Is There Such A Thing As A Perfect Daycare?

I honestly don’t think so. Not that I have looked around all that much since our original search when I was pregnant with Rylie, but even back then it seemed like there was something I didn’t like about each one I visited. I toured a daycare last Friday that came very highly recommended to me by more than one person. I didn’t like it. I was very disappointed too, because I had very high expectations for that place.

The main deal breaker for me was the ridiculously strict rules in the infant room. Now, for some first time parents, these rules may seem very appealing, but to a seasoned mom, they were just too much.

Rule #1: No blankets at all in the crib except for a wearable blanket. No, not even a little 10x10 security blanket, also known as a “buppy” in our house. Really? I can understand that rule for a 2 month old, but certainly not a 10 month old. Bryce won’t sleep without his buppy, so that right there pretty much made my decision for me immediately. He actually woke up screaming in the middle of the night last night because he couldn’t find his buppy. Once Brian went in and gave it to him, he went right back to sleep. My kids love their buppies!

Rule #2: If the baby rolls over on to their belly while they are sleeping, the daycare workers must turn them back over on to their backs. WHAT?!?! First off, if a baby can roll over consistently, it is OK for them to sleep on their belly. Ask any pediatrician that. And second, belly sleeping is the best! Bryce has been sleeping on his belly for months now. When he was on his back he always woke up. I’m certainly not advising anyone to put their baby on their belly since research has proven that “back is best”, but if your kid can get there by themselves, let them sleep!

Rule #3: No high chairs, swings, exersaucers or jumperoos in the infant room. So the babies just lay around on the floor all day. Um, no thanks. I want my kid to be upright as much as possible, obviously once head control is developed. And what about eating? Oh, they feed the baby on their lap in a rocking chair. They were surprised when I told them that Bryce eats finger foods and rarely eats any baby food. So how does the baby learn how to feed himself? I don’t want Bryce getting used to sitting on someone’s lap while he eats. He needs to be in a high chair learning how to eat on his own.

I will give a little bit of unsolicited advice here…when you are looking at a daycare, don’t just think of the present, think of the future. Think of how things will be as your baby gets older.

The one thing I DID like about the infant room was that anyone that went in there had to put booties over their shoes. That was really awesome. Yeah, it was a pain to do, but so worth it. Can you just imagine how much bacteria and other disgusting-ness is on the bottom of your shoes? I shudder when I think about what Bryce is rolling around in at his current daycare. But hey, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, right?

Overall the daycare was very nice and the people were very friendly, but there were a couple of other things I didn’t like about it. One was that all of the rooms were behind closed doors. At our current daycare, everything is open. You can see the different classrooms from the door. I don’t necessarily have a reason for liking that, I just do. Plus, when I opened the door to the infant room at the other place, all I smelled was poop! Another thing I didn’t care for was the number of kids in the 2 year old room. There were at least 20 in there. That just seemed like way too many to me.

So I guess the grass isn’t always greener. Of course when I explained to some of the ladies at the new place what was going on with Rylie, they couldn’t believe it. One actually got tears in her eyes. They agreed that isolation isn’t appropriate for a child suffering separation anxiety. I really wish I would have liked it there, but I just don’t.

The kids are home today since daycare is closed. Tomorrow I plan on having a long talk with the Center Director. I really hope I can work something out with them so that I can once again feel comfortable leaving Rylie there, and so she can once again be happy about going to school. This situation aside, I really do love our daycare. My kids have some great teachers and I know that the women there genuinely love them. When it all comes down to it, I don’t WANT to move them. But I don’t want Rylie to be scared every morning either. So hopefully we can all make some changes and things can get better.  She did have a good week last week, so hopefully that is already happening. Only time will tell.

A couple people have asked why I was looking for a new daycare.  Check out my Separation Anxiety post to see why.