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please give me your opinion....
just curious what people think.
oliver has been at one SMALL in home daycare since he was 4 months (he is 15 months). i adore our daycare and seriously could cry thinking of him/us leaving her. BUT i think he would benefit from being in a bigger setting with more kids. of course i could be mistaken since this is my first rodeo....
question-
at what age would/will you move your LO from a small in home to a center or larger in home?
i think it would be great for him to have bigger kids to watch, mimic, learn from, etc. I want him to be able to be outside every day (weather permitting). My friends with kids at Generation Next or KinderCare or Walnut School seem to really like having their LOs there and the kids seem to benefit from the different setting.
my hopes are that where ever we move him to he will stay at until he starts preschool (hopefully cowles at 3.5 yrs old).
is there a good age to do this transition so its easier on the kids? he has only known her and i am wondering how he'll handle the change...either now or next year.
if you think that i'm off base/wrong- please let me know. i have no experience and would love ANY feedback.
Re: please give me your opinion....
I stay home so my answer is a little different. When I was watching P I had intended to watch her until 3 and then strongly encourage her parents to put her into a preschool or full time daycare situation so she could get involved with more kids. At that age its extremely important to me for kids to be socializing with a broader range of kiddos. We will be starting Sophia at 3 in a part time preschool program for exactly that reason.
Does your daycare gal not take the kids outside? That is a huge part of our day as long as the weather is nice so I can't imagine not getting outside time. We also do lots of activities with our mom's group and library story time so Sophia is exposed to a good number of different kids each week.
So, I guess my opinion is that kids really don't need a bigger setting until they are closer to 3, but I'd be disappointed if she wasn't taking them outside to run off energy each day it was nice. Not very helpful, huh?
I'm SAHM too and DS just turned 2.
We began to realize around 1 year that he would benefit from more activity with kids. We increased our activities (we do kindermusik, playgroups, library reading, and so forth).
When he turned about 17 months we realized that he would benefit from more activity with kids his age WITHOUT Mama always being there.
For US we did feel that we were depriving our son of enhanced interaction with other kids his age without me always being there to intervene. For US we did feel we were doing him a disservice by him being home all day. I also have seen SAH children react to kindergarten - it is not pretty. I want DS to thrive socially and to enjoy his time to learn from other adults and teachers.
There is nothing wrong with the daycare environment. As a SAHM - I have no problems with it. Are there bad daycare environments? Sure. You do due diligence in your search like everything else.
For us the right decision to help our son continue learning social skills and learning from other kids was to have him start half day daycare. He goes to a large setting 3 days per week from 7:30 to 12. In the fall he will start 5 half days at the Montessori early preschool.
It has been AMAZING for his social skills. DS was an early talker and is well advanced verbally from his age group BUT social skills like asking others 'how they are' and even physical skills have increased by watching other toddlers. Of course he also comes home with some mimicked bad behavior (mine, mine, mine ugh).
I enjoy the three half days to be able to run errands, doctor appointments, and other chores/tasks that are easier to do without a toddler. Mamas need time for themselves too. I'm much more fresh and energetic for him.
This will also come in handy for #2 which we plan to start the adoption process again in a couple of months.
Good luck!! Only you know what is right for your child and family! Don't let others guilt you into something you don't want to do. You are never 'off base' because you are YOUR CHILD'S MOM.
I battle with this too. Obviuosly you know that Neena goes to Kristine's 2 days a week and is with me the rest of the week. Neena is very social, but doesn't do so well in larger unstructured settings when I'm not present. For example, she hates YMCA childcare and the childcare at my work. If I'm in those settings with her she rocks it. Like you, I'm anxious to make a decision, but a lot goes into that: money, location, time, etc...
Ultimately, I'm pretty sure we'll move Neena to a different setting at the age of 2. Which still gives me some time to make decisions and do some research. This stuff isn't easy!
Neena Mae. 1/7/10
"A baby nursing at a mother's breast is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature." - David Suzuki
AJ will be 16 months in a few days. Just last week, we switched him from an in-home provider to a daycare.
We were becoming disatisfied with the in-home caregiver for a variety of reasons. We intended on moving AJ when he was 2, but the time was right to switch now.
It has been amazing! IIn terms of the adjustment, there were two days when he cried hard when I dropped him off, but now he practically leaps out of my arms when we get to daycare. His verbal skills are growing by the day, and he seems overall more engaged in the world. Whether the timing is this developmental explosion is coincidental or if he's responding to a different care environment, I'm not sure, but it certainly makes me wonder...
I'm sure there are in-home environments that provide great stimulation, variety, etc., but in our case, a center is just a better overall fit. I wish we had enrolled AJ from the beginning.
at what age would/will you move your LO from a small in home to a center or larger in home?
If my child were in daycare, I would do anything I could to make sure I didn't have to move them very much until they went to school. Moving them shakes their world. If you can do one move to a center that also offers a good preschool then that's what I would do and be done with it.
is there a good age to do this transition so its easier on the kids? Some kids are resilient and it would just take a few weeks to get them back into their comfort zone. My Ana isn't as resilient so her whole world would be rocked. It depends on the kid. Supposedly separation anxiety can come back from12-18mos.Another thing to add...
I think it's somewhat normal to wonder if the grass is greener. Even some SAHMs question if their child would be better off in a daycare environment. If you love your current daycare, that counts for a lot. And because your friends' children are doing well in a daycare center doesn't necessarily mean your LO will too.
It's tough, isn't it?
I personally would never look into just going to a large in-home. To me there would be no advantage to that, you get the germs of more kids w/o the curriculum of the center, and you don't get the consistency in hours and over-watch that you get w/ a daycare.
If I didn't stay home, my ideal would probably be a small in-home (only if I knew/loved the person) for the first year, and then a center when they are walking and more communicative (so sometime between 1-2 I'd move them, definitely by 3). I think that socialization is super important for kids, so we go to group activities every day, and then usually do a play group in the afternoon too - maybe it is overkill, but I'm a super social person and I hope for the same w/ my girls. When G turned 2 1/2 I started getting her into programs she could do alone too, like pre-sunday school and brighter beginnings. She has grown so much through them. I think it is great if your kid learns to socialize w/o you there.
I think Buzz is right, no matter what you might question if your kids could be in a better situation. I sometimes wish G had a more structured learning routine w/ her peers, but I figure she'll get that here in a couple of months, so we stick w/ what works.
If you're considering a change, I would go with a center where he can stay until he starts school. I'm just not a fan of large in-homes and you don't want him to make too many moves.
My sister was Maya's nanny until she was 28 months old, so just over 2. That's when we moved her to Principal's center. Until then she had been at our home with my sister every day. For some time, December's Ella came 2 1/2 days a week and that was good for her. My sister also took her to the library, pool, mall etc. I loved having her home and with family, but the move to the center at the right time was absolutely the right decision for us. I stressed about it a lot, but the transition was harder on me than it was on her. She started thriving immediately and I was amazed with the overall growth it provided her.
December is currently watching Cam and that's a perfect fit for us right now. It's our plan to move him to PCDC when Maya starts Kindergarten, so he will be 2. That decision is based on knowing it was a good time for Maya, so we hope it will be for him too, as well as a financial decision. It would be a huge stretch for us to have 2 kids there right now and I've been working from home 2 days a week and they only take full time kids in the infant room.