The Research on Various Childcare Options

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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.

This seriously wouldn't bother you? If the kid is old enough to be running around the playground, I would really hope that the nanny isn't on her phone not paying attention. I don't think the two possibilities are (a) be on your phone and (b) being stalked at the playground by an anxious mother. When I take my kid to the playground I might be talking to other moms or just watching him from afar but at least I'm keeping an eye on him and letting him know that I'm there. I'd hate for him to see that I was just sitting there typing on my phone for an hour.

[Anonymous]

Working full time while caring for a baby works for certain babies up until a certain age. Would not have worked for my non napping baby that was also a slow feeder. And when the pandemic hit when she was 12 months my DH and I almost lost our minds trying to work out FT jobs with no child care. Everyone was better off when her daycare reopened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Working full time while caring for a baby works for certain babies up until a certain age. Would not have worked for my non napping baby that was also a slow feeder. And when the pandemic hit when she was 12 months my DH and I almost lost our minds trying to work out FT jobs with no child care. Everyone was better off when her daycare reopened.

You must be more capable than me! I don't think caring for a baby full time with a full time job works at all unless your job is super chill and flexible. Or your baby can just lie there doing nothing for a long time. I did the whole baby care during COVID thing with DH and ended up just doing all my work at night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working full time while caring for a baby works for certain babies up until a certain age. Would not have worked for my non napping baby that was also a slow feeder. And when the pandemic hit when she was 12 months my DH and I almost lost our minds trying to work out FT jobs with no child care. Everyone was better off when her daycare reopened.

You must be more capable than me! I don't think caring for a baby full time with a full time job works at all unless your job is super chill and flexible. Or your baby can just lie there doing nothing for a long time. I did the whole baby care during COVID thing with DH and ended up just doing all my work at night.

No, I think we are the same. I just know people that claim they could do it. I could not. I have to believe their babies were just very different from mine. Or they can work while breastfeeding maybe?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Working full time while caring for a baby works for certain babies up until a certain age. Would not have worked for my non napping baby that was also a slow feeder. And when the pandemic hit when she was 12 months my DH and I almost lost our minds trying to work out FT jobs with no child care. Everyone was better off when her daycare reopened.

You must be more capable than me! I don't think caring for a baby full time with a full time job works at all unless your job is super chill and flexible. Or your baby can just lie there doing nothing for a long time. I did the whole baby care during COVID thing with DH and ended up just doing all my work at night.

No, I think we are the same. I just know people that claim they could do it. I could not. I have to believe their babies were just very different from mine. Or they can work while breastfeeding maybe?

Hm I can see that getting a little messy lol. And kind of nice to have a free hand that's not typing...

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working full time while caring for a baby works for certain babies up until a certain age. Would not have worked for my non napping baby that was also a slow feeder. And when the pandemic hit when she was 12 months my DH and I almost lost our minds trying to work out FT jobs with no child care. Everyone was better off when her daycare reopened.

You must be more capable than me! I don't think caring for a baby full time with a full time job works at all unless your job is super chill and flexible. Or your baby can just lie there doing nothing for a long time. I did the whole baby care during COVID thing with DH and ended up just doing all my work at night.

No, I think we are the same. I just know people that claim they could do it. I could not. I have to believe their babies were just very different from mine. Or they can work while breastfeeding maybe?

Hm I can see that getting a little messy lol. And kind of nice to have a free hand that's not typing...

Right? There was no way for me. And my job IS super chill and flexible. But it also requires deep thinking and mental energy and I cannot do that on no sleep.

[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.

And none of this does anything to answer the question of what is *irresponsible* and to whom?

Leaving your child in safe care—- Nanny, grandmother, daycare— is responsible parenting. Claiming someone is irresponsible for not sharing a horror of your “average daycare”, which you still do not define, is again an attempt to tear women down to validate yourself.

[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.

And none of this does anything to answer the question of what is *irresponsible* and to whom?

Leaving your child in safe care—- Nanny, grandmother, daycare— is responsible parenting. Claiming someone is irresponsible for not sharing a horror of your “average daycare”, which you still do not define, is again an attempt to tear women down to validate yourself.

+1 saying daycare is "not great' for babies is not "explaining your choices". Explaining your choices would be saying "I was not comfortable with daycare for the following reasons. I felt the alternative(s) available to me (SAHP or nanny) was better."

Regulated daycares on the whole provide safe environments for babies. It's one option among many and is far from the worst option.

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I could not have worked full time with my baby, who actually slept well and was I think average in terms of how hard she was (not a super hard baby but also not one of those magic easy babies either).

I tried working part-time with her at home for a couple months (with my company's blessing -- they desperately needed me back at work but I was not ready to return and technically was owed more time so this was the compromise we reached) and it sucked. Any job where you have regular phone calls and anything that runs on a strict schedule is really hard with an infant because no matter how well your schedule works 90% of the time, the 5% of the time that your baby is off schedule will just cause horrible havoc. I was in fact that mom trying to have a work call while my infant wailed in my arms on more than one occasion, and even though everyone understood that wasn't something I chose, I still felt the resentment and impatience from colleagues.

