I can’t make peace with any daycare!

[Anonymous]

They’re all terrible! 19 infants in one room! So much noise and stimulation! They don’t even let your baby use their own diapers and lotions? 1 caregiver per 4 babies!

[Anonymous]

You need a nanny. I also couldn't get my head around daycare and then realized that once you have more than one kid, factor in sick days when you'd have to take off work (vs leaving the baby w/ the nanny at home), etc, that a nanny just made a lot more sense. My kids were never sick vs my friends who had their kids in daycare and they constantly had runny noses, coughs, etc.

[Anonymous]

So do a nanny share.

[Anonymous]

There are plenty of daycares that are not this. The ratio in MD and DC is 1:3 (1:4 in VA, so assuming you are there). My baby's room has 5 kids and 2 adults, sometimes 3. We have to bring our own diapers and lotions- the. teacher mentioned to me last week that every kid has a different brand of diapers.

Keep looking- there are better options. 19 kids in a room sounds chaotic and stressful.

[Anonymous]

We chose a home daycare after starting in a center that had many infants in one room. Even though there was a good ratio of caregivers there were so many diapers to change bottles to feed etc it felt like just basic needs getting met. Definitely better ones out there that are centers, but a very small home daycare was affordable while having consistent caregivers and not so many infants at one time. The mixed age felt very helpful.

[Anonymous]

What place doesn’t require you to bring to it own diapers?

You sound like you need a nanny, or nanny share. If you can’t afford that, get an in-home daycare.

[Anonymous]

A 1:3 ratio is much much better. Is it possible the room is divided so it seems like 19 in one room but the babies aren’t mixing and are with a smaller group of caregivers? Our daycare had half walls between infant rooms which was important for sight and sound requirements especially if a staff member needs a break, but they were with the same 2-3 staff and 6 babies. I found that in a room of 3-15 month olds there is such a wide range of development that a 1:3 ratio was enough for quality care. Our daycare was connected to an office building and welcomed moms coming in to nurse so that helped free up staff significantly.

[Anonymous]

Every place I looked at required you to provide diapers and wipes. None have 19 in a room. The only issue was cloth diapers.

[Anonymous]

OP that does sound horrible and also totally different from every daycare I've seen.

[Anonymous]

Is this a troll? I have never heard of anything like this. I have had two kids in daycare for 5+ years

MD ratio is 1:3. Our daycare had 6 infants and 2-3 teachers in the room. We had to supply our own diapers and lotion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re all terrible! 19 infants in one room! So much noise and stimulation! They don’t even let your baby use their own diapers and lotions? 1 caregiver per 4 babies!

What state allows 19 infants per room?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this a troll? I have never heard of anything like this. I have had two kids in daycare for 5+ years

MD ratio is 1:3. Our daycare had 6 infants and 2-3 teachers in the room. We had to supply our own diapers and lotion.

Yeah, my DC daycare has ~9 kids 0-2 in one “room” (technically two classes 0-1 and 1-2 but the divider is functionally a baby gate) with 5 teachers. Almost time I’ve come by it’s actually pretty chill. The non-mobile babies are being held and/or eating or sleeping; the bigger babies are playing with toys or being read to; etc. At most 1-2 kids crying or fighting over a toy.

And yes, we had to supply our own diapers/wipes/anything we wanted put on our babies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a nanny. I also couldn't get my head around daycare and then realized that once you have more than one kid, factor in sick days when you'd have to take off work (vs leaving the baby w/ the nanny at home), etc, that a nanny just made a lot more sense. My kids were never sick vs my friends who had their kids in daycare and they constantly had runny noses, coughs, etc.

What happens when the nanny is sick, lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re all terrible! 19 infants in one room! So much noise and stimulation! They don’t even let your baby use their own diapers and lotions? 1 caregiver per 4 babies!

??

That isn’t even close to my experience with daycare for my daughter.

[Anonymous]

Get a nanny share. It’s so worth it, and the price difference isn’t all that much.