Daycare vs Nanny - Part 2

13 September 2011

Yesterday, I found myself in the position of revisiting my opinion on the daycare versus nanny issue. When I made the decision to choose daycare over a nanny, some of my considerations were
  • It's safer to leave 2 babies with a group of adults rather than 1 adult
  • I was planning on moving and wasn't in a position to offer anyone a long-term nanny contract
  • The babies were young infants and required more attentive care
In making my decision, I didn't have any insight to how a daycare can affect kids, but now I do. I still love the daycare we use but I now realise that no daycare can offer everyday stability to children. The staff turnover will not allow it.

Even though the head teachers in my babies' room has been with the center for 5 to 13 years, there are still a few temps working in the infant room. This creates an unstable environment; and I'm sad to say that from the babies' mood in the evenings when I pick them up, I can tell if there's been a major change that affected their routine.

The first time I noticed this was when the infant room got two new babies on the same day. The other two times was when there was a new caregiver in the room. In all those occasions, I picked the girls up and their mood was a mix of unhappy, upset and even angry. It made me feel really bad. I didn't realise that even with a few stable people in their lives, babies can still be so sensitive to changes that mean they don't get the care they're used to receiving daily.

If I can get over my paranoia of leaving my kids home alone with a perfect stranger, I think I'll like to go the nanny route and give the girls the environmental stability they so obviously need..

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