Finding Childcare - how do you trust someone will care for your child?

[colsxjack]

My DD is 9 months. At 11.5 months old she will need to be cared for at least part of the time by someone other than me or my DW.
By the end of the summer it will be even more often, although still part time.
We have it pretty much figured out until the end of the summer. A good friend of ours whom we trust will be caring for our DD. She is not available for as much as we would need her starting in Sept.

Both my DW and I are overcome with anxiety over the care for our DD. We haven't really left her for longer than 2 hours a couple of times while we were house hunting. We definitely try to meet all of her needs at this age and do not really think other people can or will do this. The thought of her being upset and crying and being inconsolable while in someones care is not a happy thought.
She is a very happy and playful and mostly very easy baby. But she is very spirited. Everything she does is with passion, no matter if it's happy, angry, sad or hurt. This spirited personality is also very loud, this girl can scream and can sometimes get herself really worked up when crying.
At this point she is on a very good schedule and is mostly easy. But we do rock her or dance with her to put her down for naps. Mostly we do not put her down until she is asleep, but sometimes we are successful if we put her down almost asleep.

I know that not many care situations have the ability to rock a baby to sleep. I fear that she will just be put in a crib and left to cry herself to sleep. That is not something that either my DW or I want.

How do you get over the fact that your child's care givers will never care for your child like you would? How do you find a caregiver that has similar ideals?

Thank you.

[AndrewsMother]

You will never find a care provider who is just like you, but it is possible to find a child care center/provider who is truly interested in the well being of your DD.

[phillychiquita]

Aw mama, I feel for you. This stuff can be really hard. Here is my advice. Search high and low for the person who shares your values, who you click with, who honors your parenting choices and who will love that baby as much as anyone could. They are out there, and you will find one if you keep looking, and especially if you stay open to seeing them - sometimes they are to be found where you would least expect.

When I had to put my DD into the care of someone else, it was very difficult. The first person I found was a fellow nursing mother I met at LLL who practiced attachment parenting -- we talked about going back to work one day and then she offered to work out a great babyswapping situation that would help both of us out as we got back to work - we did it for 8 months. Next I found this wonderful grad student friend of a neighbor who absolutely loved my daughter to pieces and treated her like the special person she is, took her on adventures, became a wonderful addition to her life. Next we found a lovely neighbor who had lots of kids and was willing to watch one more, just down the street.

And, Along the way, yes, we had some "duds". One older woman (recommded by a friend) was too pumped on caffeine and not as tuned into my daughter needs as I wanted her to be. Plus, I just didn't click with her or feel like she got my approach -- after two weeks, I finally just trusted my intuition, and we parted ways and I found a new person and never looked back.

In each experience, I put myself and my parenting needs out there right away in hopes of attracting someone like-minded. And it took a lot of interviewing, asking situational questions, and being willing to find the right kind of person to care for her. We did "test days" to see how my DD did with new people, and I always stayed open to changing the situation if need be (even though it would be inconvenient to start looking for a new person or place). I found people through friends, neighbors and also two great folks through sittercity.com

My DD nursed until she was 3 years old, and nursed to sleep until 2.5yrs, so and all of the people that have watched her have either had to take her out for a walk in the stroller or rock her to sleep because it was the only way to get her to nap without nursing. If they didnt think that was normal or they werent okay with that, they werent hired.

I also learned that you dont get it right every time, but that if you trust your gut, you ask good questions, and you make your expectations explicitly clear, then most times, they will take their cue from you. And you can usually get it right.

For us, Grad students have been the absolute best of the best in terms of patient, sweet, caring and mature enough, but without a lot of baggage about how to parent.

There are lots of loving sitters out there and lots of wonderful day cares that will rock kids to sleep and help soothe them, and love them. Look hard, look everywhere, and you will find a person to trust and become a partner in your child's life.

What a lucky baby to have stayed with mom and dad up to 11.5 months! Awesome!! She will do great, and will surely enjoy building new relationships too.

[MeepyCat]

Finding a caregiver with the right ideals, for us, involved a lot of going to visit the options. We saw a bunch of places that made me want to cry, and then we walked into this one lovely, sunny day care center and saw two women sitting on the floor of a lovely, cushy infant play area, with babies crawling over and around them. And that's where we sent our kids.

