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Daycare Dilemma

By Anonymous

I toured a new daycare this morning. I loved it. I'm thinking of switching Landon at the start of the new school year. The biggest drawback is that they don't provide lunch. His current daycare provides all meals and given that I've managed to bring my own lunch to work all of ONE time, I'm really not sure I could handle making one for Landon each day. For one, that would cut into my prized evening "off-duty" time or my relatively stress-free morning time. Two, Landon eats all sorts of things provided by the daycare that he pretends he doesn't like at home, something about toddler peer pressure and everyone eating the same thing makes him an enthusiastic and experimental eater. Three, see number one. I don't want to. It would change my shopping list, require me to have more in my fridge than condiments, milk, and the precise items needed for the week's planned dinners, and well, I'm starting to whine, but I've been spoiled by our current daycare and its kitchen (which received a perfect 100 during its recent food/health safety check) and see no reason to force myself to become un-spoiled.

So why am I even looking at another daycare? It was an accident. It's the childcare center built by our neighborhood and I put Landon on the waiting list back in February of 2008. When we realized during our house hunting trip in March that he wouldn't get in by September, I erased it from my mind and picked among our available options. We've been very happy with his current center and assumed he'd stay there until Kindergarten.

Then I got an email Monday notifying me that Landon was now at the top of the wait list and would be able to start in the 2-year-old class in the Fall. I remembered all the great things I'd heard about the neighborhood center, found out their builder-subsidized rates would save us nearly $2,000 a year, and scheduled a visit for this morning. It's really, really nice. Beautiful building, big play areas, bright classrooms, and loyal teachers (average time there is 5 years and the center isn't a whole lot older than that). Landon's current daycare could be described in much the same way, so I still wasn't sure it was worth a switch when I asked to tour the infant rooms. Assuming we one day decide our lives can handle the upheaval of another child (we're not there yet), that baby will need some form of childcare, and the only thing I don't love about Landon's current center is the infant area. It looks very institutional and plain and all the babies are so young that even though the teacher-baby ratio is low, I don't think they get to do very much. This place keeps all kids in their current class for one year, which means the babies are of much greater variance in age (the class I saw today had only two that looked younger than 5 months, the other four were a little older and able to sit independently and play, so the caregivers could hold the newest ones a lot more -- much like Maya's distribution of ages). I liked that a lot. If we use a daycare center for the first year for this future hypothetical child, I'd want it to be this one. It felt homey and bright and quite a lot like Maya's.

As I've typed this I'm realizing that I've half-made my decision. The neighborhood center is cheaper by $1800 for Landon's age and $3300 for infants (it was subsidized by the neighborhood builders). I like it just as much for Landon's age and even more for infants. It's closer to our house (though the opposite direction from work). The transition shouldn't be too much of an issue because Landon was slated to move up to the Early Preschool class at his current daycare in August, so he'd be getting a new teacher, new room, and new classmates anyway.

The only things holding me back are the lunch requirement (that sounds a little ridiculous, but I LOVE how easy it is to take Landon to daycare right now- I literally just drop him off with the clothes on his back and he loves their food and eats so well! After a dinner where he refuses to eat anything but starch, JP and I frequently find ourselves saying, "well at least he ate well at daycare.") and the lack of cameras. Those daycare cameras really have been a comfort for me on the bad drop-off days.

So what do you think? What to you pack your toddler for lunch? Is it a hassle? Am I being absurd? Don't forget the cameras, they've been quite nice. But a savings of $2,000 for an equally lovely place? I just don't know. And I need to give them my decision by tomorrow morning. The wait lists wait for no one.

Full post as published by Lag Liv on April 15, 2009 (boomark / email).