Help this FTM navigate daycare teacher gifts please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The director doesn't expect gifts (at least ours don't). We have the same thing with floaters and whatnot at our school. I just ask the director for the names of the teachers in each of my kid's room and for the spelling of each. Then I don't have to guess which ones I should give gifts to. If my kid transitioned between rooms, I give to the teachers in both rooms. I give them our holiday card because I think they'd like a nice picture of the kids. I include a nice note about how I appreciate all their hard work and try to include something personal about each one (Layra loves how you sing songs every morning). I include a $10-20 Target gift card, depending on my budget for the year and how many teachers I have to cover. I also send in some sort of baked goods for each room. Label if there's nuts b/c they can't eat it around the kids if there is. I don't do the visa/amex gift cards b/c they have a service charge. Target is everywhere around here, so they can always get there and find something to buy there. My one SIL is a daycare director and the other SIL is a preschool teacher (in the burbs). They say what I do is generous, but within the range of normal.

PP here. If your budget only allows a nice note and a picture of your kid, they'll understand and appreciate what you can do.

[Anonymous]

Standard with nannies seems to be 1-2 weeks pay. I'd do the same for daycare. I would sit it among the main teacher and the assistants. Assume others do the same and their "main" teacher could be a floater to your child. In theory, no one should be left out.
I spend way more on holiday gifts for the people who help me on a day to day basis than I do for my own family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I do understand, PP - we are pretty stretched with daycare too. I do want to do something though. I guess I'm more concerned with not missing anyone and individual gift cards seem to pose the greatest risk of that happening. Like I said the baby main teacher is consistent but the other two seem to rotate occasionally. I can't keep straight who is doing what. If I give a card to every teacher who has ever taken care of our girl there will probably be only a few people on the payroll who will miss out! And that just feels crappy. I wondered about some kind of gift alternative that would minimize this but maybe I have to just buy like 10 gift cards and write one heartfelt note for the group? Gah.

I buy a gift card for every teacher in the room, whether or not they have watched my DC. They all work hard.

[Anonymous]

I have done several things in the past - large plate of baked goods/goodie basket for staff to share when I wasn't sure who were all the individuals to gift. Or for individual gifts I pretty much alternate between coffee mugs with small starbucks giftcard or I grab a selection of the small items they always have at Christmastime at ulta & make little gift bags (lotion, body wash, etc). With 2 kids who have multiple teachers and are in multiple activities I just can't afford to give cash or large gifts.

[Anonymous]

We've done gift cards from $25 to $50. It seemed like one year there was a lot of rotation, so we ended up buying 12 $25 gift cards. The one year they were really consistent (we have 2 kids), we bought 4 $50 gift cards.

Do what you can afford - a little more for the head teacher and gift cards for the assistants. We would also get a few more $10 cards to take with us in case we forgot someone.

[Anonymous]

We typically gave $50 gift cards for each teacher, and maybe a $25 gift card for each of the extended day people.

For 6-7 teachers, maybe $20-$25 each?

I know it's a lot when you add it to the cost of daycare, but for the people watching your kid day-in, day-out, I think it's nice to reward them once a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Standard with nannies seems to be 1-2 weeks pay. I'd do the same for daycare. I would sit it among the main teacher and the assistants. Assume others do the same and their "main" teacher could be a floater to your child. In theory, no one should be left out.
I spend way more on holiday gifts for the people who help me on a day to day basis than I do for my own family.

+1
Our biggest Christmas expenditure is the cash we give our child care provider (home day care-we give the owner 500 and her assistant 1-200). We are far from wealthy and it is a stretch for us, but they really, really deserve it.

[Anonymous]

Gift and card for the two main teachers, just cards for others.