Re: Transition to daycare - or not?

Dan Stromberg wrote: 
Hi folks.

My wife went back to work yesterday, and we've been attempting to get our
5 month old son transitioned to day care, but it's proving difficult.

In short, my wife and I, without having really read that much on the
subject(s), have been closer to "attachmentites" than "furberites", and
now that our son needs to go to day care, we're finding his day care
practitioner unable to give him the same level of attention we've
acclimated him to.

What level of attention?  He often needs to be walked around indoors to
get him to sleep - say maybe 20 minutes to get him to nod off, and then
another 15 minutes to get him deeply asleep enough that he usually won't
wake up as soon as we put him to bed.

Also, he seems to really need to go out for walks once in a while -
anywhere from 20 minutes to 90 minutes, I suppose.  We've gone for walks
anywhere from 1 to 5 times a day, "as needed".

Is it too much to hope for a day care scenario that might approximate
this?  If not, what do we need to look for?  Maybe an ultra-low ratio of
care giver to child?  (We've been trying a 1 to 4 place, but he cried for
a solid our today, so I picked him up and took him home early).  Maybe a
place that specializes (or has specialty people) in infant care?


	If you want everything unchanged from what you're
currently doing, then you probably need a nanny or maybe a
home-based daycare that can accommodate your needs.  From
what I've seen (which is by no means comprehensive), it's
not all that common to find centers that will take infants
outside for walks many times a day, but it seems that many
home daycare providers or nannies do take kids out for
walks at least once a day.
	If it were me, personally, I would be looking to
get away from walking a child to sleep until deeply asleep,
not reinforcing that.  Just my personal opinion.  However,
I would also expect that they wouldn't leave a child to
cry for lengthy periods of time.  So, I wouldn't look for
a DCP that would walk my baby to sleep every time, but I
would look for one that wouldn't leave him to cry it out.
	On the walking issue, I would expect any DCP to
hold and comfort and entertain my baby, but I think
an expectation of as many as 5 reasonably lengthy walks
outside per day is going to be way beyond the capabilities
of any provider other than a nanny.  Again, though, personally
*I* wouldn't want to be beholden to multiple lengthy walks
to get through every day myself, so I wouldn't want to
encourage that anyway.  I would prefer to set up a routine
with maybe one or two walks per day, and I would think
that most home DCPs and some centers would be able to
accommodate that for infants.
	I think you need to get some idea of whether
your child is fussing because his usual at home routine
isn't being followed or whether it's just because he's
away from Mom and Dad.  If it's the latter (and it
probably is), I wouldn't get all hung up on finding a
daycare that precisely recreates his home routine.
Babies tend to be very adaptable with that sort of
thing.  You want to make sure that he's being cared
for in a competent, appropriate, and loving way, and
they shouldn't have an agenda that runs contrary to
your own childcare philosophy, but there's likely some
room for flexibility.

Best wishes,
Ericka
.

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