Daycare caregivers masking with infants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had DD in April 2020 and when the time came to decide to enroll her in daycare when she turned 4 months, I had the same worry--that she'd have a speech delay or have trouble learning language because of not being able to see her caregivers' lips move under the masks. She's now 16 months and talking up a storm, so it looks like my worries were unfounded. I suppose she gets enough lip-reading experience from me and DH, plus her talkative older brother (3YO).

This was our experience with our 2nd DD who was born May of 2020.

Similar for my Jan 2020 baby. The anecdotal evidence suggests the toddler are doing okay.

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a child with actual language delays this post makes me cringe. Your baby will be fine. There’s nothing wrong with their ability to acquire language and unless you parents aren’t interacting with your kids, there’s no reason your kids won’t acquire speech normally

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, it’s a definite drawback. It’s absolutely not idea for a baby to never see a smile or watch a caregiver form words. But what’s the option? Yes, I think our kids will be adversely effected and possibly speech delayed but it’s better than a sick baby (or worse).

Why would the baby never see smiles? Are their parents masking?

I’m sure the poster meant “never see smiles from daycare teachers”. My concern as well as it’s close to nine hours a day and my baby has never seen their faces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a child with actual language delays this post makes me cringe. Your baby will be fine. There’s nothing wrong with their ability to acquire language and unless you parents aren’t interacting with your kids, there’s no reason your kids won’t acquire speech normally

That doesn’t make sense to me. My baby is in daycare with masked teachers for the vast majority of her waking hours. I hope you’re right but I don’t see how their can’t be Speech delays as well as bonding issues. But, again, I hope I’m wrong and definitely see it as the lesser of two evils (the greater evil, to be clear, is covid).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not brought up at this point in the pandemic because many of us have had kids in daycare for over a year now with all masked caregivers and our kids are fine. Seriously, I don’t know of any child who is behind because of this. My own 1 year old has barely seen an adult other than me and DH unmasked and he’s ahead on every milestone.

This is not a big deal. Kids are resilient.

Same here. Lots of babies have been born during this pandemic. If there was an issue, we'd have seen it by now. Your kid will be just fine, OP.

Well there was one study suggesting there might be an issue (not specific to daycare but saying pandemic-born babies have a lower average IQ). I don’t know what to make of that.

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/has-the-pandemic-lowered-baby-iq

taken at face value, these results are worrisome. However — and I cannot stress this enough — they are completely implausible. There is absolutely no way that there was a reduction in IQ of 82 points as a result of being born during the pandemic. In fact, there is also no way there was a reduction of 27 IQ points. Even 15 seems impossible. IQ is just not malleable in this way. Extremely low birth weight is among the most significant reducers of IQ, and even that is a fraction of the size of these effects.

People sometimes ask me how I evaluate research papers, how I think about what a good study is versus less good. There is some science to it and some art, and it’s hard to point to everything. But one important question to ask is: Could this be right? Given other things we know about the world, is this effect plausible? The answer here is that it is not.

So what is going on in this paper if it is not a pandemic effect? I think there are two possibilities. One is selection of the people in the study. This is an in-person assessment, and the group of caregivers who are willing to bring their children into the lab may be different during the pandemic than before it. Normally I would lean on this explanation. However, the size of the effects are too large for that to explain much of it — even pretty extensive selection is not going to get you to 30 IQ points.

What I think is a more likely explanation is masks. The tests during the pandemic were done with the testing staff wearing masks. I’m not anti-masking! But it seems extremely plausible that infants and toddlers in a lab setting would have more trouble following verbal instructions and facial cues from a masked interviewer than an unmasked one. This is probably especially true since these babies would have mostly interacted with unmasked adults (i.e. their parents), so the masking may have been even more of a factor than it would be for an older child who was more used to it.

The authors mention this in the conclusion but do not make much of it. It might have been helpful to see a more detailed breakdown of the results by measures that could or could not have been impacted by masking. For example, some of the measures are things like whether the child can sit or roll over, which are likely less affected.

Maybe it’s not masks! I don’t know. That strikes me as the most obvious explanation, but without getting into the data, I cannot tell precisely. What I can tell you, based on what we know about IQ, is that the pandemic did not lower baby IQ by 82 points. It just didn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a child with actual language delays this post makes me cringe. Your baby will be fine. There’s nothing wrong with their ability to acquire language and unless you parents aren’t interacting with your kids, there’s no reason your kids won’t acquire speech normally

That doesn’t make sense to me. My baby is in daycare with masked teachers for the vast majority of her waking hours. I hope you’re right but I don’t see how their can’t be Speech delays as well as bonding issues. But, again, I hope I’m wrong and definitely see it as the lesser of two evils (the greater evil, to be clear, is covid).

