When you send your kids back to daycare???

[Anonymous]

Child cares that are open are having a harder and harder time finding the wipes, sanitizer, gloves, etc. they need to keep up the new safety precautions and Maryland is not doing enough to help. Also, the number of kids allowed in a room is so low it will be quite difficult for many places to make enough money to stay open.

Just a warning from someone in the field so you can plan accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Ours is opening next month. We aren't sending the baby back because her big brother still needs babysitting by my parents, so I don't want add exposure from baby bring things back to him from daycare. So until both daycare and summer camp are open simultaneously (IF that happens) so we can cut my parents out of the equation entirely, no daycare. We'll pay to keep our spot, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am on my daycare’s ‘covid committee.’ We had a meeting yesterday and our director asked if anyone would NOT send their kids if the daycare were to reopen in accordance with state rules (ie when the state says they can allow nonessential kids back). Every parent said yes, eagerly.

Wrote this wrong. She asked if we would send our kids back, not if we wouldn’t. Everyone will send them back when we can.

what is your committee’s stance on the safety of high risk teachers?

DP. Seems like this would be a good case for expanding access to short/long term disability. I don’t think it makes sense to keep daycares shut down until everyone is vaccinated solely to protect high risk teachers. Partly because it punishes the teachers who need an income and are willing to work. A lot of daycares are still charging tuition or raising donation to pay staff but this will not continue indefinitely.

That doesn’t make any sense. Disability isn’t preventative. You can’t collect disability to prevent getting sick.

I recognize this, and admit I did express my though coherently. Mainly I think that there should be help given to teachers that don't want to come back to the classroom due to being COVID high risk. Although how you verify it and stop at teachers, I don't know, because there will be a ton of people with similar concerns in other professions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am on my daycare’s ‘covid committee.’ We had a meeting yesterday and our director asked if anyone would NOT send their kids if the daycare were to reopen in accordance with state rules (ie when the state says they can allow nonessential kids back). Every parent said yes, eagerly.

Wrote this wrong. She asked if we would send our kids back, not if we wouldn’t. Everyone will send them back when we can.

what is your committee’s stance on the safety of high risk teachers?

DP. Seems like this would be a good case for expanding access to short/long term disability. I don’t think it makes sense to keep daycares shut down until everyone is vaccinated solely to protect high risk teachers. Partly because it punishes the teachers who need an income and are willing to work. A lot of daycares are still charging tuition or raising donation to pay staff but this will not continue indefinitely.

That doesn’t make any sense. Disability isn’t preventative. You can’t collect disability to prevent getting sick.

I recognize this, and admit I did express my though coherently. Mainly I think that there should be help given to teachers that don't want to come back to the classroom due to being COVID high risk. Although how you verify it and stop at teachers, I don't know, because there will be a ton of people with similar concerns in other professions.

Teacher here. This is what I am struggling with. I am a recent cancer survivor and I have severe asthma. When I chose this career 20 years ago, I never expected to be up against anything scarier than the flu and norovirus. When I returned to work after cancer, there was no such thing as a deadly virus that is asymptomatic in most children and yet kills vulnerable adults. With a degree in early childhood education and 20 years experience I can’t just pick up and work elsewhere, but I also can’t just stay home forever. i have bills to pay and kids in college. My center is currently slated to open in May and all of my concerns that I express to the head of school are met with explanations of cleaning procedures. I do not get short term disability or life insurance. We desperately need some guidelines or regulations to be handed down from the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Child cares that are open are having a harder and harder time finding the wipes, sanitizer, gloves, etc. they need to keep up the new safety precautions and Maryland is not doing enough to help. Also, the number of kids allowed in a room is so low it will be quite difficult for many places to make enough money to stay open.

Just a warning from someone in the field so you can plan accordingly.

I was wondering about this. Bleach is a must and is nowhere to be found.

[Anonymous]

I live in an city where daycares are only open for some essential service workers, and where the vast majority of our COVID cases are in long term care homes and healthcare settings. Two of the five centres open had to close today temporarily because of COVID exposure. I'm sure they were exposed through healthcare worker parents, but I just don't see how daycares will manage if hoards of kids start coming back. Keeping mine home for foreseeable future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in an city where daycares are only open for some essential service workers, and where the vast majority of our COVID cases are in long term care homes and healthcare settings. Two of the five centres open had to close today temporarily because of COVID exposure. I'm sure they were exposed through healthcare worker parents, but I just don't see how daycares will manage if hoards of kids start coming back. Keeping mine home for foreseeable future.

