The Research on Various Childcare Options

[Anonymous]

The elephant in the room that no one has mentioned - is the higher prevalence of daycare over time partially responsibility for increasing misbehavior in schools?

The “my rich friends chose daycare so it must be an great option” argument does not hold water with me. Some parents do what is best for themselves, not their kids. They may prioritize getting more hours of childcare (daycares are often open 10 hours, nannies rarely stay that long), they may not like the hassle of managing an employee and giving them access to their home, they may not like lowering HHI and cutting their budget so one spouse can quit. And they tell themselves through sickness after sickness after sickness that their child “loves” their daycare teachers and friends and that the child will “gain immunity” before starting Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Unfortunately, this is a very sensitive topic. But it's only so because everyone on this board wants what's best for our kids, whatever that is.

The PPs who say claims about daycare being worse for kids are dangerous for women are absolutely right. In heterosexual partnerships, men earn more than women on average. Men also tend to be slightly older than their female partners, which means they'll earn more even if there were no gender wage gap. That means that the pressure to be a SAHP will overwhelmingly fall on women. We know this is true already, and that makes many of us uncomfortable.

I don't know what the facts are in the daycare vs. SAHP vs. nanny debate, but I think it's important to find the truth, even if it's inconvenient or distressing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No one can seriously discuss these studies on DCUM. People are extremely sensitive to their childcare choices, and no one is more sensitive the mothers who wanted to stay home but could not afford it and feel guilty. Don’t! You made the choice you had to make, no sense in ruminating over what will likely be totally fine in the long term.

Common sense will tell you that babies are probably best served staying with their mother who loves them until they reach an age where socializing benefits them. Everything else - daycare, nanny, etc. - are just shuffling around lesser-but-fine alternatives.

We know multiple couples who could have afforded a nanny but instead went with daycare. Those families had two successful parents, no student debt from top schools, and wealthy grandparents. One family in particular probably had a HHI between $350-400k. I don't think they would have chosen daycare unless they thought it was as good of an option as a nanny.

Yeah I have several friends who are pretty successful and have higher incomes than that who sent their kids to daycare from an early age. Way before 3 or 4. Sometimes it's just easier that way because you never have to deal with an unreliable/sick nanny, don't need to worry about a nanny might be doing in your house when you're not there, easier to work from home, etc. It's not just about cost. Plus I've heard from multiple friends that nannies just aren't great at "teaching" anything.

I don't really know if I believe that a mom staying home is "by common sense" the best option. Spreading out the work and having a nanny come for part of the day who can really focus on the kid and then get a break might be better than a mom who is overworked/tired and can't give her all to the kid because she has to do housework, cooking, etc. Personally I was relieved when I got back to work because being the stay at home mom/house manager during maternity leave felt like a lot!

But the downside of daycare is that they can have strict rules about sick kids, and send kids home with the sniffles. And of course, being in group care with a lot of other kids and multiple caregivers als means kids in daycare are more likely to get sick, so this can become a nasty cycle, especially if you have multiple kids in daycare. Add to this strict rules about fevers in an age group where fevers are more common than in the general population.

With nannies, kids generally catch fewer viruses and most nannies will care for sick kids unless they are, themselves, too sick to work. Most nannies are not taking off four days for a cold, but a daycare could easily refuse to allow a kid in class for four days with a cold, especially post-Covid.

Totally, I don’t disagree with any of that. I guess my point was just to say that I have friends who make a lot and still chose daycare despite having “options”. And I’m talking about like…double big law, banking, private equity, doctors. I don’t know anyone keeping their kids home until they’re 3.

This is unique to dc and a few other blue cities. In most of America, no one with a high earning career would ever put their child in daycare.

I live in DC and disagree with the PP. I know a lot of people here who kept their kids home until 3. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two families who put their kid in daycare before age 1, and they were not happy about it. I can't really think of any families who were really enthusiastic about daycare, especially for infants/babies. It's the kind of thing that just feels intuitively off to you (leaving a 3 or 4 month old baby in a daycare facility) and most people will try to avoid it if they can.

I will accept that some people actually choose daycare even when they have other options, but I'm raising kids in DC and don't know anyone for whom that is true.

But I think keeping kids until 3 vs. sending a 3-4 month old to daycare are entirely different concepts and don’t belong in the same conversation. I don’t think anyone is advocating that daycare is “better” for a young baby. But at a certain age, I think daycare it does make sense to send a kid to a group setting, even if it’s for a few hours at a time and/or a few days a week. I don’t think keeping kids entirely home until 3 is normal. I have friends who don’t work and don’t even do that. Personally I kept my kid home until about 1.5 (probably could’ve kept him until 2 if we really wanted to). Between 2-3, I couldn’t imagine keeping him at home everyday. That would’ve been a disservice to him.

That’s the issue with this thread, people can be pro daycare beyond a certain age but others are like OMG you’re sending your 3 month old to daycare by choice??

You didn't read the article the thread is about then.

The data is different based on age. The data on daycare for a child who is 0-12 months old is not good. It is very hard to argue that daycare is "good" for a 3 month old, if there is any other option available.

PPs are arguing that there are lot of families with options, who can afford nannies or SAHPs or other solutions, but who choose daycares starting at 3/4 months old. This does not track with my experience at all.

Also, keeping a kid "home" until 3 does not mean keeping a child "alone" until 3. If the child is with a nanny or SAHP, what this usually means is that they have one primary caregiver who is in their home, bu they may spend significant portions of their day in large groups of kids. That's a huge part of what nannies and SAHPs do -- take kids to playgrounds, music classes, playgroups, etc. But wanting social experiences for your toddler is not the same as thinking a group care situation is ideal.

Also, haha, my 2/3 year old did in fact spend close to a year at home with us every day with few socialization opportunities because of Covid, which closed the playgroup she'd been attending and postponed her starting preschool on time. And yes, it was not ideal! Parents are forced into not-ideal situations all the time due to forces beyond their control, but it's okay to acknowledge that. Saying that I don't think daycare is the best environment for a 3 month old is not the same as saying I think parents who put 3 mo old kids in daycare are bad parents. Anymore than I'm a bad parent because my 2/3 yo kid spent 6 months mostly alone with us in our house due to Covid. We all do the best we can with the opportunities afforded to us, and sometimes our opportunities suck.

I don't think going to a playground full of random kids and a music class once a week provides all the benefits a daily, structured program with the same set of kids and teachers does. But I'm sure I'm just not seeing all the great benefits that 1 on 1 time with your nanny is conferring either. Even when my kid was 18 months I already felt like he was getting bored with our nanny.

I mean, you can talk about any childcare option this way and make it sounds horrible:

I don't think being crammed into a room with a bunch of other kids and minimal 1:1 attention from caregivers and limited outdoor time, provides all the benefits of a nurturing, responsive relationship with a SAHP, grandparent, or nanny. See what I did there?