DP. My DD was home from March to August last year (12-17 months old) and we started early intervention during that time because she had no words. When she started daycare with masked caregivers, her speech exploded. Of course, it may be she would have learned even more without the masks, but I don't think the effect, if any, is very significant.

[Anonymous]

Just remember: little kids don't know this is weird. We do, so we project our hangups and neuroses onto them. But they don't realize it's weird to see people in masks everywhere.

It's not ideal for kids learning to speak, no -- but that's a long way off and don't discount the impact of parents at home and other kids in the class in supporting language development. And I know masks make things seem cold and clinical but I can assure you, as a daycare mom, my child is clearly loved and cuddled and well cared for even with a mask. She can see her teachers are happy and cheerful even if she can't see their actual smiles.

[Anonymous]

I have worried about this also, OP - I don't think it's crazy to be concerned about it. I think the point to consider is how much time they do get with you at home. The most important thing for daycare in my view is that they actually are willing to hug and cuddle the kids and are not concerned about some insane "social distancing" with babies and toddlers.

[Anonymous]

Like many other twins, my twins were born premature (6 weeks). They spent the first few weeks in the NICU where all of the staff had to be masked and even Mommy and Daddy had to be masked when we came to visit. Although our twins were probably safe to be around without masks, there were other babies in the NICU who absolutely needed everyone masked, so everyone was masked.

My twins just turned 10 and are fine, happy, healthy and cannot even remember spending time with people who were fully masked (pre-pandemic).

Your baby will be fine with masked caregivers.

[Anonymous]

My 18mo has grown up with only masked daycare providers. He's learning Spanish from them (masked) and English from us. I think he's ahead of my older DC in language development. This is all to say, it's fine. Really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, it’s a definite drawback. It’s absolutely not idea for a baby to never see a smile or watch a caregiver form words. But what’s the option? Yes, I think our kids will be adversely effected and possibly speech delayed but it’s better than a sick baby (or worse).

Caregivers are not masked in most countries. It's not necessary and maybe harmful. Certainly not ideal. I would not choose daycare for that reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a child with actual language delays this post makes me cringe. Your baby will be fine. There’s nothing wrong with their ability to acquire language and unless you parents aren’t interacting with your kids, there’s no reason your kids won’t acquire speech normally

That doesn’t make sense to me. My baby is in daycare with masked teachers for the vast majority of her waking hours. I hope you’re right but I don’t see how their can’t be Speech delays as well as bonding issues. But, again, I hope I’m wrong and definitely see it as the lesser of two evils (the greater evil, to be clear, is covid).

European countries disagree with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like many other twins, my twins were born premature (6 weeks). They spent the first few weeks in the NICU where all of the staff had to be masked and even Mommy and Daddy had to be masked when we came to visit. Although our twins were probably safe to be around without masks, there were other babies in the NICU who absolutely needed everyone masked, so everyone was masked.

My twins just turned 10 and are fine, happy, healthy and cannot even remember spending time with people who were fully masked (pre-pandemic).

Your baby will be fine with masked caregivers.

I have had oreemies. They sleep most of the day and have poor vision. My 34 weeker was out in under three weeks. Not at all comparable to a baby in daycare 40 hours per week who sees no smiles or word formation for 18 months and counting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m currently on maternity leave with my 2 month old, due back soon. I don’t have a spot at a daycare yet and I’m really worried about sending him to a daycare where caregivers mask. Don’t get me wrong, I am pro-vaccine, pro mask, pro any and all public health measures. My 3 yr old is in preschool with masked teachers and masked students. But I am freaked out by the idea of a young baby (who lacks object permanence) spending so many hours a day with masked caregivers.

I’m sort of surprised I haven’t seen threads on this. Has anyone else had this concern and gotten over it? Did everyone just hire nannies?

Anecdotally, my pro mask pediatrician recently mentioned her DD is masked in childcare, and thinks that is partially responsible for her speech delay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like many other twins, my twins were born premature (6 weeks). They spent the first few weeks in the NICU where all of the staff had to be masked and even Mommy and Daddy had to be masked when we came to visit. Although our twins were probably safe to be around without masks, there were other babies in the NICU who absolutely needed everyone masked, so everyone was masked.

My twins just turned 10 and are fine, happy, healthy and cannot even remember spending time with people who were fully masked (pre-pandemic).

Your baby will be fine with masked caregivers.

I have had oreemies. They sleep most of the day and have poor vision. My 34 weeker was out in under three weeks. Not at all comparable to a baby in daycare 40 hours per week who sees no smiles or word formation for 18 months and counting.

What, are the parents masked at home, too?
I am a PP with a 16mo who has been in daycare the majority of the pandemic. There are 8 other toddlers in her class in the same situation. They’re all saying multiple words at this point. I also have a 5yo, and I don’t see any difference between my toddler’s language development and that of her older sister at the same age.
We do make a concerted effort to develop language here at home, but we did that with older DD, too.