Infant Room - Expectations?

[Anonymous]

PP 10:19 here. I never left my baby on the floor if there wasn't someone to take him. Of course I had the luxury that the day care was in DH's office building and he has a flexible job, so he stayed until someone could take him OR if the room seemed chaotic, he stayed until things settled down and his bottle was all warmed up.

This helped a lot too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big centers will be always cold and business like. If you want more personal attention, you need to switch to nanny, share or in-home. I believe, centers are better for older kids, but infants need personal attention, they develop better when somebody is talking, singing, smiles to them.

You need to evaluate the center. Not all centers are alike, not even all large centers. We are at a Bright Horizons facility at a federal agency (the one my wife works at). There are three infant rooms with a 1:3 ratio that is strictly maintained. After 2, they can have a 1:8 ratio. There are two 2 year rooms, and one 3 year room and at least one other older room (not sure of the ages in that last room as I don't go by there much).

Our twins started at 3.5 months and they opened a new room for them (the other two rooms were full with 6 infants and 2 teachers each). We have watched over the last 10 months as things have grown. 4 other children were slowly added to our room. One c hild left because the family joined an au pair program. We had 5 children and 2 teachers for about 4 months and then another child was added. We're back to six. It has been a positive experience for us. We know the two teachers in our room very well and they know our children very well. They greet them every morning when we arrive "Hi A! He B!" Most mornings, at least one of the teachers will stop what she's doing to come over and give both of them a hug and a kiss. After all this time, we know the other children pretty well and we know their parents pretty well. We occasionally see them at drop-off or pick-up. All six children get very personalized care. There were only two bouncy seats and two playmats and two boppy pillows initially and it was a little hard when there were six pre-mobile children. But we all worked it out. Yes, there were times that we came in and dropped our children into a bouncy seat, playmat or boppy pillow, but we usually stayed a few minutes and our children are almost always attended to before we leave. Before they were crawling, it was every time. The center has a policy that at drop-off someone checks their diapers, so they get attention when dropped off.

But then, we interviews six facilities before we had the twins and this was the one that we chose because we liked the procedures and standards best. It's an excellent facility and we felt much more comfortable there than other facilities that we looked at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big centers will be always cold and business like. If you want more personal attention, you need to switch to nanny, share or in-home. I believe, centers are better for older kids, but infants need personal attention, they develop better when somebody is talking, singing, smiles to them.

This was NOT our experience at a big center in downtown. We had fantastic teachers who seemed really interested in the babies--and not just during dropoff and pickup. It sounds like OP might have a bit of guilt for going back to work and is just working through the totally normal feelings of daycare. OP - trust your gut. But give it some time too. Make friends with other parents in the infant room, get a feel from them, etc. This is hard stuff and you need to be happy, but definitely take it with a grain of salt when someone tells you all centers are crap and not loving. It's just not true.

[Anonymous]

I think you should listen to your instincts -- it sounds like you don't like the place, and I don't like it either from your description.

[Anonymous]

I had a bad feeling about a daycare center right before I went back to work. My DD had been visiting for partial days and not doing well there at all. I ended up finding a home daycare rather quickly and pulling my DD out of the center and putting her into home daycare. It really was the best decision for us at the time. Trust your instincts.

[Anonymous]

It might make you feel better to also make conversation with the teachers. Ask them about their weekend plans, their commutes, their families, if they've seen any good movies lately, favorite sports teams, etc. It can be hard to make conversation with other parents who are in a hurry, but when I spend extra time either at drop off or pick up a few times a week to catch up with one or more of my child's teachers, I'm always glad I did.

The teachers can also answer your other questions about how many kids are in the room, whether your child is the youngest, whether the child you see fussing is like that all the time or just in the mornings or when a new person comes in the room. The infant stage can be hard but I'd trust that if the older kids seem happy and engaged, then your child will too.

You could also make conversation with parents of kids in the older classrooms to find out if their kids were in the same infant room and how they liked it. You'd probably feel better about the center if you talk to people with experience in the actual center.

If you want your relationship with your providers to be warm and fuzzy, be warm and fuzzy! If you take the time to get to know them your whole perspective might change. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Our child has been in a good-sized center (a local non-profit, though) since she was 4 months. THe infant room is a warm, wonderful place, and I'm planning to send #2 there when I go back to work in the spring. We felt that center-based care was the best choice for our family for many reasons (oversight, chain of command if we had a problem, learn to interact with many different adults, etc.), but the centers are definitely not all the same. We love ours, but it sounds very different from many that the PPs are discussing. Among other things, our center doesn't use bouncy seats/swings/etc. at all. But there are *always* caregivers sitting on the floor interacting with the babies, holding babies, singing to babies, kissing babies. Keep looking until you find a good fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big centers will be always cold and business like. If you want more personal attention, you need to switch to nanny, share or in-home. I believe, centers are better for older kids, but infants need personal attention, they develop better when somebody is talking, singing, smiles to them.

Not true. They should at least take the child and talk with her about his night and morning thus far.

[Anonymous]

We are in a small corporate center. No bouncy seats. Not outwardly loving in the infant room at first but definitely there. Not all corporate centers are bad .

[Anonymous]

OP your instincts MAY be right, but don't write off the centers altogether. Give them a chance, and if not, move on.
Our DD is in a corporate-franchise center. She started at 10 wks and is now in the 2's room.
DH has always done drop-off and says that pre-mobilility he would remove DD from the bucket seat and hand her to one of the teachers. There were two "regulars" in the little baby area and others would rotate in as needed. At pickup she would sometimes be in a swing, in a seat, on the floor with toys, etc. Not always actively in someone's arms, but I never had the sense that she was just sitting there all day.
Does your daycare do art? At 10 wks they were sending her home with stuff she "painted." At the max there were 6 little babies for two teachers. Everyone had a crib, they had two swings, one or two bouncy seats, and a bunch of floor space with those big cushioned mats.
When does your daycare move all those 6 mo olds to the next room? if they are about to move on, that might help - or might not.

[littlebrimbaby]

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