Also, huge difference between an 18mo at home with a nanny and a 4mo at home with a nanny. Why is this thread only exclusively about what is right for toddlers? It started as a discussion of different childcare options at all ages. Most people have more and better childcare options for toddlers than they do for infants because the required ratios for that age group are more affordable. There are also more part-time options available so you could have a nanny and also send your kid to half day preschool a few days a week and get the best of both worlds. Older kids can thrive in all kinds of environments -- they could do great with a SAHP/grandparent/nanny as long as that caretaker is getting them plenty of social opportunities (and no, this would not be limited to one playground visit with random kids and a single music class, I don't know why you would assume it would be -- lots of ways to build structured social time into day with a toddler that involves seeing the same kids and building relationships over time, nannies and SAHPs do this all the time). But they could also do great its a group setting. I don't understand why we're arguing about this, I don't get the sense there's much debate here.

The bigger debate is whether group care setting adequately meet the developmental needs of infants and young babies and I think the study shows that there's situations where it doesn't. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent for choosing daycare -- not all daycares are equal and not all families have options. But as a parent it concerns me that group care settings are shown to have negative impacts on infants, and yet we live in a society where (1) parental leave is very limited compared to other similarly developed nations, (2) parents are penalized professionally and socially for taking time off from work to care for very young children, and (3) the costs of infant care are high and rising every day, further limiting the options of the average family.

Like I don't care that your 18 mo old got bored with your nanny and you decided to put him in preschool -- sounds like a good solution for a family with lots of choices. Doesn't seem like something we need to argue over.

Lol I don't even know what this thread has devolved into. I agree that a 4 month old in daycare is way different than 18 month old. I was going beyond that to say that I personally think a 3 year old in daycare is great. But there seem to be people on these forums (maybe the same one for all I know) who think that even a 3 year old should stay home, or at least only go for 3 hours a day or 3 days or week or something, and are eager to shame parents who have chosen to send this child to daycare. A 3 year old - for goodness sake!

I will admit that I haven't read every post in the thread but I haven't seen a bunch of people arguing that it's wrong to put a 3 year old in group care. It's really common to start preschool at 3 and many people start at 2 -- this just seems like a non-issue. If someone is shaming you for putting a 3 year old in a group care environment, they are a far outlier and you can just not listen to them! They probably think you should homeschool and avoid vaccinations too.

I feel passionately about this issue because I had really poor choices for childcare when my DD was born and wound up quitting a job I didn't want to quit to stay home with her because we couldn't afford a nanny and the group care centers I looked at (both daycares and in-home centers) that we could afford were pretty bad and it was very hard to contemplate leaving an infant in them. So I think it's important to talk about the risks of group care for babies because what would be great is if we could find a way to create affordable options for families that don't carry those risks (whether that's more parental leave, better oversight of group care facilities and subsidies to make them financially viable without compromising infant care, or some combination of the above).

I think pretending that the average daycare is great for infants, and equal in quality to a SAHP or nanny or nanny share, is borderline irresponsible.

Irresponsible to whom? We picked center based care at 6M because it was in the same building as my office and I could breastfeed twice a day. That doesn’t mean leaving my daughter with a nanny would have been “irresponsible” because she wouldn’t have been breastfed. Responsible parenting is leaving your children in safe care. Period. Pretending it’s more than that is just desperately seeking validation for your choices at the expense of others.

But having a daycare in your office building that enables you to visit and breasted twice a day is not "average daycare." It's a unique situation that helped make that situation work for you. The average daycare situation doesn't involve being in the same building as either parent and does not support multiple visits a day and definitely doesn't support breastfeeding in this way.

What you don't seem to get is that I'm not trying to justify or validate my own choices, I'm trying to explain that my choices, which are the typical choices that working and middle class women have in this country, were crappy. I think women, and babies, and families, deserve better. If we acknowledge that the average daycare environment is maybe not that great for a 3 mo baby, then maybe we could have a serious conversation about catching the US up with the rest of the devleoped world on parental leave, for instance. But no, we have to pretend daycare is awesome for infants because some rich women find very high quality daycare that doesn't have the negative impacts of most daycare facilities, and we need to make sure they don't feel slighted in any way.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No one can seriously discuss these studies on DCUM. People are extremely sensitive to their childcare choices, and no one is more sensitive the mothers who wanted to stay home but could not afford it and feel guilty. Don’t! You made the choice you had to make, no sense in ruminating over what will likely be totally fine in the long term.

Common sense will tell you that babies are probably best served staying with their mother who loves them until they reach an age where socializing benefits them. Everything else - daycare, nanny, etc. - are just shuffling around lesser-but-fine alternatives.

We know multiple couples who could have afforded a nanny but instead went with daycare. Those families had two successful parents, no student debt from top schools, and wealthy grandparents. One family in particular probably had a HHI between $350-400k. I don't think they would have chosen daycare unless they thought it was as good of an option as a nanny.

Yeah I have several friends who are pretty successful and have higher incomes than that who sent their kids to daycare from an early age. Way before 3 or 4. Sometimes it's just easier that way because you never have to deal with an unreliable/sick nanny, don't need to worry about a nanny might be doing in your house when you're not there, easier to work from home, etc. It's not just about cost. Plus I've heard from multiple friends that nannies just aren't great at "teaching" anything.

I don't really know if I believe that a mom staying home is "by common sense" the best option. Spreading out the work and having a nanny come for part of the day who can really focus on the kid and then get a break might be better than a mom who is overworked/tired and can't give her all to the kid because she has to do housework, cooking, etc. Personally I was relieved when I got back to work because being the stay at home mom/house manager during maternity leave felt like a lot!

But the downside of daycare is that they can have strict rules about sick kids, and send kids home with the sniffles. And of course, being in group care with a lot of other kids and multiple caregivers als means kids in daycare are more likely to get sick, so this can become a nasty cycle, especially if you have multiple kids in daycare. Add to this strict rules about fevers in an age group where fevers are more common than in the general population.

With nannies, kids generally catch fewer viruses and most nannies will care for sick kids unless they are, themselves, too sick to work. Most nannies are not taking off four days for a cold, but a daycare could easily refuse to allow a kid in class for four days with a cold, especially post-Covid.

Totally, I don’t disagree with any of that. I guess my point was just to say that I have friends who make a lot and still chose daycare despite having “options”. And I’m talking about like…double big law, banking, private equity, doctors. I don’t know anyone keeping their kids home until they’re 3.

This is unique to dc and a few other blue cities. In most of America, no one with a high earning career would ever put their child in daycare.

I live in DC and disagree with the PP. I know a lot of people here who kept their kids home until 3. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two families who put their kid in daycare before age 1, and they were not happy about it. I can't really think of any families who were really enthusiastic about daycare, especially for infants/babies. It's the kind of thing that just feels intuitively off to you (leaving a 3 or 4 month old baby in a daycare facility) and most people will try to avoid it if they can.

I will accept that some people actually choose daycare even when they have other options, but I'm raising kids in DC and don't know anyone for whom that is true.

But I think keeping kids until 3 vs. sending a 3-4 month old to daycare are entirely different concepts and don’t belong in the same conversation. I don’t think anyone is advocating that daycare is “better” for a young baby. But at a certain age, I think daycare it does make sense to send a kid to a group setting, even if it’s for a few hours at a time and/or a few days a week. I don’t think keeping kids entirely home until 3 is normal. I have friends who don’t work and don’t even do that. Personally I kept my kid home until about 1.5 (probably could’ve kept him until 2 if we really wanted to). Between 2-3, I couldn’t imagine keeping him at home everyday. That would’ve been a disservice to him.