I expect some centers may require a COVID test when a kid is sent home with a fever. I can guarantee they’re not going to use the standard “24 hours” after the fever breaks policy anymore for a kid with a fever, considering COVID is contagious for 2 weeks after symptoms stop. It’s going to be a logistical nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in an city where daycares are only open for some essential service workers, and where the vast majority of our COVID cases are in long term care homes and healthcare settings. Two of the five centres open had to close today temporarily because of COVID exposure. I'm sure they were exposed through healthcare worker parents, but I just don't see how daycares will manage if hoards of kids start coming back. Keeping mine home for foreseeable future.

I expect some centers may require a COVID test when a kid is sent home with a fever. I can guarantee they’re not going to use the standard “24 hours” after the fever breaks policy anymore for a kid with a fever, considering COVID is contagious for 2 weeks after symptoms stop. It’s going to be a logistical nightmare.

I expect kids will need to stay home for colds too due to the overlap in symptoms.

[Anonymous]

I will send them back in summer or Fall. I work near Union Station so I will be getting the virus one way or another one restrictions are lifted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in an city where daycares are only open for some essential service workers, and where the vast majority of our COVID cases are in long term care homes and healthcare settings. Two of the five centres open had to close today temporarily because of COVID exposure. I'm sure they were exposed through healthcare worker parents, but I just don't see how daycares will manage if hoards of kids start coming back. Keeping mine home for foreseeable future.

I expect some centers may require a COVID test when a kid is sent home with a fever. I can guarantee they’re not going to use the standard “24 hours” after the fever breaks policy anymore for a kid with a fever, considering COVID is contagious for 2 weeks after symptoms stop. It’s going to be a logistical nightmare.

I expect kids will need to stay home for colds too due to the overlap in symptoms.

Agreed. It's going to be hugely disruptive. Every time a case pops up in kid or teacher, they will probably shut the whole place down for 2 weeks. And again and again when new cases pop up. The larger the center, the more often this will happen. Mine goes to a small home daycare right now but I was planning on moving him to preschool in the fall because he will be 3. But the preschool is so much bigger, and I have a feeling they are going to have to close much more often than the home daycare will. I don't know what to do. The daycare is really not going to be developmentally appropriate for much longer, but I don't know how I'm going to keep up a full time work schedule with the inevitable disruptions. Never mind that my older kid goes to public school which will probably be dealing with the same repeated closures, if they open. This is going to drive a lot of parents (mostly women) out of the workforce because it's not sustainable.

[Anonymous]

My in-home daycare has been taking care of essential workers' kids and collecting 50% tuition from the regular kids. Once we transition back, I would like her to take a 1-2 week break from the essential workers' kids before the regular kids come back. Is that too much to ask for? I think that's what I would prefer in order to send her back. The other parents might not care though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Child cares that are open are having a harder and harder time finding the wipes, sanitizer, gloves, etc. they need to keep up the new safety precautions and Maryland is not doing enough to help. Also, the number of kids allowed in a room is so low it will be quite difficult for many places to make enough money to stay open.

Just a warning from someone in the field so you can plan accordingly.

Walmart is still out of Clorox wipes to clean surfaces. That’s what you meant, right? Because they now have a ton of their equate brand wipes. Other baby wipes too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Child cares that are open are having a harder and harder time finding the wipes, sanitizer, gloves, etc. they need to keep up the new safety precautions and Maryland is not doing enough to help. Also, the number of kids allowed in a room is so low it will be quite difficult for many places to make enough money to stay open.

Just a warning from someone in the field so you can plan accordingly.

I was wondering about this. Bleach is a must and is nowhere to be found.

Plenty of bleach available today at my Walmart in Tysons. Like 40 of them. No restrictions on how many you can buy. They had TP too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea. I don't even know when ours will be back open. It's one thing to open schools/colleges, daycare is a whole other matter- under the best of circumstances, they are a petri dish of illnesses. All it takes is one kid with COVID to knock down a bunch of parents/caregivers (hopefully most kids would be ok).

So, when ours reopens, I don't think we will send DD back right away. I think we will wait and see if there is a big uptick in infections and what precautions they take.

It seems like getting COVID-19 at some point is inevitable, but I'm not quite at the point of gambling that if I get and/or if DH gets it it "won't be that bad." I was really sick with the flu this year (bedridden) and I really don't think I could have safely cared for DD. If DH and I were both like that . . . . It's not like we could call in the grandparents or a friend.

So I really don't know.

I feel like daycares aren't getting as much coverage because kids are generally not really sick with COVID and their education hasn't been as visibly disrupted as older kids, but in some ways I feel like daycare parents have the tougher decision about when to send kids back. It's not like you can tell a 15-month old to sit 6 feet apart, wear a mask, and don't lick things.

Well put.