Older Maryland Kid in DC Daycare

[Anonymous]

My spouse and I live in Maryland, but our daughter has attended a DC daycare since six weeks old (we lived in DC when she was born). The daycare isn't fancy, but she likes it, likes her teachers, and is always happy to go. She turned three last summer, and around the time she turned three, her friends from DC started moving to pre-K at DCPS and charter schools. She still had some other friends there and liked her new class, though. She had some sadness about her friends who left for "big school" and has started asking about when she's going to big school, with what's clearly a mix of interest and anxiety.

Now, the parents of the kids who are left are mostly starting to think about the lottery. I think there's a good chance that when she turns four, she'll be the only kid left who is close to her age. It'll be her and a handful of young three year olds, and kids turning three. With that in mind, we're thinking about moving her to a daycare in Maryland that will have kids her age. There's obvious pros to keeping her in a place she knows and likes, but I also worry about her only being around younger kids. On the other hand, I worry about doing two school transitions in a little over a year, when she goes to kindergarten. We're trying to figure out what to do.

I'm hoping that some other parents here have gone through this? What choices did you make? Are you happy with them?

[dcmom]

I transitioned my preschooler twice because of the DC lottery (daycare to PK3, then got into a better school so transitioned again). It was totally fine. Kids are resilient. I would definitely move your child - I think not having kids the same age is a real drawback, especially considering what is expected of kindergarteners these days. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We had the same experience - we left our child at her DC daycare until Kindergarten. There ended up being a few other kids left too of her group who didn't get into DC schools or who were MD families like us. She was young for her K year (turned 5 in July) so there were some younger kids still with her in the daycare. In any case, it worked out. I didn't want her to have two transitions. The bigger issue (for us at least) was that when she went to Kindergarten, we realized that there were many mini-groups of kids who already knew each other because they had gone to daycares close to the elementary school. My daughter, on the other hand, didn't know anyone. Obviously, this was a short term issue, but was something I hadn't thought about.

[Anonymous]

I would switch to a Md daycare. We went to a day care in DC. The daycare did not do pre-school well because there were hardly any kids in the 3-5 year old age group. The handful of older kids that were there got lumped together with the 2-3 year old class because there wasn't enough older kids to justify a full class. No good on so many levels. If your daycare has a dedicated class for older preschoolers it might be better. I would also ask how they deal with nap times for older kids. A 5 year old does not need the 2+ hours given to 2 year olds.