That’s the issue with this thread, people can be pro daycare beyond a certain age but others are like OMG you’re sending your 3 month old to daycare by choice??

You didn't read the article the thread is about then.

The data is different based on age. The data on daycare for a child who is 0-12 months old is not good. It is very hard to argue that daycare is "good" for a 3 month old, if there is any other option available.

PPs are arguing that there are lot of families with options, who can afford nannies or SAHPs or other solutions, but who choose daycares starting at 3/4 months old. This does not track with my experience at all.

Also, keeping a kid "home" until 3 does not mean keeping a child "alone" until 3. If the child is with a nanny or SAHP, what this usually means is that they have one primary caregiver who is in their home, bu they may spend significant portions of their day in large groups of kids. That's a huge part of what nannies and SAHPs do -- take kids to playgrounds, music classes, playgroups, etc. But wanting social experiences for your toddler is not the same as thinking a group care situation is ideal.

Also, haha, my 2/3 year old did in fact spend close to a year at home with us every day with few socialization opportunities because of Covid, which closed the playgroup she'd been attending and postponed her starting preschool on time. And yes, it was not ideal! Parents are forced into not-ideal situations all the time due to forces beyond their control, but it's okay to acknowledge that. Saying that I don't think daycare is the best environment for a 3 month old is not the same as saying I think parents who put 3 mo old kids in daycare are bad parents. Anymore than I'm a bad parent because my 2/3 yo kid spent 6 months mostly alone with us in our house due to Covid. We all do the best we can with the opportunities afforded to us, and sometimes our opportunities suck.

I don't think going to a playground full of random kids and a music class once a week provides all the benefits a daily, structured program with the same set of kids and teachers does. But I'm sure I'm just not seeing all the great benefits that 1 on 1 time with your nanny is conferring either. Even when my kid was 18 months I already felt like he was getting bored with our nanny.

I mean, you can talk about any childcare option this way and make it sounds horrible:

I don't think being crammed into a room with a bunch of other kids and minimal 1:1 attention from caregivers and limited outdoor time, provides all the benefits of a nurturing, responsive relationship with a SAHP, grandparent, or nanny. See what I did there?

Also, huge difference between an 18mo at home with a nanny and a 4mo at home with a nanny. Why is this thread only exclusively about what is right for toddlers? It started as a discussion of different childcare options at all ages. Most people have more and better childcare options for toddlers than they do for infants because the required ratios for that age group are more affordable. There are also more part-time options available so you could have a nanny and also send your kid to half day preschool a few days a week and get the best of both worlds. Older kids can thrive in all kinds of environments -- they could do great with a SAHP/grandparent/nanny as long as that caretaker is getting them plenty of social opportunities (and no, this would not be limited to one playground visit with random kids and a single music class, I don't know why you would assume it would be -- lots of ways to build structured social time into day with a toddler that involves seeing the same kids and building relationships over time, nannies and SAHPs do this all the time). But they could also do great its a group setting. I don't understand why we're arguing about this, I don't get the sense there's much debate here.

The bigger debate is whether group care setting adequately meet the developmental needs of infants and young babies and I think the study shows that there's situations where it doesn't. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent for choosing daycare -- not all daycares are equal and not all families have options. But as a parent it concerns me that group care settings are shown to have negative impacts on infants, and yet we live in a society where (1) parental leave is very limited compared to other similarly developed nations, (2) parents are penalized professionally and socially for taking time off from work to care for very young children, and (3) the costs of infant care are high and rising every day, further limiting the options of the average family.

Like I don't care that your 18 mo old got bored with your nanny and you decided to put him in preschool -- sounds like a good solution for a family with lots of choices. Doesn't seem like something we need to argue over.

Lol I don't even know what this thread has devolved into. I agree that a 4 month old in daycare is way different than 18 month old. I was going beyond that to say that I personally think a 3 year old in daycare is great. But there seem to be people on these forums (maybe the same one for all I know) who think that even a 3 year old should stay home, or at least only go for 3 hours a day or 3 days or week or something, and are eager to shame parents who have chosen to send this child to daycare. A 3 year old - for goodness sake!

I will admit that I haven't read every post in the thread but I haven't seen a bunch of people arguing that it's wrong to put a 3 year old in group care. It's really common to start preschool at 3 and many people start at 2 -- this just seems like a non-issue. If someone is shaming you for putting a 3 year old in a group care environment, they are a far outlier and you can just not listen to them! They probably think you should homeschool and avoid vaccinations too.

I feel passionately about this issue because I had really poor choices for childcare when my DD was born and wound up quitting a job I didn't want to quit to stay home with her because we couldn't afford a nanny and the group care centers I looked at (both daycares and in-home centers) that we could afford were pretty bad and it was very hard to contemplate leaving an infant in them. So I think it's important to talk about the risks of group care for babies because what would be great is if we could find a way to create affordable options for families that don't carry those risks (whether that's more parental leave, better oversight of group care facilities and subsidies to make them financially viable without compromising infant care, or some combination of the above).

I think pretending that the average daycare is great for infants, and equal in quality to a SAHP or nanny or nanny share, is borderline irresponsible.

Irresponsible to whom? We picked center based care at 6M because it was in the same building as my office and I could breastfeed twice a day. That doesn’t mean leaving my daughter with a nanny would have been “irresponsible” because she wouldn’t have been breastfed. Responsible parenting is leaving your children in safe care. Period. Pretending it’s more than that is just desperately seeking validation for your choices at the expense of others.

It sounds like you made the best decision for you which is all that matters.

I can't deny though that having an infant in daycare can be rough. I sent mine to daycare around the same age but COVID started shortly after so I was able to keep him home. I felt terrible the whole time he was there because he took super short naps, got sick a lot and overall didn't seem too happy.

We had my baby in 2020 and the daycare I set up 8 months prior shut down a month before I went back to work. It ended up being the best thing for our family. We sold a car to afford a nanny, cancelled two vacations, but having her home and re-budgeting our lives around it was a good forced outcome.

PP here - we didn't get a nanny for a long time, just somehow took care of the baby while working for months. It was great though. I was able to breastfeed for way long than I intended and I loved that we could keep the baby at home with us. Plus we saved a bunch of money.

This is good to hear.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:No one can seriously discuss these studies on DCUM. People are extremely sensitive to their childcare choices, and no one is more sensitive the mothers who wanted to stay home but could not afford it and feel guilty. Don’t! You made the choice you had to make, no sense in ruminating over what will likely be totally fine in the long term.

Common sense will tell you that babies are probably best served staying with their mother who loves them until they reach an age where socializing benefits them. Everything else - daycare, nanny, etc. - are just shuffling around lesser-but-fine alternatives.

We know multiple couples who could have afforded a nanny but instead went with daycare. Those families had two successful parents, no student debt from top schools, and wealthy grandparents. One family in particular probably had a HHI between $350-400k. I don't think they would have chosen daycare unless they thought it was as good of an option as a nanny.

Yeah I have several friends who are pretty successful and have higher incomes than that who sent their kids to daycare from an early age. Way before 3 or 4. Sometimes it's just easier that way because you never have to deal with an unreliable/sick nanny, don't need to worry about a nanny might be doing in your house when you're not there, easier to work from home, etc. It's not just about cost. Plus I've heard from multiple friends that nannies just aren't great at "teaching" anything.

