Finding care for toddler while I work at home

[voxana]

I discovered long ago that my child, now 22 months, hates it when I work on the computer, has no tolerance for me sitting still, seeming to do nothing.  To get around this I had a young lady coming to play with him, 3 hours/day while I would work.  She has now taken another job and I haven't looked for anybody new because it seems like he also needs more opportunities to play with other children, which he loves to do.  I'm thinking of putting him, for 3-3.5 hours/ day in a home daycare or a Montessori school, or something similar so that he also gets a chance to play with other kids. Does anybody have any thoughts/opinions on doing something like this?  Any suggestions? Is 2 yo too young for something like this? 

[rebirth]

I am right now also struggling with finding someone to be a mothers helper for my little one... I am personally not comfortable with finding a day care/school for that young, but I have (so far unsuccessfully) been looking for a mothers helper with a child for a playmate...

[asraidevin]

Another is to find someone to share childcare with. It can be a bit tricky to find someone who wants the same number of hours per week and fairness regarding number of children involved.

[SimplePeaceMama]

I'm also dealing with this same issue, and my LO is 14 months old. I've been considering a mother's morning out program twice a week. I thought it would be good for him socially, but I'm not sure if that's the route I want to go. We are on a delayed vaccination schedule and a lot of places won't take you if you don't ahve all your shots - esp if they are private because they don't have to except religious/medical exemptions. I don't think I want someone to come into my home and keep DS bc it would be rather expensive I think. Post whatever decision you make - i'd certainly be interested.

[voxana]

We ended up selecting a home daycare run by a lady who seems empathetic and respectful of the children, has a nice sunny environment, and a large backyard.  My son has been going for only about 1.5 weeks and I'm beginning to see some drawbacks.  First, in this specific instance most of the children are over a year older than he is and so a lot of the organized activities are focused on an older age group, at their development levels. Second, I'm not sure my son is ready for the separation, at first he enjoyed it and didn't care at all when I dropped him off, but the past few times he has been clinging to me, either because he is unhappy at this particular place, or because he doesn't like being separated from me.  Luckily this lady is flexible and has let me stay with him a few times so that I don't have to leave him crying, but that's when I noticed that he doesn't relate with a lot of the activities.  

So, that's a long story. After a couple more weeks I might try switching to a different Waldorf-style home daycare that has more kids his age, or I might give up the idea all together, if he doesn't seem to adjust well.

 

At least in the home daycare world they just have to have the note for religious medical exemptions on vaccinations, at least in Illinois that is the law for licensed home daycares, I think. For hiring someone to come into your home, the rate in my area runs from $8/hour to $12/hour. We looked at Mother's Morning Out programs and at some preschools, even pretty expensive ones, and every time we felt like it was too many children, too much noise, and not enough attention for each child.  We ended up deciding that a home day care was a better solution because often there are fewer children, it's a more natural, family-like environment with children of different ages all playing together.

[emandbri]

I do home child care.  In your shoes I would check care.com, sittercity.com, and craigslist, doing a search for things like "cloth diaper" so you can find a like minded parent. 

Good Luck! 

[dogmom327]

This is a tough thing. We got lucky and found a young woman who was caring for her mother (recovering from cancer) at the time we hired her so she was in the market for a 10 hour a week type situation. Over time it has evolved and at one point she worked full time for us. She comes to our home, has been caring for our children for over 2 years (they adore her), takes them to the library, fire station, and will sit for hours and watch a construction crew (DS favorite activity). It was a total luck of the draw thing to find her though. I put the word out and turns out my sister knew her. We got really lucky.

We are moving in 6 months (out of state) and while I don't need as much childcare as I used to (down to 16 hours a week and hoping to get it back down to 10), I'm anxious about finding someone else. This time I think we are going to try to find a bilingual college student who can watch/play with the kids for 2-3 hours in the afternoon. We'd like our kids to learn Spanish and so that would be a dual benefit. We're also looking at having someone who lives with us.

[lifeabroad]

Originally Posted by emandbri 

I do home child care.  In your shoes I would check care.com, sittercity.com, and craigslist, doing a search for things like "cloth diaper" so you can find a like minded parent. 

Good Luck! 

I was going to suggest care.com and sittercity.com as well. I have never used it but have friends who hire from there, they always get lots of responses to their ads and interviews. Ive met a couple of their girls and they are great. Another friend is a SAHM and has advertised herself through the program. She has two kids of her own so the kids she keeps have a little interaction too...she is great. I think there are a lot of different kind of situations you can look for on those sites to find something that would suit you. It would also give you the opportunity to try it out for a couple of weeks, and then if it didn't work out, you could do something that requires a bit more money up front like MMO or an actual program of some kind. GL!