Reply to Baby is heading to daycare- how can I help my wife cope?

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Reply to "Baby is heading to daycare- how can I help my wife cope?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's some math about the 1:3 ratio.

The nice thing in the infant room daycare is that there are others so you can take a break frequently. But that also means you have to watch more than the 3 babies at a time. There are also random things like cleaning cabinets, cleaning up /washing toys, filling out logs, communicating with mothers so let's assume a worker watches 4 babies at a time.

Now, how much time does 4 babies take up? Changing a diaper takes 2 minutes. x4 babies is 8 minutes out of 60. Now you have 52 minutes left.

Feeding a baby takes 7 minutes (14 minutes every 2 hours ).  7x4=28. Now you have 24 minutes left.

Divide 24 between 4 babies. Each baby gets held and played with 6 minutes an hour. Over the course of a 9 hour day, that is roughly about 1 hour of holding, plus holding during feeding time.

Do you feel that your baby needs more holding than that (about 1 hr) over 9 hours? Like all day long, if possible, which is what my baby liked?

Then they must cry and be louder than the next baby to get the attention.

I feel that infant daycare is inadequate in this country.[/quote]

You make a lot of assumptions that really do not match up with my experience at a daycare with a 3/1 ratio. First, there were 'floater' assistants who did diaper changes, helped with crying babies, and pitched in as needed which freed up time that the main workers could spend with the infants. Second, things like tummy-time and stories were done in groups, so the infants had attention although they were not being held. Third, the infants slept at different times, creating more of a 2/1 ratio while one or more kids were napping. The head teacher handled the administrative stuff that you are assuming takes away the hands-on time for the caregivers.  Was my DD held all the time? No, of course not. But I didn't hold her all day while I was on maternity leave either, although I did hold her a lot. I also noticed that some caregivers had favorites, who probably got held more; as it turned out my DD was the favorite of her initial caregiver (the others teased her for never wanting to let anyone else help with DD's diapers or hold her), but I couldn't have anticipated that. DD was happy, developed on track, and very attached to me and my DH. Daycare is not the Darwinian factory that you imagine.[/quote]

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