I don't really know if I believe that a mom staying home is "by common sense" the best option. Spreading out the work and having a nanny come for part of the day who can really focus on the kid and then get a break might be better than a mom who is overworked/tired and can't give her all to the kid because she has to do housework, cooking, etc. Personally I was relieved when I got back to work because being the stay at home mom/house manager during maternity leave felt like a lot!

But the downside of daycare is that they can have strict rules about sick kids, and send kids home with the sniffles. And of course, being in group care with a lot of other kids and multiple caregivers als means kids in daycare are more likely to get sick, so this can become a nasty cycle, especially if you have multiple kids in daycare. Add to this strict rules about fevers in an age group where fevers are more common than in the general population.

With nannies, kids generally catch fewer viruses and most nannies will care for sick kids unless they are, themselves, too sick to work. Most nannies are not taking off four days for a cold, but a daycare could easily refuse to allow a kid in class for four days with a cold, especially post-Covid.

Totally, I don’t disagree with any of that. I guess my point was just to say that I have friends who make a lot and still chose daycare despite having “options”. And I’m talking about like…double big law, banking, private equity, doctors. I don’t know anyone keeping their kids home until they’re 3.

This is unique to dc and a few other blue cities. In most of America, no one with a high earning career would ever put their child in daycare.

I live in DC and disagree with the PP. I know a lot of people here who kept their kids home until 3. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two families who put their kid in daycare before age 1, and they were not happy about it. I can't really think of any families who were really enthusiastic about daycare, especially for infants/babies. It's the kind of thing that just feels intuitively off to you (leaving a 3 or 4 month old baby in a daycare facility) and most people will try to avoid it if they can.

I will accept that some people actually choose daycare even when they have other options, but I'm raising kids in DC and don't know anyone for whom that is true.

But I think keeping kids until 3 vs. sending a 3-4 month old to daycare are entirely different concepts and don’t belong in the same conversation. I don’t think anyone is advocating that daycare is “better” for a young baby. But at a certain age, I think daycare it does make sense to send a kid to a group setting, even if it’s for a few hours at a time and/or a few days a week. I don’t think keeping kids entirely home until 3 is normal. I have friends who don’t work and don’t even do that. Personally I kept my kid home until about 1.5 (probably could’ve kept him until 2 if we really wanted to). Between 2-3, I couldn’t imagine keeping him at home everyday. That would’ve been a disservice to him.

That’s the issue with this thread, people can be pro daycare beyond a certain age but others are like OMG you’re sending your 3 month old to daycare by choice??

You didn't read the article the thread is about then.

The data is different based on age. The data on daycare for a child who is 0-12 months old is not good. It is very hard to argue that daycare is "good" for a 3 month old, if there is any other option available.

PPs are arguing that there are lot of families with options, who can afford nannies or SAHPs or other solutions, but who choose daycares starting at 3/4 months old. This does not track with my experience at all.

Also, keeping a kid "home" until 3 does not mean keeping a child "alone" until 3. If the child is with a nanny or SAHP, what this usually means is that they have one primary caregiver who is in their home, bu they may spend significant portions of their day in large groups of kids. That's a huge part of what nannies and SAHPs do -- take kids to playgrounds, music classes, playgroups, etc. But wanting social experiences for your toddler is not the same as thinking a group care situation is ideal.

Also, haha, my 2/3 year old did in fact spend close to a year at home with us every day with few socialization opportunities because of Covid, which closed the playgroup she'd been attending and postponed her starting preschool on time. And yes, it was not ideal! Parents are forced into not-ideal situations all the time due to forces beyond their control, but it's okay to acknowledge that. Saying that I don't think daycare is the best environment for a 3 month old is not the same as saying I think parents who put 3 mo old kids in daycare are bad parents. Anymore than I'm a bad parent because my 2/3 yo kid spent 6 months mostly alone with us in our house due to Covid. We all do the best we can with the opportunities afforded to us, and sometimes our opportunities suck.

I don't think going to a playground full of random kids and a music class once a week provides all the benefits a daily, structured program with the same set of kids and teachers does. But I'm sure I'm just not seeing all the great benefits that 1 on 1 time with your nanny is conferring either. Even when my kid was 18 months I already felt like he was getting bored with our nanny.

I mean, you can talk about any childcare option this way and make it sounds horrible:

I don't think being crammed into a room with a bunch of other kids and minimal 1:1 attention from caregivers and limited outdoor time, provides all the benefits of a nurturing, responsive relationship with a SAHP, grandparent, or nanny. See what I did there?

Also, huge difference between an 18mo at home with a nanny and a 4mo at home with a nanny. Why is this thread only exclusively about what is right for toddlers? It started as a discussion of different childcare options at all ages. Most people have more and better childcare options for toddlers than they do for infants because the required ratios for that age group are more affordable. There are also more part-time options available so you could have a nanny and also send your kid to half day preschool a few days a week and get the best of both worlds. Older kids can thrive in all kinds of environments -- they could do great with a SAHP/grandparent/nanny as long as that caretaker is getting them plenty of social opportunities (and no, this would not be limited to one playground visit with random kids and a single music class, I don't know why you would assume it would be -- lots of ways to build structured social time into day with a toddler that involves seeing the same kids and building relationships over time, nannies and SAHPs do this all the time). But they could also do great its a group setting. I don't understand why we're arguing about this, I don't get the sense there's much debate here.

The bigger debate is whether group care setting adequately meet the developmental needs of infants and young babies and I think the study shows that there's situations where it doesn't. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent for choosing daycare -- not all daycares are equal and not all families have options. But as a parent it concerns me that group care settings are shown to have negative impacts on infants, and yet we live in a society where (1) parental leave is very limited compared to other similarly developed nations, (2) parents are penalized professionally and socially for taking time off from work to care for very young children, and (3) the costs of infant care are high and rising every day, further limiting the options of the average family.

Like I don't care that your 18 mo old got bored with your nanny and you decided to put him in preschool -- sounds like a good solution for a family with lots of choices. Doesn't seem like something we need to argue over.

Lol I don't even know what this thread has devolved into. I agree that a 4 month old in daycare is way different than 18 month old. I was going beyond that to say that I personally think a 3 year old in daycare is great. But there seem to be people on these forums (maybe the same one for all I know) who think that even a 3 year old should stay home, or at least only go for 3 hours a day or 3 days or week or something, and are eager to shame parents who have chosen to send this child to daycare. A 3 year old - for goodness sake!

I will admit that I haven't read every post in the thread but I haven't seen a bunch of people arguing that it's wrong to put a 3 year old in group care. It's really common to start preschool at 3 and many people start at 2 -- this just seems like a non-issue. If someone is shaming you for putting a 3 year old in a group care environment, they are a far outlier and you can just not listen to them! They probably think you should homeschool and avoid vaccinations too.

