All employees have to go through a background check, and all are trained for the age group they work with. It’s a large facility that even has a special outdoor play area for infants only. Each infant has a space in the refrigerator for their food, so I’ll be able to have breast milk stored there for Sophia. Each infant gets their own crib and all the cribs look like they’re in good condition (none of them are metal cribs with witch paint like some of the ones at the other place). There are four infants per caregiver and the infants stay with the same two primary caregivers until they move to the toddler group. The lady giving us the tour said that the transition from the infant rooms to the toddler area is the toughest because they’re moving to an environment where everybody is mobile and it’s a little more noisy, but that sometimes more than one baby is moving from the same infant group to the toddler group, which makes it easier on them. That didn’t bother me at all, because at least everyone will be her same age and we weren’t being told to make our house noisier so that she’ll get used to it for daycare.

We were their during regular business hours and so we got to view the caregivers in their natural environment. We didn’t get to go into any of the rooms, but we could view the animals from the hall though the large windows. All four infant rooms were relatively quiet. one of the rooms had the lights out while three of the four infants slept. The sole awake infant was happily bouncing in a “stationary entertainer” (think baby walker minus the wheels). Everything looked relatively clean and the toddler room even had sinks for hand washing at toddler height. The lady giving us the tour said that the kids all eat at a table in a family style setting (all the kids within one room, not ALL the kids) and they learn to use utensils and pass plates down the table. The preschoolers learn preschool stuff like the alphabet. As we went down the hallway for the preschoolers, one group was playing in the hall. The halls serve as the indoor play areas, whereas the rooms are for crafts, learning, etc. Some of the kids played independently, others played together and three of the girls sat around one of the caregivers as she braided their hair. I didn’t see a single kid sulking in a corner.

Kurt will be close enough to go see the baby at lunch time if he wants. I’m so excited about this place, but apparently I’m not the only one that thinks it’s great despite the significantly higher cost. They have a waiting list. Sophia may not get in until she’s nine months old, and I have to go back to work three months prior to that. We put Sophia on the list just so we aren’t further down the list when the time comes. So I still need to find temporary daycare. *sigh* I honestly didn’t think that I would like the large daycare corporation type of place, but it felt so much more comfortable there than the home daycare I saw. I know the one home daycare I saw doesn’t represent them all. The place we visited today might not feel like family but one bonus is that the transition to school won’t be as dramatic.