Finding the Right Child Care
Meesh and Mon talk about their child care arrangements and how they found the right fit for them and their families.
MEESH
I went back to work when Thea was 5 months old and Loren’s paternity leave was up just around Thanksgiving. When I was 6 months pregnant we got Thea on a list for daycare to start when she was 7 months. This meant we had to work full time and watch Thea for one month before daycare started in the new year. This was pretty easy as we both worked from home and she wasn’t crawling yet. We did daycare for a month and then we went in on a nanny share with our friends down the street. The first day of daycare I sobbed. I tried to keep it together so she didn't see me cry, but once the door was closed I lost it and she was totally fine- had a blast! I was actually pretty sad to remove her from the daycare because she was learning so much and loved her teachers but the nanny share was more affordable and 2 on 1 care. Our nanny was amazing. She was a college student and could only nanny for us until the end of summer, so in 7 months we had to find new childcare. I loved doing a nanny share! It was such a good way to get the benefits of a nanny at a more affordable price. After our nanny went back to school we found an in-home daycare that is awesome! Thea loves it and the teachers and other kids are wonderful! There isn't a one size fits all childcare option, there are so many factors that go into finding the right choice for your family; cost, location, timing, curriculum/philosophy. It’s okay to try out options until you find the right fit!
MON
I was supposed to return to work when the boys were around 7 months old. We made the rookie mistake of starting to look about a few months before and there were no daycares available. I also wasn’t ready or comfortable leaving the boys so I put it off. Luckily, I could extend my leave until the boys were close to 12 months. We looked into a few daycares but I just didn’t love the model of any of them. My mom is a retired Montessori teacher and I am a teacher so I think my standards were somewhat impossible to meet since we couldn’t afford a Montessori or a daycare that had a strong philosophy. Also, it was just so damn expensive to put two through daycare. It almost was to the point where it wouldn’t really make sense for me to work because most of my income would go to childcare. The whole process was really frustrating and our current system is just not set up for families, but that’s a rant for another time. I also had a lot of people telling me I would miss a lot of work with daycare because of how much they would be sick, who knows if this is true or not but it did also sway our decision. In the end, after a lot of conversations with family, we found enough people willing to help to fill in our days. I was worried about how many different family members would be watching them because it wasn’t a super set routine, but we have loved it. We love their strong connections with our different family members and the joy they bring to our family's lives. Joey's parents watch them once a week, my mom twice a week, and two different aunts on the other two days. We also have a nanny that comes twice a week to help out at different parts of the day because after the first year of this Joey’s parents wanted some more help and my mom wanted a bit more freedom to run errands etc. It has worked out really well for our family and we have saved so much money. I think in the end it is always hard to make these decisions but ultimately you just need to find something your family is comfortable with.