I feel passionately about this issue because I had really poor choices for childcare when my DD was born and wound up quitting a job I didn't want to quit to stay home with her because we couldn't afford a nanny and the group care centers I looked at (both daycares and in-home centers) that we could afford were pretty bad and it was very hard to contemplate leaving an infant in them. So I think it's important to talk about the risks of group care for babies because what would be great is if we could find a way to create affordable options for families that don't carry those risks (whether that's more parental leave, better oversight of group care facilities and subsidies to make them financially viable without compromising infant care, or some combination of the above).

I think pretending that the average daycare is great for infants, and equal in quality to a SAHP or nanny or nanny share, is borderline irresponsible.

Irresponsible to whom? We picked center based care at 6M because it was in the same building as my office and I could breastfeed twice a day. That doesn’t mean leaving my daughter with a nanny would have been “irresponsible” because she wouldn’t have been breastfed. Responsible parenting is leaving your children in safe care. Period. Pretending it’s more than that is just desperately seeking validation for your choices at the expense of others.

It sounds like you made the best decision for you which is all that matters.

I can't deny though that having an infant in daycare can be rough. I sent mine to daycare around the same age but COVID started shortly after so I was able to keep him home. I felt terrible the whole time he was there because he took super short naps, got sick a lot and overall didn't seem too happy.

We had my baby in 2020 and the daycare I set up 8 months prior shut down a month before I went back to work. It ended up being the best thing for our family. We sold a car to afford a nanny, cancelled two vacations, but having her home and re-budgeting our lives around it was a good forced outcome.

PP here - we didn't get a nanny for a long time, just somehow took care of the baby while working for months. It was great though. I was able to breastfeed for way long than I intended and I loved that we could keep the baby at home with us. Plus we saved a bunch of money.

This is the best way. Lots of crummmy nannies out there too. I see them all the time at the park sitting and playing on their phones.

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Anonymous wrote:No one can seriously discuss these studies on DCUM. People are extremely sensitive to their childcare choices, and no one is more sensitive the mothers who wanted to stay home but could not afford it and feel guilty. Don’t! You made the choice you had to make, no sense in ruminating over what will likely be totally fine in the long term.

Common sense will tell you that babies are probably best served staying with their mother who loves them until they reach an age where socializing benefits them. Everything else - daycare, nanny, etc. - are just shuffling around lesser-but-fine alternatives.

We know multiple couples who could have afforded a nanny but instead went with daycare. Those families had two successful parents, no student debt from top schools, and wealthy grandparents. One family in particular probably had a HHI between $350-400k. I don't think they would have chosen daycare unless they thought it was as good of an option as a nanny.

Yeah I have several friends who are pretty successful and have higher incomes than that who sent their kids to daycare from an early age. Way before 3 or 4. Sometimes it's just easier that way because you never have to deal with an unreliable/sick nanny, don't need to worry about a nanny might be doing in your house when you're not there, easier to work from home, etc. It's not just about cost. Plus I've heard from multiple friends that nannies just aren't great at "teaching" anything.

I don't really know if I believe that a mom staying home is "by common sense" the best option. Spreading out the work and having a nanny come for part of the day who can really focus on the kid and then get a break might be better than a mom who is overworked/tired and can't give her all to the kid because she has to do housework, cooking, etc. Personally I was relieved when I got back to work because being the stay at home mom/house manager during maternity leave felt like a lot!

But the downside of daycare is that they can have strict rules about sick kids, and send kids home with the sniffles. And of course, being in group care with a lot of other kids and multiple caregivers als means kids in daycare are more likely to get sick, so this can become a nasty cycle, especially if you have multiple kids in daycare. Add to this strict rules about fevers in an age group where fevers are more common than in the general population.

With nannies, kids generally catch fewer viruses and most nannies will care for sick kids unless they are, themselves, too sick to work. Most nannies are not taking off four days for a cold, but a daycare could easily refuse to allow a kid in class for four days with a cold, especially post-Covid.

Totally, I don’t disagree with any of that. I guess my point was just to say that I have friends who make a lot and still chose daycare despite having “options”. And I’m talking about like…double big law, banking, private equity, doctors. I don’t know anyone keeping their kids home until they’re 3.

This is unique to dc and a few other blue cities. In most of America, no one with a high earning career would ever put their child in daycare.

I live in DC and disagree with the PP. I know a lot of people here who kept their kids home until 3. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two families who put their kid in daycare before age 1, and they were not happy about it. I can't really think of any families who were really enthusiastic about daycare, especially for infants/babies. It's the kind of thing that just feels intuitively off to you (leaving a 3 or 4 month old baby in a daycare facility) and most people will try to avoid it if they can.

I will accept that some people actually choose daycare even when they have other options, but I'm raising kids in DC and don't know anyone for whom that is true.

But I think keeping kids until 3 vs. sending a 3-4 month old to daycare are entirely different concepts and don’t belong in the same conversation. I don’t think anyone is advocating that daycare is “better” for a young baby. But at a certain age, I think daycare it does make sense to send a kid to a group setting, even if it’s for a few hours at a time and/or a few days a week. I don’t think keeping kids entirely home until 3 is normal. I have friends who don’t work and don’t even do that. Personally I kept my kid home until about 1.5 (probably could’ve kept him until 2 if we really wanted to). Between 2-3, I couldn’t imagine keeping him at home everyday. That would’ve been a disservice to him.

That’s the issue with this thread, people can be pro daycare beyond a certain age but others are like OMG you’re sending your 3 month old to daycare by choice??

You didn't read the article the thread is about then.

The data is different based on age. The data on daycare for a child who is 0-12 months old is not good. It is very hard to argue that daycare is "good" for a 3 month old, if there is any other option available.

PPs are arguing that there are lot of families with options, who can afford nannies or SAHPs or other solutions, but who choose daycares starting at 3/4 months old. This does not track with my experience at all.

Also, keeping a kid "home" until 3 does not mean keeping a child "alone" until 3. If the child is with a nanny or SAHP, what this usually means is that they have one primary caregiver who is in their home, bu they may spend significant portions of their day in large groups of kids. That's a huge part of what nannies and SAHPs do -- take kids to playgrounds, music classes, playgroups, etc. But wanting social experiences for your toddler is not the same as thinking a group care situation is ideal.

Also, haha, my 2/3 year old did in fact spend close to a year at home with us every day with few socialization opportunities because of Covid, which closed the playgroup she'd been attending and postponed her starting preschool on time. And yes, it was not ideal! Parents are forced into not-ideal situations all the time due to forces beyond their control, but it's okay to acknowledge that. Saying that I don't think daycare is the best environment for a 3 month old is not the same as saying I think parents who put 3 mo old kids in daycare are bad parents. Anymore than I'm a bad parent because my 2/3 yo kid spent 6 months mostly alone with us in our house due to Covid. We all do the best we can with the opportunities afforded to us, and sometimes our opportunities suck.

I don't think going to a playground full of random kids and a music class once a week provides all the benefits a daily, structured program with the same set of kids and teachers does. But I'm sure I'm just not seeing all the great benefits that 1 on 1 time with your nanny is conferring either. Even when my kid was 18 months I already felt like he was getting bored with our nanny.

I mean, you can talk about any childcare option this way and make it sounds horrible:

I don't think being crammed into a room with a bunch of other kids and minimal 1:1 attention from caregivers and limited outdoor time, provides all the benefits of a nurturing, responsive relationship with a SAHP, grandparent, or nanny. See what I did there?

