It’s official. Maternity leave is over and I’m back to work, which also means the kids are in daycare. My company offers remote work 3 days a week and office work the other 2 days. That schedule gives me the flexibility to be a little creative with our childcare. So it was time to start thinking about daycare and scheduling daycare tours.
I decided to keep Ace home with me on the days I work from home, at least until he’s mobile. Especially since he’s breastfeeding. The more time we have together the better. It went okay throughout the pandemic to keep Annie home, so why not?
But we are sending Annie to daycare five days a week, basically full time, just not all 5 days at the same place. She’s so active, it really wouldn’t be fair to her to have her cooped up at home while I’m trying to work and feed Ace all day. She needs activity, stimulation, and socialization. So, we needed to find a place where she could interact with other kids, explore new things, build on her independence, and boost her confidence. Plus, maybe start learning some basics like colors, letters, and numbers.
Daycare Options
We considered four options for the daycare setting:
- Church
- In Home (someone else’s)
- Our Home (nanny)
- Corporate Center
Meeting the needs for both kids made choosing the right daycare somewhat complicated. Mostly because a lot of places wouldn’t accommodate just 2 days a week.
Most of the nearby church daycares are the opposite direction from work, and start at 2.5 years old. So, by age alone that wouldn’t work for our kids yet.
A friend of ours suggested the home daycare where she sends her daughter. At first, I called, and the timing wasn’t going to work because she closes by 4:30 and on the days I work in the office I couldn’t get there until 5 at the earliest traffic permitting. But if I could find a place that would take both Annie and Ace for two days when I’m in the office, I could send Annie to the home daycare the other three days when I work from home and then pick her up whenever I wanted within the time frame.
So, I called tons of corporate daycares. Many of the places I called required Ace to be there 3-5 days a week, but we only wanted to send him 2 days a week. Some of the places I called were on a waitlist. At another I left the tour feeling sticky even though I didn’t touch anything. When the stickiness is in the air it’s time to move on. This other place had the infant room right off the lobby and regularly left the door open, so it just didn’t feel safe. It was starting to feel like we would never find a place.
Daycare Tours
We learned a lot after so many different corporate daycare tours. My best advice for these tours is to trust your instincts. Aside from that, we created a system to manage the daycare tours and get a sense for whether it would be a good fit.
- Drop by unannounced.
We learned you can go to the front door and ask to get information. Then, all the places we saw offered us a tour. (At least they did in pre-covid times. During our pandemic search we did call ahead.)
This is a good way to see how the teachers interact with the kids when they weren’t expecting visitors. Try to see as much of the space as possible during the tour. You’d want to see a clean kitchen, organized classrooms, and safe, age-appropriate outdoor spaces.
We set up an appointment to see a place we were really excited about, but they called to cancel about an hour before. That would have been fine, but they weren’t going to reschedule for several weeks. The lady was rude on the phone and told us that they were on a waitlist anyway, so it didn’t matter if we did the tour now, or a month from now. We did know about the waitlist when we made the appointment several weeks in advance. We still wanted to do a tour so we could consider adding our name to the list. The waitlist was not cheap at $100 per kid and non-refundable, so I was not adding two kids to the list sight unseen. Anyway, after that interaction my instinct told me we should move on and not look back.
- Watch how the kids act.
We saw a classroom full of kids crying and screaming, more than you would expect in a preschool classroom. It made me wonder how the school was meeting the kids’ needs. The caregivers should be warm and engaging, so I’d expect to see some content kids. Don’t get me wrong I completely understand there will be tantrums and meltdowns by individual kids at times, but not the whole class.
We saw another classroom where I kid you not, an older student was in the hallway literally holding the classroom door closed while the teacher was trying with her full body weight to pull the door open from the inside. It made me very uncomfortable to see the teacher had lost control of the student and the classroom. But also, I was uncomfortable at the reaction (or lack thereof) of the director who was giving us a tour. It felt like she should have jumped in to solve that problem and provide discipline or at least direction to the student.
- Ask questions about policies.
This is your opportunity to get a feel for how they discipline, when meal and nap times are, what activities are planned each day, how often diapers are changed, the ratio of kids to teachers, is the experience more educational or free play, do the kids watch tv, the sick policy, safety measures, etc. Ask yourself if the responses meet your expectations and compliment your home life.
Remember, I said complement, not replicate. Some flexibility will be necessary if you are considering a corporate daycare. They do their best to accommodate special needs like infant feeding schedules, but sometimes they must make calculated adjustments for the best of all kids. You are your baby’s home; daycare is the safe place they go to learn and grow while you are away. The two should complement each other, but daycare does not replace you.
- Ask about employee turnover.
You may also want to ask about the tenure of the teachers. If they have been there a long time, that shows consistency which is good for kids. Higher turnover may provide a more turbulent experience for young kids. - Talk to the teachers.
If you can do this without the director there, you might gain valuable information about the school. One teacher let us in on a secret when we asked her about the various play spaces in the room. She told us she was concerned about the stability of a bookcase separating two of the areas because it was in the middle of the room, not anchored to anything. I was glad she was conscious of the safety of her classroom, but then came the red flag. She spoke to the directors and pointed out the safety concern, but they ignored it and wouldn’t allow her to rearrange. To me it was valuable to know that management was dismissing a relevant safety concern, and belittling the teacher’s voice.
Making the Decision
Having trouble finding the right place hit me hard because I didn’t want to send my kids to daycare. I really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so when daycare tours didn’t go well or didn’t fit I felt a little worse.
I finally gave in and called the daycare Annie went to before the pandemic. They were my last call on purpose. I had several issues with their communication skills when Annie was there as an infant, so I didn’t want to go back. But we were running out of options and time to figure it out. They agreed to take both kids two days each. So, we decided to send both kids there two days a week. The other three days, we’d send Annie to the home daycare.
The part that got me over my hesitation with sending them back to the corporate school was the cameras so I could monitor all day. And believe me I do. The structured, educational environment will be good for Annie. I think two days of that, mixed with three days of a cozier, free-play environment will be a good combination for her at this age.
First day of school packing was the next adventure. Check out what I packed for each kid at each school here. This book is great for getting kids, like Annie, emotionally ready to head to the classroom for the first time too.
At the end of the day, I must remind myself that even though I must work, I am still their mother. I’m the most consistent place for love and support and daycare doesn’t change that. Ultimately the daycare tours assured me they would be safe while we are away and maybe they will make some friends or learn something, which can only be a good thing.
