Childcare anxiety

[Anonymous]

anyone else feel this way? I’m pretty type A and was on waitlists the day I conceived and now I’m so worried about the state of childcare once we need to put her in daycare. No idea if the daycare centers will honor my waitlist with cuts in spots and not sure we can afford a nanny. I’m in health care so I can’t work from home and idk if hubby can handle a baby alone his with work. Plus when daycares open they will require 72 hrs away from center with a fever and not to mention all the Covid lockdowns... that’s so many sick days. Anyone else in this position? Any ideas about how you will handle this is daycares are a mess for the next year?

[Anonymous]

What about an in home daycare or nanny share?

[Anonymous]

We hired a nanny. The sacrifice is worth my comfort. Within knowing her for a day, my anxiety about the baby and work disappeared.

[Anonymous]

I agree a good nanny is 100% worth the investment if financially possible.

[Anonymous]

OP, it'll be a new normal for everyone but i would wait and see what the daycares say when they reopen. How old is your child? If you are still pregnant, I would not worry too much about this right now. Size restrictions will depend upon the local guidance in place at the time you are seeking to start care. Centers could be back at nearly full capacity by then. It's really too premature to panic. Also for everyone pushing nannies, they are a single point of failure. If the nanny is late to work or sick or wants to take a vacation day, you will need alternate childcare or need to stay home with your child. Something to consider.

[Anonymous]

We were in a similar spot, combined with realizing that our baby is VERY sensitive to light when napping (and thus probably wouldn't sleep at daycare, or at least not well) combined with sticker shock over infant daycare costs (downtown, where we are, it's not possible to find a center that isn't federal that costs less than $2,500 a month) made us turn to a nanny share. Even paying a solid wage and taxes (we're paying on the books) it's coming out to less than a daycare center, we love the nanny we found, and the other family, and the whole thing feels great. I strongly recommend this route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, it'll be a new normal for everyone but i would wait and see what the daycares say when they reopen. How old is your child? If you are still pregnant, I would not worry too much about this right now. Size restrictions will depend upon the local guidance in place at the time you are seeking to start care. Centers could be back at nearly full capacity by then. It's really too premature to panic. Also for everyone pushing nannies, they are a single point of failure. If the nanny is late to work or sick or wants to take a vacation day, you will need alternate childcare or need to stay home with your child. Something to consider.

On the flip side, nannies care for sick kids and daycares don't.

[Anonymous]

I did daycare with our first and he was sick all the time. I missed so much work. This time around we are doing a nanny or nanny share until the baby is older. It’s going to cost us a fortune but given COVID I wouldn’t put an infant in daycare. Too many parents send sick kids normally.

[Anonymous]

Op here- I’ll look into Nannies more seriously

[Anonymous]

OP, I feel like either you're open to the idea of group care, or you are not. It sounds like you have high anxiety and are not thinking rationally. Best to hold off until after you have the baby to make a decision. Nannies are fine and good daycares are fine too. There are bad apples with both care scenarios. Personally i've employed a nanny and also sent my kid to daycare. While the nanny was good, he thrived in daycare and developed more rapidly than at home with the nanny. Also, my kid was rarely sick while in daycare. Maybe we kept him home due to a cold once or twice in two years. However, once he entered pre-k, he was sick pretty often!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it'll be a new normal for everyone but i would wait and see what the daycares say when they reopen. How old is your child? If you are still pregnant, I would not worry too much about this right now. Size restrictions will depend upon the local guidance in place at the time you are seeking to start care. Centers could be back at nearly full capacity by then. It's really too premature to panic. Also for everyone pushing nannies, they are a single point of failure. If the nanny is late to work or sick or wants to take a vacation day, you will need alternate childcare or need to stay home with your child. Something to consider.

On the flip side, nannies care for sick kids and daycares don't.

I wonder if that will still be the case now in a COVID world for nannies who have children or vulnerable family members at home. Probably some won't want to care for your sick kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were in a similar spot, combined with realizing that our baby is VERY sensitive to light when napping (and thus probably wouldn't sleep at daycare, or at least not well) combined with sticker shock over infant daycare costs (downtown, where we are, it's not possible to find a center that isn't federal that costs less than $2,500 a month) made us turn to a nanny share. Even paying a solid wage and taxes (we're paying on the books) it's coming out to less than a daycare center, we love the nanny we found, and the other family, and the whole thing feels great. I strongly recommend this route.

There are plenty of private daycares downtown that are not affiliated with Federal agencies. Search for Bright Horizons or Bambini for two examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were in a similar spot, combined with realizing that our baby is VERY sensitive to light when napping (and thus probably wouldn't sleep at daycare, or at least not well) combined with sticker shock over infant daycare costs (downtown, where we are, it's not possible to find a center that isn't federal that costs less than $2,500 a month) made us turn to a nanny share. Even paying a solid wage and taxes (we're paying on the books) it's coming out to less than a daycare center, we love the nanny we found, and the other family, and the whole thing feels great. I strongly recommend this route.

There are plenty of private daycares downtown that are not affiliated with Federal agencies. Search for Bright Horizons or Bambini for two examples.

Bambini costs $2,600 per month per their website.

[Anonymous]

What nanny costs less than $2500 a week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What nanny costs less than $2500 a week?

Meant $2500/month, not week. If you factor in hourly wage of at least $20/hr, probably a lot more than that, how is a nanny remotely less than paying for daycare, even if it's not in a federal building? And FYI, the federal daycares are not significantly less than then non-fed ones.