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Offspring: Daycare Update

First of all, this picture has nothing to do with daycare. It is just the kid eating a green bean. But I think it’s cute, so I thought I’d share. :)

Back on topic. I’ve had a few people ask, so I thought I’d update on our daycare situation. A while ago, I talked about our dilemmas with finding a daycare provider for Vera. Our in-home provider, who had taken care of her since I returned to work when V was eight weeks old, was taking maternity leave for two months, and we had to find an alternate solution. Besides that, we knew that once she was off of maternity leave, she was restructuring her daycare to only take infants 18 months and younger, which meant that even if we went back to her after the break, we would eventually need to find another provider.

So we started looking at other in-home options and traditional daycares, and we actually eventually settled on hiring a nanny. Which is something I never even considered an option before this. It kind of fell in our lap when a friend and coworker asked us if we would be interested in hiring a nanny with them to watch both of our daughters, and we jumped at it. It seemed like a great option and it was only a little more expensive than our regular care, so we were excited.

Without going into all the boring details, the nanny was going to watch the kids three days a week, and my coworker’s wife was going to watch them the other two days. Which turned out to be a not-so-great plan. Which, really wasn’t surprising. Watching your own baby all day can be exhausting, so I can’t imagine volunteering to watch someone else’s on my day off. Especially when Beast was being a little beast for the first couple weeks. (I’ve already mentioned her sudden separation anxiety issues here. Which have gotten much better, but it wasn’t fun for a while.)

She very sweetly offered to continue watching Vera weekly until we could get a new provider lined up, but we hated to impose. So for the past few weeks, we’ve been patching together people to watch her the extra two days a week (My amazing bff, Sarah, who you met here, has been driving an hour one way up from Lincoln every Thursday. Thank you, Love!!) and taking her to the nanny the other three days. It has been stressful and we’ve had a few hiccups when one or the other of us had to take time off to cover our babysitters’ schedules, but today was her last day with the nanny, and our daycare provider is officially off of maternity leave next week so we can all get back to a more steady schedule again. I am so relieved to not have to worry about lining up care every week, and I think it will be good for Vera to have more structure.

The only bad news is that we will be on the hunt once again next year when Vera gets too old for her infant-only in-home daycare. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. We could continue to look now, but we’re both of the opinion that the girl has had enough change and new faces in the past few months, and a familiar one will be much welcomed. Not to mention that I just need a break from thinking about it for a while.

So that’s the daycare update, and where we’re at. Do all parents have this many issues finding a permanent daycare solution?? Or maybe it’s unrealistic to look for a permanent solution. Well at least we have the next nine months figured out, which seems good enough for right now at least.

-Dawn

 

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