Reply to The Research on Various Childcare Options

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Reply to "The Research on Various Childcare Options"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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!
 [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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”. [b]And I’m talking about like…double big law, banking, private equity, doctors[/b]. I don’t know anyone keeping their kids home until they’re 3.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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?? [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.
 [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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! [/quote]

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).

[b]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[/b]. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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[/quote]

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. [/quote]

From above:

[quote]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.[/quote][/quote]

I'm the PP who wrote the thing about not getting a nanny. That only happened because of COVID and people at work were understanding. I don't think it's normal for anyone to try to work and take care of a baby full time. [/quote]

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