That said, I decided at that point to shift to a part-time contract position where I just did project-based work on my own schedule, and that's super easy with a baby. You just work when the baby sleeps, which is a lot of the time, and then arrange with your partner for some extra work time maybe one or two evenings a week and a chunk on the weekend. I didn't have a ton of meetings and was able to handle 95% of communications via email, so I only occasionally had to get childcare for important calls.

That time was really wonderful because it was a perfect balance -- I really appreciated being able to work and feel productive in ways that had nothing to do with being a mom, but I was thrilled to be able to be home with my baby full-time. The money was terrible (took a huge paycut to do this) but winds up being a wash because we didn't have to pay for full time childcare, and I had the benefit of no resume gap.

I know not everyone can make something like that work but if there's any way your work will go for it, try it! I also know moms who negotiated part-time schedules where they went in two or three days a week (there are real benefits to being able to work in person as a mom, it can be really good to get out of the house and put on real clothes and be in adult environments) and then did nanny shares for those days. So cheaper than full-time daycare and you still get 2-3 days a week at home with your baby.

I know these are not universal options but we should push to make them more widely available. With some workplaces that never used to allow WFH or flex time having to making space for those policies during Covid, there's an opening for people who didn't used to have one to make these arrangements. If you are mid-career and especially if you've been with your organization for a while, they are often very motivated to find something that will work, especially if you are willing to walk if they don't (I was -- it would have been hard but we could have done it for a year and then I would have applied to jobs).

Families need more options. SAHP/daycare/nanny is actually a really narrow way of conceptualizing infant/toddler care and there's just no reason it should be limited to those three choices (which wind up actually being just 1 or 2 choices for most families because nannies or a SAHP are really not always a realistic option).

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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.

This seriously wouldn't bother you? If the kid is old enough to be running around the playground, I would really hope that the nanny isn't on her phone not paying attention. I don't think the two possibilities are (a) be on your phone and (b) being stalked at the playground by an anxious mother. When I take my kid to the playground I might be talking to other moms or just watching him from afar but at least I'm keeping an eye on him and letting him know that I'm there. I'd hate for him to see that I was just sitting there typing on my phone for an hour.

DP and I would not be bothered by a nanny who used her phone the way I do, which is that I sometimes check messages or social media when out and about with kids, and then occasional do a longer phone session if my child is firmly engaged in another activity.

But I'll admit I've seen plenty of nanny behavior that I would be uncomfortable with as a parent who was paying that person to mind my kid, even if it's not technically abusive. Like situations where the nanny is on the phone for the entire time they are at a playground or the library, even when the kids are tugging at her clothes and begging for attention. Or even if it's not the phone, some nannies are not attentive or warm towards the kids and especially if they are caring for siblings or mutilple nanny share kids, they just behave indifferently or even rudely to the kids. I think it's a weird dynamic and it's not what I'd want for my kid.

A big thing for me when my child was a baby was that it was hard to pay someone else to do things with her that I wanted to be doing. Like I loved the idea of going to the park and hanging out for a couple hours in the grass with her, and it was hard to pay someone else to do that while I went to a job that was stressful and didn't feel rewarding in that way. But at least if the nanny is engaged you would feel like your kid is still getting the value out of it even if you aren't. But paying a nanny to ignore my child while I sit in an office and miss her terribly and wish I was there with her? I'm sorry but it just doesn't make sense in my head. Maybe I just don't love my job as much as other moms do I don't want to outsource some of the best parts of motherhood to someone who is just going to phone it in. At least enjoy my kid's company! Babies are so sweet and great and not exasperating in the way toddlers can be so I don't get it.

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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.

I would pick a lazy phone-scrolling nanny 100x over having to work from home with my baby around. Good lord do y'all drug your babies with Benadryl or something? It is not possible to attend to a baby or young child's needs consistently while working. Period. And I have a flexible job and had the world's easiest baby

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I could not have worked full time with my baby, who actually slept well and was I think average in terms of how hard she was (not a super hard baby but also not one of those magic easy babies either).

I tried working part-time with her at home for a couple months (with my company's blessing -- they desperately needed me back at work but I was not ready to return and technically was owed more time so this was the compromise we reached) and it sucked. Any job where you have regular phone calls and anything that runs on a strict schedule is really hard with an infant because no matter how well your schedule works 90% of the time, the 5% of the time that your baby is off schedule will just cause horrible havoc. I was in fact that mom trying to have a work call while my infant wailed in my arms on more than one occasion, and even though everyone understood that wasn't something I chose, I still felt the resentment and impatience from colleagues.

