Day Care Search

First, let me say this is probably my least favorite part about having a baby.  Knowing that you take the time to create this little tiny human and you get a ridiculously tiny amount of time (in the grand scheme of things) before having to turn them over to a care provider (strangers) so you can continue to earn the income necessary for the majority of people to function. 

I have now been to 3 day cares, which probably is considered way to few given I am 6 months along, but none of them have wait lists, so I am not really THAT concerned.  Basically I want someone who is competent, will pay attention if our child needs them, and returns them to us at the end of the day in more of less the same state we left them off in.  I don't really care what kinds of things you are going to teach a 10 week old baby.  For the most part, they sleep, eat, and poop.  I love looking at the curriculum at each place because they sound like your 8 month old baby will be able to identify colors and count.  How about we work on crawling?  I will consider this more important when they are slightly older and can actually be taught things.

In all three of these cases I have been less than impressed with how they have presented themselves.  I can't decide if this is a lack of training or they just generally think it's not important.  Most will show me the room our baby will be in all day and then run through charts, changing station, and point out the cribs.  At one place they went a little more in depth on what kinds of things you as a parent might get from their day, photos, an art project, etc. and some activities they do that's a little bit different like sign language on Fridays.  But then they just turn to me and say, do you have any questions?  All I can think is, you do this for a living and presumably have more than just me coming by to check out your place and you can't fill in any details beyond the state requirements?  What the heck do other people ask?  Is there an FAQ somewhere? 

Maybe I am thinking there's more to this than there really is, but none of the places have really put their best foot forward in terms of wowing me.  I am not asking to be wined and dined, just show me why you are the place we should trust with our infant.  I should also say, none of the places sent me away screaming or thinking that if I were to pick that place, our child would be in danger.  It's a room that can be sanitized, everyone gets their own crib, they all have sheets to track your child by, requirements for food you bring in, and there's a certain teacher ratio they maintain.  I just thought there was more to this whole day care search than what it has presented me with so far. 

One of our friends pointed out also that we won't really know how the day care is until we start to use them.  I am ok going in with the notion that we don't have to stay in one place forever, but it's just annoying that they are a little lacking in presentation.  Maybe if I had $2k a month to drop on day care, I would see a difference, but umm, that's not in the budget.  We also don't have days upon days to take time to go see every last single place on the planet.  See we need day care because we WORK during the day.  I guess we will find a few more places, but hopefully one will shine through as a clear winner.  Hopefully.