First time parents: sending infant to daycare where vouchers are accepted

[Anonymous]

We are struggling to find infant daycare for our DC. We prefer daycare vs other options. We are noticing daycares which mostly accept DHS voucher seem to have spots available and very interested in private paid spots. we don't like the snack options we saw at these daycares and have doubt about quality of food offered as well.

I wonder if we should be worried about the kids they will be hanging out with as they get older. These daycares also have policies on guns, etc which we don't see at normal/private paid daycares.

We have had very bad experience with families with voucher as our neighbors so not sure if sending our kids to a voucher friendly daycare will leave us with messy situations to deal with.

I would like to hear from parents who might send their kids to voucher friendly daycares.

[Anonymous]

Wow. You sound prejudiced as hell about people who are poorer than you. We sent our kid to one of these, paid full price, and it was great. Our child loved it there and thrived there. The safety issue wasn’t one with the daycare itself, it was just that we lived in a rough part of DC, within walking distance of the daycare. But the issue of people paying with vouchers wasn’t one of them.

[Anonymous]

All daycare serve bad food. Almost participate in the USDA food program which specifies the type and kind of foods that can be served.

And I don’t blame you to be concerned. The kids not so much but the attitude and culture of the teachers and other parents is probably not what you are looking for. Once you identify a center go visit and hang back outside the room before going in and listen to how the teachers speak to the kids. And the. when you are in the room linger. People can fake it for 5 minutes or so but the more time passes the harder it gets and you will get to see what it’s really like

[Anonymous]

OP, what is your background? Did you go to public school? If so, I can assure you that there were “voucher students” in your midst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All daycare serve bad food. Almost participate in the USDA food program which specifies the type and kind of foods that can be served.

And I don’t blame you to be concerned. The kids not so much but the attitude and culture of the teachers and other parents is probably not what you are looking for. Once you identify a center go visit and hang back outside the room before going in and listen to how the teachers speak to the kids. And the. when you are in the room linger. People can fake it for 5 minutes or so but the more time passes the harder it gets and you will get to see what it’s really like

We are not impressed during our tour and for $2600/ month we are not sure if our child will have the set up we would want . Attitude of other parents us our biggest concern as right now 90% of daycare is voucher holder and given our past experience we are unsure if we would know how to handle poor situations.

Will you trust daycare to feed your child the food your pack?

[Anonymous]

Wow. We send our kid to a combined paid daycare/Headstart program and honestly these issues have never occurred to us. I'm definitely not worried about him hanging out around poor *three year olds.*

[Anonymous]

Our daycare accepts vouchers and also offers financial aid for people who make too much to qualify for a voucher but still can’t afford the pricey tuition. (It is run by a nonprofit.) It is a high quality daycare and I am willing to pay a bit more as a full-paying parent to make sure that others who aren’t as well as off can send their kids there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. We send our kid to a combined paid daycare/Headstart program and honestly these issues have never occurred to us. I'm definitely not worried about him hanging out around poor *three year olds.*

Hey, those poor three-year-old kids are not going to provide any kind of leverage at all in raising your toddler's social status. Can't even use them for a reference for a public pool, much less the country club.

Think about that for a minute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. We send our kid to a combined paid daycare/Headstart program and honestly these issues have never occurred to us. I'm definitely not worried about him hanging out around poor *three year olds.*

Great to hear your experience is positive. I don't care about SET rather in my experience the lack of parental control given my experience.

Thank you for sharing your insight.

[Anonymous]

I had my kid young and was on vouchers. This is so rude. My kid and I are nice people, I just didn’t have the cash back then.

[Anonymous]

With my first child, we qualified for a voucher, but there weren’t any slots. However, the federal daycare center took my eldest on at a great reduced rate. The food was fine except she was allergic to one fruit and lactose intolerant so sometimes she was just given graham crackers and water at snack. But I was grateful to be able to work.

With my younger child, we were full pay at a center that took vouchers. My younger child had lots of food allergies after the first two and half years so I just sent all of her food from home.

The teachers were excellent and caring in both centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. We send our kid to a combined paid daycare/Headstart program and honestly these issues have never occurred to us. I'm definitely not worried about him hanging out around poor *three year olds.*

Great to hear your experience is positive. I don't care about SET rather in my experience the lack of parental control given my experience.

Thank you for sharing your insight.

I wouldn’t worry about this for infants and toddlers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. We send our kid to a combined paid daycare/Headstart program and honestly these issues have never occurred to us. I'm definitely not worried about him hanging out around poor *three year olds.*

Great to hear your experience is positive. I don't care about SET rather in my experience the lack of parental control given my experience.

Thank you for sharing your insight.

I wouldn’t worry about this for infants and toddlers.

Thank you for assuring me. As first-time parents, we have no clue what to expect just yet.

[Anonymous]

I went to 60% FARMS schools pk-12, and here I am, on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to 60% FARMS schools pk-12, and here I am, on DCUM.

I'm so sorry it turned out this way 😂