That said, I decided at that point to shift to a part-time contract position where I just did project-based work on my own schedule, and that's super easy with a baby. You just work when the baby sleeps, which is a lot of the time, and then arrange with your partner for some extra work time maybe one or two evenings a week and a chunk on the weekend. I didn't have a ton of meetings and was able to handle 95% of communications via email, so I only occasionally had to get childcare for important calls.

That time was really wonderful because it was a perfect balance -- I really appreciated being able to work and feel productive in ways that had nothing to do with being a mom, but I was thrilled to be able to be home with my baby full-time. The money was terrible (took a huge paycut to do this) but winds up being a wash because we didn't have to pay for full time childcare, and I had the benefit of no resume gap.

I know not everyone can make something like that work but if there's any way your work will go for it, try it! I also know moms who negotiated part-time schedules where they went in two or three days a week (there are real benefits to being able to work in person as a mom, it can be really good to get out of the house and put on real clothes and be in adult environments) and then did nanny shares for those days. So cheaper than full-time daycare and you still get 2-3 days a week at home with your baby.

I know these are not universal options but we should push to make them more widely available. With some workplaces that never used to allow WFH or flex time having to making space for those policies during Covid, there's an opening for people who didn't used to have one to make these arrangements. If you are mid-career and especially if you've been with your organization for a while, they are often very motivated to find something that will work, especially if you are willing to walk if they don't (I was -- it would have been hard but we could have done it for a year and then I would have applied to jobs).

Families need more options. SAHP/daycare/nanny is actually a really narrow way of conceptualizing infant/toddler care and there's just no reason it should be limited to those three choices (which wind up actually being just 1 or 2 choices for most families because nannies or a SAHP are really not always a realistic option).

Those are the options for those of us that cannot work while caring for a baby, work at the same times as our spouses (business hours) and don't have relatives available to help.

I have the super flexible work when I want job, allowed part time after my parental leave ended, and no it was not compatible with caring for a newborn, infant or toddler at any point. I'm glad you found a way to make it work.

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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.

I would pick a lazy phone-scrolling nanny 100x over having to work from home with my baby around. Good lord do y'all drug your babies with Benadryl or something? It is not possible to attend to a baby or young child's needs consistently while working. Period. And I have a flexible job and had the world's easiest baby

Well I think the point was more that everyone is bashing daycare and praising nannies but not all nannies are made equal. Not comparing having a nanny help out to no childcare help at all.

[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.

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.

This seriously wouldn't bother you? If the kid is old enough to be running around the playground, I would really hope that the nanny isn't on her phone not paying attention. I don't think the two possibilities are (a) be on your phone and (b) being stalked at the playground by an anxious mother. When I take my kid to the playground I might be talking to other moms or just watching him from afar but at least I'm keeping an eye on him and letting him know that I'm there. I'd hate for him to see that I was just sitting there typing on my phone for an hour.

DP and I would not be bothered by a nanny who used her phone the way I do, which is that I sometimes check messages or social media when out and about with kids, and then occasional do a longer phone session if my child is firmly engaged in another activity.

But I'll admit I've seen plenty of nanny behavior that I would be uncomfortable with as a parent who was paying that person to mind my kid, even if it's not technically abusive. Like situations where the nanny is on the phone for the entire time they are at a playground or the library, even when the kids are tugging at her clothes and begging for attention. Or even if it's not the phone, some nannies are not attentive or warm towards the kids and especially if they are caring for siblings or mutilple nanny share kids, they just behave indifferently or even rudely to the kids. I think it's a weird dynamic and it's not what I'd want for my kid.

A big thing for me when my child was a baby was that it was hard to pay someone else to do things with her that I wanted to be doing. Like I loved the idea of going to the park and hanging out for a couple hours in the grass with her, and it was hard to pay someone else to do that while I went to a job that was stressful and didn't feel rewarding in that way. But at least if the nanny is engaged you would feel like your kid is still getting the value out of it even if you aren't. But paying a nanny to ignore my child while I sit in an office and miss her terribly and wish I was there with her? I'm sorry but it just doesn't make sense in my head. Maybe I just don't love my job as much as other moms do I don't want to outsource some of the best parts of motherhood to someone who is just going to phone it in. At least enjoy my kid's company! Babies are so sweet and great and not exasperating in the way toddlers can be so I don't get it.

I totally get what you mean! I've seen nannies just have the most bored and indifferent expressions possible as they're sitting somewhere with the kids. And they barely react to what the kids are saying. I wonder what those kids are feeling...

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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.

I would pick a lazy phone-scrolling nanny 100x over having to work from home with my baby around. Good lord do y'all drug your babies with Benadryl or something? It is not possible to attend to a baby or young child's needs consistently while working. Period. And I have a flexible job and had the world's easiest baby

Well I think the point was more that everyone is bashing daycare and praising nannies but not all nannies are made equal. Not comparing having a nanny help out to no childcare help at all.

From above:

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.