Also, huge difference between an 18mo at home with a nanny and a 4mo at home with a nanny. Why is this thread only exclusively about what is right for toddlers? It started as a discussion of different childcare options at all ages. Most people have more and better childcare options for toddlers than they do for infants because the required ratios for that age group are more affordable. There are also more part-time options available so you could have a nanny and also send your kid to half day preschool a few days a week and get the best of both worlds. Older kids can thrive in all kinds of environments -- they could do great with a SAHP/grandparent/nanny as long as that caretaker is getting them plenty of social opportunities (and no, this would not be limited to one playground visit with random kids and a single music class, I don't know why you would assume it would be -- lots of ways to build structured social time into day with a toddler that involves seeing the same kids and building relationships over time, nannies and SAHPs do this all the time). But they could also do great its a group setting. I don't understand why we're arguing about this, I don't get the sense there's much debate here.

The bigger debate is whether group care setting adequately meet the developmental needs of infants and young babies and I think the study shows that there's situations where it doesn't. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent for choosing daycare -- not all daycares are equal and not all families have options. But as a parent it concerns me that group care settings are shown to have negative impacts on infants, and yet we live in a society where (1) parental leave is very limited compared to other similarly developed nations, (2) parents are penalized professionally and socially for taking time off from work to care for very young children, and (3) the costs of infant care are high and rising every day, further limiting the options of the average family.

Like I don't care that your 18 mo old got bored with your nanny and you decided to put him in preschool -- sounds like a good solution for a family with lots of choices. Doesn't seem like something we need to argue over.

Lol I don't even know what this thread has devolved into. I agree that a 4 month old in daycare is way different than 18 month old. I was going beyond that to say that I personally think a 3 year old in daycare is great. But there seem to be people on these forums (maybe the same one for all I know) who think that even a 3 year old should stay home, or at least only go for 3 hours a day or 3 days or week or something, and are eager to shame parents who have chosen to send this child to daycare. A 3 year old - for goodness sake!

I will admit that I haven't read every post in the thread but I haven't seen a bunch of people arguing that it's wrong to put a 3 year old in group care. It's really common to start preschool at 3 and many people start at 2 -- this just seems like a non-issue. If someone is shaming you for putting a 3 year old in a group care environment, they are a far outlier and you can just not listen to them! They probably think you should homeschool and avoid vaccinations too.

I feel passionately about this issue because I had really poor choices for childcare when my DD was born and wound up quitting a job I didn't want to quit to stay home with her because we couldn't afford a nanny and the group care centers I looked at (both daycares and in-home centers) that we could afford were pretty bad and it was very hard to contemplate leaving an infant in them. So I think it's important to talk about the risks of group care for babies because what would be great is if we could find a way to create affordable options for families that don't carry those risks (whether that's more parental leave, better oversight of group care facilities and subsidies to make them financially viable without compromising infant care, or some combination of the above).

I think pretending that the average daycare is great for infants, and equal in quality to a SAHP or nanny or nanny share, is borderline irresponsible.

Irresponsible to whom? We picked center based care at 6M because it was in the same building as my office and I could breastfeed twice a day. That doesn’t mean leaving my daughter with a nanny would have been “irresponsible” because she wouldn’t have been breastfed. Responsible parenting is leaving your children in safe care. Period. Pretending it’s more than that is just desperately seeking validation for your choices at the expense of others.

It sounds like you made the best decision for you which is all that matters.

I can't deny though that having an infant in daycare can be rough. I sent mine to daycare around the same age but COVID started shortly after so I was able to keep him home. I felt terrible the whole time he was there because he took super short naps, got sick a lot and overall didn't seem too happy.

We had my baby in 2020 and the daycare I set up 8 months prior shut down a month before I went back to work. It ended up being the best thing for our family. We sold a car to afford a nanny, cancelled two vacations, but having her home and re-budgeting our lives around it was a good forced outcome.

PP here - we didn't get a nanny for a long time, just somehow took care of the baby while working for months. It was great though. I was able to breastfeed for way long than I intended and I loved that we could keep the baby at home with us. Plus we saved a bunch of money.

This is the best way. Lots of crummmy nannies out there too. I see them all the time at the park sitting and playing on their phones.

This wouldn’t bother me. As a mom, I use my phone. I can only imagine that a mom trying to work at home and tend to baby is looking at a work computer most of the day. How is that any better or worse than someone sitting at a park using a phone? Do you really want a nanny following a child around a playground and tending to them like they work for the child? That kind of parenting isn’t good for the child longer term. Kids need space to explore, roam, learn etc. Not be stalked at the playground by an anxious mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The elephant in the room that no one has mentioned - is the higher prevalence of daycare over time partially responsibility for increasing misbehavior in schools?

The “my rich friends chose daycare so it must be an great option” argument does not hold water with me. Some parents do what is best for themselves, not their kids. They may prioritize getting more hours of childcare (daycares are often open 10 hours, nannies rarely stay that long), they may not like the hassle of managing an employee and giving them access to their home, they may not like lowering HHI and cutting their budget so one spouse can quit. And they tell themselves through sickness after sickness after sickness that their child “loves” their daycare teachers and friends and that the child will “gain immunity” before starting Kindergarten.

Most daycare parents stagger their schedules to reduce the amount of time the child is in care.

As far as parents doing what is best for themselves,.yeah that is absolutely true. And sometimes, what is best for the parents is also good for the family as a whole. The research all shows having a depressed mother is as bad if not worse for children than daycare. I had a depressed mother who was a SAHM and that was a huge factor in me choosing daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The elephant in the room that no one has mentioned - is the higher prevalence of daycare over time partially responsibility for increasing misbehavior in schools?

The “my rich friends chose daycare so it must be an great option” argument does not hold water with me. Some parents do what is best for themselves, not their kids. They may prioritize getting more hours of childcare (daycares are often open 10 hours, nannies rarely stay that long), they may not like the hassle of managing an employee and giving them access to their home, they may not like lowering HHI and cutting their budget so one spouse can quit. And they tell themselves through sickness after sickness after sickness that their child “loves” their daycare teachers and friends and that the child will “gain immunity” before starting Kindergarten.

Most daycare parents stagger their schedules to reduce the amount of time the child is in care.

As far as parents doing what is best for themselves,.yeah that is absolutely true. And sometimes, what is best for the parents is also good for the family as a whole. The research all shows having a depressed mother is as bad if not worse for children than daycare. I had a depressed mother who was a SAHM and that was a huge factor in me choosing daycare.

I don't know that this is true. We use the full 9 hours. You can't stagger your schedule if both parents (unfortunately) work a traditional 9-5 where office presence daily is required.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The elephant in the room that no one has mentioned - is the higher prevalence of daycare over time partially responsibility for increasing misbehavior in schools?

The “my rich friends chose daycare so it must be an great option” argument does not hold water with me. Some parents do what is best for themselves, not their kids. They may prioritize getting more hours of childcare (daycares are often open 10 hours, nannies rarely stay that long), they may not like the hassle of managing an employee and giving them access to their home, they may not like lowering HHI and cutting their budget so one spouse can quit. And they tell themselves through sickness after sickness after sickness that their child “loves” their daycare teachers and friends and that the child will “gain immunity” before starting Kindergarten.

