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WWYD re: childcare? (Long)
Hi ladies,
I was wondering if I could get some insight regarding childcare...
I currently work from home and we have a nanny (college student online) that watches M. Nanny told me that she has breast cancer and is going to have radiation later this month on a Friday (that she is off) and says she will be to work on the Monday following the treatment. She told me she was receiving treatment last year and decided to just stop because it was too much (not sure why she would do that...not my place to say something)
I know someone that is having to start radiation and chemo because her cancer has spread. She is extremely exhausted and nausea a lot from it which I would think is expected.
Nanny does great with M! She has called in sick once (within the first month of working for us..actually it was about 2 weeks of me being back to work), she has assured me that she will be at work after the radiation. I'm just concerned for her health and that it might start effect her coming into work. We were initally considering the nanny thing short term with me being back to work and then switch to daycare after we hit the cap. If you do a nanny over $1,700 then you have taxes and W2s to deal with.
Half of me thinks we need to look at daycare outside of our home - for some reason the noise travels into my office very easily (if she is crying or squealing), and I'm on the phone a lot - even if I have my door closed I know people on the phone probably hear it in the background. M is not clingy at all but I fear if she is here at the house she might become that way. I also fear that when she starts walking - she is going to know that I am in the office and she can't come in (I can just imagine her pounding on my door crying). I think that either of the below daycares would be good for her for socialization too which I think is important! Also, if we are going to do daycare, I think it will be much easier switching her at 6 months vs 10-12 months old. I do feel bad considering other options but as my friend reminded me that this is a business deal and I can let my emotions effect my decision - I need to do what is best for our family.
So my 3 options are:
- Do we keep her on full time until her health becomes an issue? ($1,088/month)
- Switch her into an in-home day care (lady would be watching 6 children - 5 of which are toddlers (2+) and a 1 year old - all the toddlers are part time. ($600/month)
- Switch to a daycare center ($700/month) that has a 1:4 ratio and is also a pre-school for later.
DH has left this decision up to me, although I think he would like to see her go to daycare because of the cost and also so she can socialize with other babies/kids.
From reading this I'm sure you can sense that I've made up my mind - I think we should do daycare. When she called in sick it was right after I returned to work and thankfully my boss was fine with her being here while I tried to get some work done - I had called to tell him I wasn't going to be able to work and he said not to worry and do what I could since I wasn't busy. But I personally do NOT want to have to call in sick anymore because of the nanny not able to come - only if M or myself is sick - which I can usually pull through since I work from home if I was sick.
I really like the in-home daycare but I like the center even more - the staff is great and they also have cameras you can log onto to their website to see whats going on (I like that I could check in on her anytime I wanted to) - both places have an open door policy that you can pop in during the day if you want. I also get a lot of vacation (6 weeks off per year) the in-home daycare only gives 1 week of vacation after 1 year of going there. When I talked to the daycare center they were more flexible and said they'd be willing to work with me (not having to pay for childcare when she isn't there) on that.
::Passes out warm chocolate chip cookies just out of the over and cold milk:: if you read all of that! Thanks! I would really appreciate your insight, feedback and thoughts on this - just to hear an outsiders view 
BFP 4/15/12 - M/C @ 7W D&C 5/12/12
Re: WWYD re: childcare? (Long)
LOL I guess biting the bullet and making the decision!
When we hired her we told her that we would do a few months and go from there (would more then likely be short term - which she was fine with), so she did know that coming in (we didn't know about her cancer until after a month or so of her working for us). I would like to have her continue to watch M but it will cost more and I think that her being socialized with other children is important. Also when she gets older, I know it will be a problem that I am working and M can't be in my office with me all day.
DH and I are going to discuss it and make a decision, and if we end up going the daycare route we will let her know right away - it would end up being about 5 weeks notice.
We would also definitely consider her to watch M here and there if we wanted to do a date night or something too