Daycare, Part 2

We toured the 2nd daycare today. This will be our last tour... There are only 4 daycare centers in town. Of the 4, 1 of them isn't open late enough on Thursdays (the day Brian would have to do pickup). Another is part of the YMCA, and I've seen their daycare rooms before when I had my Y membership - I wasn't impressed. We toured one last Monday, and toured the last one today. I was not impressed with this one, either.

The daycare we toured today always gets rave reviews. Everyone knows someone who has a child there and is pleased. So I really tried to have an open mind. But when I walked in the door and there was no security system in place, nor an office or person anywhere near the entrance, I pretty much lost interest. It seemed too easy for anyone and everyone to waltz in and approach the kids. In addition, the cubbies for information for parents are right by the door, and it's also where parents are supposed to leave payment. There's nothing to stop anyone from just taking your payment envelope and walking away.

It took a few minutes to find someone who knew what was going on, but eventually, we walked into the employee break room and had someone there find a person to take us on our tour. We were brought to the infant room, which really wasn't bad, but were told that they would be moving the room to the one next door because it's warmer in the winter. There was a young girl in there who was in charge (I hesitate to call her a teacher...I'll get into that in a minute) and 4 babies. Their staff:baby ratio is 1:4, just like the other place and as the law requires. All the books say 1:3 is best, but it's nowhere to be found around here. The babies all looked happy, but they were either in exersaucers or on the floor playing by themselves while the caregiver watched or cleaned.

Some of the policies were the same. They fill out an information form every day so the parents know what their child did. But some were not: most noticeably, the lack of focus on education. It appeared that the babies would be plopped down to entertain themselves or play all day (or veg in an exersaucer), which I was not at all fond of. I've said it many times before, but I mean it. If I can't spend all day with my child, I want him/her to learn something. I wouldn't put my baby in an exersaucer all day and I don't expect her caregiver to do so either.

I haven't made my final decision yet, although I am very much leaning toward the other place. They're in the process of rewriting their contract and policy book so I'm waiting for a copy of the revised edition, which I was told would be in about a week. They're also supposed to do some renovations (probably before we would require their services), including *some* kind of security system using a passcode. But it wouldn't restrict access to the building. But everyone says you should follow your gut instincts and mine are telling me to pass, in spite of its convenience (maybe 3 minutes from my house and work) and being $30 cheaper every week. Yes, it will be a struggle to come up with that extra $30 (and that sounds really sad, I know) but to me, it's worth it. I promise to withhold my decision until I have all the information though.

In other news, we did our "Childbirth Education" this weekend. The DVD set arrived on Friday so we watched it Saturday night. It was like Childbirth Class "light". There were no real couples shown (although for some reason, Brian thought some of the "couples" were really couples) and no scenes of actual childbirth (which was fine by me!). It was a little hokey with the humor they tried to infuse it with, but a bit funny, too. I thought it was laid out logically and I did learn a couple things, but not much. Brian asked me if there would be a quiz afterwards when we started watching it and I told him no, but I did ask him a few questions the next day to see if he paid attention at all. Amazingly, he did, LOL! The DVDs didn't get much into the pluses and minuses of "natural" versus medicated childbirth, but I've done my own research on that. I'm still glad we didn't have to go to a "real" class but now I can at least say I'm a little more prepared. I am working on getting a schedule of Infant CPR classes in the area because that was highly recommended by the OB (and with good reason, I believe!). I also wanted to sign up for a breastfeeding class but I haven't found anything that would work with my schedule yet. I guess I better get reading on that!