Let the Daycare Begin!

I have always had a bit of a skeptical view of daycare.

I was brought up in a fortunate enough home that my mom stayed home with all of us until my brother completed elementary school, then she went back to school to become an Educational Associate, basically just to fill her time, because there was no reason for my family to need a second income. I suppose being in that environment never made me realize how few families are able to do that.

When Roland and I first talked about what would happen after my maternity leave was up, I was still hoping that we would be able to manage without daycare. I honestly was hoping that just having me work weekends would suffice. But alas, that is not the case. And I believe to be highly unlikely for many families in this day in age.

So Daycare it is.

Once we realized this unavoidable truth, I found it extremely difficult to find someone that met all of my perfect criteria: location, rates, quality... all of these things had to become negotiable once I actually had to start looking hard. I was wary of Kijiji at first, but it really was my only option after exhausting all of the people I know with daycares (and some people that don't have daycares that I asked anyway). The problem with Kijiji is it's tough to get people to get back to you. I had sent emails to about 7 different ads and only 2 people got back to me on the first try. One person responded that they were looking for someone over 2 years old after the second email I sent them, the others never responded even after the third email. So I was down to two daycares. The first one, was one that had an ideal location, between our house and Roland's work, she has two kids of her own and is only looking to take two more kids, but she is priced 50% higher than most daycares, according to people I have asked and others I have come across in my search. When asked about her price, she stated that she because she was only taking 4 children total, and she was planning on taking them on outings, she was priced competitively with those with similar style daycares. I liked her house, and her set-up, and what she told me about her overall plan. The second daycare, is in our neighbourhood, reasonably priced, but has 16 children with 3 adults on staff (although I really consider it only two, the husband of the woman that ran it was home, but didn't seem to participate much in the actual daycare other than picking up some school aged kids from the 4 schools in the area.), plus I did not like the primary area that the kids are in during the day.

So really, the choice for me came down to quality vs. affordability. And so I went with quality. I mean, if I am going to splurge on something and make us have to stick to a budget, it might as well be because I want my daughter to be in someone's care that I feel comfortable with. So right now, we are at the point where we are wondering if having Rosalie in this daycare is worth it for the amount of time I am at work. Are the extra days that I am working covering the cost of daycare and then some? We'll see in the coming months.

Rosalie has now been to daycare twice. Once last Friday and then this past Monday. I am pretty sure it was WAY harder on me than it was on her. We are still establishing a routine to make this transition easy, but so far so good! It is just really hard to let someone else take care of your baby. I mean, if I could stay home with her I totally would, I don't want to miss a thing, but our bank account vetoed that idea. At least I live in Canada, so I got to stay home with her for 13 months before I had to go back to work at all.

But in all seriousness, I dropped Rosalie off earlier than needs be on Monday so she could have some play time and get comfortable there before nap time (because that was an issue on Friday), and not to be over-dramatic or anything, but my life basically lost all meaning without her. I was home, I had eaten, and I had nothing to do until I went to work. PLUS I already missed her. What the hell did I used to do with my free time?