Most daycare parents stagger their schedules to reduce the amount of time the child is in care.

As far as parents doing what is best for themselves,.yeah that is absolutely true. And sometimes, what is best for the parents is also good for the family as a whole. The research all shows having a depressed mother is as bad if not worse for children than daycare. I had a depressed mother who was a SAHM and that was a huge factor in me choosing daycare.

I don't know that this is true. We use the full 9 hours. You can't stagger your schedule if both parents (unfortunately) work a traditional 9-5 where office presence daily is required.

But I should add, I agree with the rest of PP's reply. I was a SAHM (by circumstances, not by choice) for a year and trust me it was much better and more enriching for my child to be in daycare. I was not happy with the arrangement and it showed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The elephant in the room that no one has mentioned - is the higher prevalence of daycare over time partially responsibility for increasing misbehavior in schools?

The “my rich friends chose daycare so it must be an great option” argument does not hold water with me. Some parents do what is best for themselves, not their kids. They may prioritize getting more hours of childcare (daycares are often open 10 hours, nannies rarely stay that long), they may not like the hassle of managing an employee and giving them access to their home, they may not like lowering HHI and cutting their budget so one spouse can quit. And they tell themselves through sickness after sickness after sickness that their child “loves” their daycare teachers and friends and that the child will “gain immunity” before starting Kindergarten.

Most daycare parents stagger their schedules to reduce the amount of time the child is in care.

As far as parents doing what is best for themselves,.yeah that is absolutely true. And sometimes, what is best for the parents is also good for the family as a whole. The research all shows having a depressed mother is as bad if not worse for children than daycare. I had a depressed mother who was a SAHM and that was a huge factor in me choosing daycare.

I don't know that this is true. We use the full 9 hours. You can't stagger your schedule if both parents (unfortunately) work a traditional 9-5 where office presence daily is required.

And a daycare open 9 hours is not a daycare with very long hours. Ours is open for 12 hours. Nobody uses that much time.

[Anonymous]

I do wonder about the impact of phones on parental and nonparental care of children. I would guess caregivers who aren't frequently looking at their phones are in the minority. And this is a change that has occured over the last 10 years so after much of the research cited was done.

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Anonymous wrote:No one can seriously discuss these studies on DCUM. People are extremely sensitive to their childcare choices, and no one is more sensitive the mothers who wanted to stay home but could not afford it and feel guilty. Don’t! You made the choice you had to make, no sense in ruminating over what will likely be totally fine in the long term.

Common sense will tell you that babies are probably best served staying with their mother who loves them until they reach an age where socializing benefits them. Everything else - daycare, nanny, etc. - are just shuffling around lesser-but-fine alternatives.

We know multiple couples who could have afforded a nanny but instead went with daycare. Those families had two successful parents, no student debt from top schools, and wealthy grandparents. One family in particular probably had a HHI between $350-400k. I don't think they would have chosen daycare unless they thought it was as good of an option as a nanny.

Yeah I have several friends who are pretty successful and have higher incomes than that who sent their kids to daycare from an early age. Way before 3 or 4. Sometimes it's just easier that way because you never have to deal with an unreliable/sick nanny, don't need to worry about a nanny might be doing in your house when you're not there, easier to work from home, etc. It's not just about cost. Plus I've heard from multiple friends that nannies just aren't great at "teaching" anything.

I don't really know if I believe that a mom staying home is "by common sense" the best option. Spreading out the work and having a nanny come for part of the day who can really focus on the kid and then get a break might be better than a mom who is overworked/tired and can't give her all to the kid because she has to do housework, cooking, etc. Personally I was relieved when I got back to work because being the stay at home mom/house manager during maternity leave felt like a lot!

But the downside of daycare is that they can have strict rules about sick kids, and send kids home with the sniffles. And of course, being in group care with a lot of other kids and multiple caregivers als means kids in daycare are more likely to get sick, so this can become a nasty cycle, especially if you have multiple kids in daycare. Add to this strict rules about fevers in an age group where fevers are more common than in the general population.

With nannies, kids generally catch fewer viruses and most nannies will care for sick kids unless they are, themselves, too sick to work. Most nannies are not taking off four days for a cold, but a daycare could easily refuse to allow a kid in class for four days with a cold, especially post-Covid.

Totally, I don’t disagree with any of that. I guess my point was just to say that I have friends who make a lot and still chose daycare despite having “options”. And I’m talking about like…double big law, banking, private equity, doctors. I don’t know anyone keeping their kids home until they’re 3.

This is unique to dc and a few other blue cities. In most of America, no one with a high earning career would ever put their child in daycare.

I live in DC and disagree with the PP. I know a lot of people here who kept their kids home until 3. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two families who put their kid in daycare before age 1, and they were not happy about it. I can't really think of any families who were really enthusiastic about daycare, especially for infants/babies. It's the kind of thing that just feels intuitively off to you (leaving a 3 or 4 month old baby in a daycare facility) and most people will try to avoid it if they can.

I will accept that some people actually choose daycare even when they have other options, but I'm raising kids in DC and don't know anyone for whom that is true.

But I think keeping kids until 3 vs. sending a 3-4 month old to daycare are entirely different concepts and don’t belong in the same conversation. I don’t think anyone is advocating that daycare is “better” for a young baby. But at a certain age, I think daycare it does make sense to send a kid to a group setting, even if it’s for a few hours at a time and/or a few days a week. I don’t think keeping kids entirely home until 3 is normal. I have friends who don’t work and don’t even do that. Personally I kept my kid home until about 1.5 (probably could’ve kept him until 2 if we really wanted to). Between 2-3, I couldn’t imagine keeping him at home everyday. That would’ve been a disservice to him.

That’s the issue with this thread, people can be pro daycare beyond a certain age but others are like OMG you’re sending your 3 month old to daycare by choice??

You didn't read the article the thread is about then.

The data is different based on age. The data on daycare for a child who is 0-12 months old is not good. It is very hard to argue that daycare is "good" for a 3 month old, if there is any other option available.

PPs are arguing that there are lot of families with options, who can afford nannies or SAHPs or other solutions, but who choose daycares starting at 3/4 months old. This does not track with my experience at all.

Also, keeping a kid "home" until 3 does not mean keeping a child "alone" until 3. If the child is with a nanny or SAHP, what this usually means is that they have one primary caregiver who is in their home, bu they may spend significant portions of their day in large groups of kids. That's a huge part of what nannies and SAHPs do -- take kids to playgrounds, music classes, playgroups, etc. But wanting social experiences for your toddler is not the same as thinking a group care situation is ideal.

Also, haha, my 2/3 year old did in fact spend close to a year at home with us every day with few socialization opportunities because of Covid, which closed the playgroup she'd been attending and postponed her starting preschool on time. And yes, it was not ideal! Parents are forced into not-ideal situations all the time due to forces beyond their control, but it's okay to acknowledge that. Saying that I don't think daycare is the best environment for a 3 month old is not the same as saying I think parents who put 3 mo old kids in daycare are bad parents. Anymore than I'm a bad parent because my 2/3 yo kid spent 6 months mostly alone with us in our house due to Covid. We all do the best we can with the opportunities afforded to us, and sometimes our opportunities suck.