Anyone who is caring for more than one kid at a time is going to have to make some compromises. They can't change two diapers at once. There is, in fact, a limit to how many babies one person can have in her lap. But you're looking for some basic things:
- Infants should be fed in someone's arms, not while propped in a swing or high chair. (Toddlers can sit to be spoon fed.)
- Napping and feeding at your DD's age may happen on a schedule, but children who are hungry or tired at non-scheduled times should be fed or offered the chance to rest.
- We opted for a day care center in part because it meant that no single individual would ever be dealing with three or more children. Your mileage may vary.
- You should ask about behavior management techniques used by the day care provider. Look for gentle and age-appropriate tactics for steering the kids in the right direction, ask what happens when they don't work - when a kid doesn't want to sleep, or participate in a planned activity, or stop what they're doing to do something else, what do they do?
- Parental contact should be encouraged. They should give you some kind of information, verbal or written, on what kind of day your child had. You should be able to call and check in at any time, and to drop in (although this does mean you have to leave more than once, and that can be rough on everyone).

One of the other ways I deal with it is by promising myself that if there is anything wrong with the child care situation, I will make changes. In one case so far (in the transition from daycare to preschool) that has meant that we pulled our son from a program and found an alternative. It was stressful and difficult, but not nearly as stressful and difficult as failing to change things would have been. Remember that these arrangements are not set in stone. You can always change if things aren't good for you or your child.

But honestly? When you describe a playful, easy, happy, passionate, expressive kid, I think you have a kid who will do wonderfully in many day care situations. Yes, she'll shriek if she's unhappy. You kind of want that - squeaky wheels get the grease. And the happy, playful traits will help her connect positively with her caregivers and help her caregivers connect with her.

[moonyoungi]

I think the important thing is not as much of what you do to put the baby to sleep, but more of the philosophy of the childcare provider.
Of course the things are not exactly going to be the same when a child is in the group setting versus with 2 parent: 1baby setting. But as long as, the childcare provider puts the a lot of effort to bond with the baby, hold him/her and play with him/her especially at first, the baby will get attached to the childcare provider and get used to the routine.

For example, my exclusively breast fed 9 month old (now 2 and a half at the same daycare) cried a lot at first getting acclimated at the daycare, but my DCP held him constantly (She has super good ratio, so this is possible and she uses baby carrier to bond with new-at-daycare babes) for like a week and crying-for-mommy got much better after couple weeks (Of course, I had pangs in my body knowing he wanted me. He called, "mama mama" as he cried, I was told...). For first several months, he was put to nap while walking in the stroller or sometimes while swinging in outdoor baby swing. They did this, because he cried if they tried to put him down on a cot or crib. And he didn't get any formula, so they couldn't use a bottle. DCP wanted him to not be upset as much as possible. After couple months, she was able to lie down next to him and pat him to sleep.

I still have to nurse my 2 year old to sleep. Nothing else works. But at daycare he just walks into nap room, lies down on his own and goes to sleep in 5, 10 minutes without any fuss. They KNOW and EXPECT different things from parents versus daycare, yet they are still happy with both. That's what matters.

Good luck finding good daycare. They can be hard to come by. I feel extremely blessed to have my DCP and the relationship I and my children have with her. And don't hesitate to look around. This daycare was the second one I tried and one of the many that I looked into. But this one came by referral from a mom at a park that I hung out with! Such a luck. Look for recommendation from local AP mom's group. This is a home daycare, by the way. The quality of home daycare can range from wonderful and magical to appalling and sad.

[GuildJenn]

My son was a bit older when he went into care but we had a nanny in between. In terms of practical steps:

- I interviewed a lot of people and visited a lot of daycares to get a feel for what I wanted
- I went through Protecting the Gift for the difficult questions
- I had a trial period with our nanny
- I wrote my expectations on the big issues down and had people sign them; I don't sweat the small stuff
- I still stay alert - the best caregiver for a baby or tot is not always the best caregiver for a preschooler, etc.

In terms of philosophy, I know it's a big step. But here's where I've sort of gotten to. At the start I saw everyone as a potential threat - to my child, to my choices in parenting, to our values. Over time I have come to realize that unless it's a really bad situation (in which case, get out) what is actually happening is more: My son has learned that there are lots of people in the world to care for him, not always in the same ways but out of good heart. He has been exposed to different beliefs and cultures and kids and families and spaces and experiences and yes, food (some good for him, some not). His world has expanded beautifully beyond our doors.

I realized that although I am his best mother, I don't have to do it all. It was very arrogant of me to think that I would be the best at everything child-related or that the best thing for my son was to only experience what I could come up with in my mind. His teachers' advice and insight has sometimes blown me away. I don't have 15+ years of experience with a whole range of different kids and personalities 5 days a week. They do.

I am not grateful for the hours away from my son for sure but I am extremely grateful for the expansion of our family's experience in our community. Don't buy into the rhetoric that daycare is a net loss. For us it's been a gain.