I don't think going to a playground full of random kids and a music class once a week provides all the benefits a daily, structured program with the same set of kids and teachers does. But I'm sure I'm just not seeing all the great benefits that 1 on 1 time with your nanny is conferring either. Even when my kid was 18 months I already felt like he was getting bored with our nanny.

I mean, you can talk about any childcare option this way and make it sounds horrible:

I don't think being crammed into a room with a bunch of other kids and minimal 1:1 attention from caregivers and limited outdoor time, provides all the benefits of a nurturing, responsive relationship with a SAHP, grandparent, or nanny. See what I did there?

Also, huge difference between an 18mo at home with a nanny and a 4mo at home with a nanny. Why is this thread only exclusively about what is right for toddlers? It started as a discussion of different childcare options at all ages. Most people have more and better childcare options for toddlers than they do for infants because the required ratios for that age group are more affordable. There are also more part-time options available so you could have a nanny and also send your kid to half day preschool a few days a week and get the best of both worlds. Older kids can thrive in all kinds of environments -- they could do great with a SAHP/grandparent/nanny as long as that caretaker is getting them plenty of social opportunities (and no, this would not be limited to one playground visit with random kids and a single music class, I don't know why you would assume it would be -- lots of ways to build structured social time into day with a toddler that involves seeing the same kids and building relationships over time, nannies and SAHPs do this all the time). But they could also do great its a group setting. I don't understand why we're arguing about this, I don't get the sense there's much debate here.

The bigger debate is whether group care setting adequately meet the developmental needs of infants and young babies and I think the study shows that there's situations where it doesn't. It doesn't mean you're a bad parent for choosing daycare -- not all daycares are equal and not all families have options. But as a parent it concerns me that group care settings are shown to have negative impacts on infants, and yet we live in a society where (1) parental leave is very limited compared to other similarly developed nations, (2) parents are penalized professionally and socially for taking time off from work to care for very young children, and (3) the costs of infant care are high and rising every day, further limiting the options of the average family.

Like I don't care that your 18 mo old got bored with your nanny and you decided to put him in preschool -- sounds like a good solution for a family with lots of choices. Doesn't seem like something we need to argue over.

Lol I don't even know what this thread has devolved into. I agree that a 4 month old in daycare is way different than 18 month old. I was going beyond that to say that I personally think a 3 year old in daycare is great. But there seem to be people on these forums (maybe the same one for all I know) who think that even a 3 year old should stay home, or at least only go for 3 hours a day or 3 days or week or something, and are eager to shame parents who have chosen to send this child to daycare. A 3 year old - for goodness sake!

I will admit that I haven't read every post in the thread but I haven't seen a bunch of people arguing that it's wrong to put a 3 year old in group care. It's really common to start preschool at 3 and many people start at 2 -- this just seems like a non-issue. If someone is shaming you for putting a 3 year old in a group care environment, they are a far outlier and you can just not listen to them! They probably think you should homeschool and avoid vaccinations too.

I feel passionately about this issue because I had really poor choices for childcare when my DD was born and wound up quitting a job I didn't want to quit to stay home with her because we couldn't afford a nanny and the group care centers I looked at (both daycares and in-home centers) that we could afford were pretty bad and it was very hard to contemplate leaving an infant in them. So I think it's important to talk about the risks of group care for babies because what would be great is if we could find a way to create affordable options for families that don't carry those risks (whether that's more parental leave, better oversight of group care facilities and subsidies to make them financially viable without compromising infant care, or some combination of the above).

I think pretending that the average daycare is great for infants, and equal in quality to a SAHP or nanny or nanny share, is borderline irresponsible.

Irresponsible to whom? We picked center based care at 6M because it was in the same building as my office and I could breastfeed twice a day. That doesn’t mean leaving my daughter with a nanny would have been “irresponsible” because she wouldn’t have been breastfed. Responsible parenting is leaving your children in safe care. Period. Pretending it’s more than that is just desperately seeking validation for your choices at the expense of others.

It sounds like you made the best decision for you which is all that matters.

I can't deny though that having an infant in daycare can be rough. I sent mine to daycare around the same age but COVID started shortly after so I was able to keep him home. I felt terrible the whole time he was there because he took super short naps, got sick a lot and overall didn't seem too happy.

We had my baby in 2020 and the daycare I set up 8 months prior shut down a month before I went back to work. It ended up being the best thing for our family. We sold a car to afford a nanny, cancelled two vacations, but having her home and re-budgeting our lives around it was a good forced outcome.

PP here - we didn't get a nanny for a long time, just somehow took care of the baby while working for months. It was great though. I was able to breastfeed for way long than I intended and I loved that we could keep the baby at home with us. Plus we saved a bunch of money.

This is the best way. Lots of crummmy nannies out there too. I see them all the time at the park sitting and playing on their phones.

This wouldn’t bother me. As a mom, I use my phone. I can only imagine that a mom trying to work at home and tend to baby is looking at a work computer most of the day. How is that any better or worse than someone sitting at a park using a phone? Do you really want a nanny following a child around a playground and tending to them like they work for the child? That kind of parenting isn’t good for the child longer term. Kids need space to explore, roam, learn etc. Not be stalked at the playground by an anxious mother.

In that case why not just play on your own phone and let your kid wander off rather than paying a nanny to do it.....what a waste of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Little children require:
1. Stability
2. Competence
3. Love

Without all three, brace yourself
for challenges down the road.

It sounds like you just made that up. And what is your point?

+1

For our child in a way daycare has been stable because she has been in the same small two-room center since she was 5 months old. Some change in caregivers, but also stability in that a couple have been there since she was a baby and even ended up with her for over two years. Transition to "preschool" was so easy because she had already spent time in that room for aftercare. Teachers are very warm and caring, and it's not just me, we've had therapists come in and comment on how sweet they are with the kids. They also definitely know what they are doing. It's not a fancy or expensive daycare either.

But I don't think this is what PP was talking about.

[Anonymous]

I’m well past this stage but I do always think it’s worth pointing out that wherever SAH is now, it is in no way the traditional manner in which women and babies functioned in society for all of human evolution. I haven’t read everything so maybe someone already said this, but being home with only babies all day is clearly not healthy for women. Group care at early ages was almost certainly part of most humans upbringing until the modern era; yes, with blood relatives. Each option: SAH or daycare incorporates some elements of traditional care (which obviously shouldn’t be nostalgized as perfect either). We do have an overwhelming focus in parenting circles now on benefits for children, sometimes forgetting that parents are people too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m well past this stage but I do always think it’s worth pointing out that wherever SAH is now, it is in no way the traditional manner in which women and babies functioned in society for all of human evolution. I haven’t read everything so maybe someone already said this, but being home with only babies all day is clearly not healthy for women. Group care at early ages was almost certainly part of most humans upbringing until the modern era; yes, with blood relatives. Each option: SAH or daycare incorporates some elements of traditional care (which obviously shouldn’t be nostalgized as perfect either). We do have an overwhelming focus in parenting circles now on benefits for children, sometimes forgetting that parents are people too.

+1

I would have been much more open to SAH for a bit if it involved a community of friends and family around me.

As it is, it is incredibly isolating and depressing.