Nanny Dilema!

All parents want to provide the best care for their child. A lot of mothers decide to stay at home, because nobody can take her place, no matter how good a caregiver they might be. Some of us are lucky enough to have grandparents come and take care of their grand kids. It is great since this gives them a chance to bond as well. But for most of us, it comes down to choosing what would be best help they can hire?

There are benefits, disadvantages to all types of care. I thought Daycare would be best for my son. He will learn to socialize, play with other kids and learn to wait his turn and not be spoiled. Now! I wish I had stopped bothering about my son being spoiled. That just does not happen!

Research for daycare was extensive. I asked friends, co-workers their opinion and also researched on line. Went to looks at day cares close by and finally decided on a Church based Daycare that I thought was the best we could find near our home and workplace. It was expensive as well. More than our mortgage! We had booked the day care three months before Aadi was even born, since waiting list is long. But we did get an opening before our parents left.

The Day Care seemed great and caregivers were nice too! Aadi seemed to like it too! He did not cry when we would drop him there and he kept on observing everything around him. He has been a little late on everything. He started turning, sitting, and crawling a little bit later than most of his friends because he is more of an observer than a doer. He would watch them cry, but not cry himself. While other babies would start crying when they hear others cry, it amused him to see them cry. One of the moms used to tell me is a little man in a baby's body. He also loved his daily buggy rides and everyone at daycare loved him as he grinned at everyone who would smile back at him.

Although, everything started out great at the Day Care, problems started to appear soon. Aadi started getting ear infections, and he was on antibiotics all the time. He changed three different antibiotics in one month and that was too much for me! Also, taking time off work was not easy for me as I had very little vacation time left. Arpit had to take time off most of the time and his work schedule is already very hectic. Doctor did not seem worried. He told me this was only building his immune and if he is falling sick more right now, he will be falling less sick when he grows older.

But there were other issues as well. He was not sleeping at Day Care at all. He is such a curious baby, he wants to observe everything and play will all the new toys...he just would not fall asleep. That meant that when I picked him up at 6pm from his Day Care, he would be so tired that most of the times he would fall asleep before we got home and I had very little time to spend with his during the week. Also, as Aadi was growing older I needed to increase the times he was eating solids. But with 6 kids to take care of, they could feed him solids only twice a day. Also I was not sure if he was eating everything properly. They used to keep records of his day, but they forgot to update it too often. If they had a temp come in, she would not know what to do. At the end of the day when I went to pick up Aadi and had questions about his day, or schedule, caregiver might not have the answers as she had so many kids to take care of or she might have been on lunch when temp forgot to fill in Aadi's sheet. This was starting to frustrate me.

I am not sure if I was asking too many questions, but i really wanted to know of all major minor milestones of my sons life. What he does all day beyond pooping, eating, sleeping and crying. I was not getting very good answers from the caregivers. Also, sometimes they seemed mad at me. When I asked them how Aadi was doing? Was he trying to crawl? I did not get a good answer. Instead she told me other kids Aadi's age were all crawling, but Aadi was not. All she would tell me is that he was fine today. I understand all teachers have their favorites and I guess Aadi was not hers. I had seen her with mom of other babies and how she volunteered information about their kids to them.

With me she was always in hurry to go home. I guess it might be because I used to usually one of the last parents to come pick their baby. But I always picked up before the close time and I needed to know how Aadi was doing. Often I used to find Aadi left alone to play by himself. She would be cleaning up at the end of the day.. all the toys washed and put away and Aadi sitting by himself on the rug. Or if I was early some days and there were other babies around.. who could crawl or walk... they would come and take the toys Aadi was playing with and she did nothing about it. I understand its all part of the learning process. But I think it was still too early for him to learn that. Or maybe I am just a touchy mom.

Normally the kids who could walk were in a separate class... but near the end of the day, there were only so few kids left that they would combine the class. And I do not have a problem with that because younger babies do learn a lot more from older kids than babies their own age.

They did have 2 teachers in Aadi's class. But one of them left at 4pm and I never really got to talk to her. Maybe she was the one primarily taking care of Aadi and might have given me lot more info about him than the one I used to end up meeting everyday in the evening. But I was tired of her treatment towards me and it made me upset to see Aadi sitting alone every evening I went to pick him up. I knew this cannot continue and I needed to change the Day Care.

Around the same time, our friend’s nanny had an opening and I decided to try her. Oh! Boy what a difference. She is a sweet girl and loves kids. She ran the day care in her home and took care of only two kids at a time. He place seemed decent and clean. She did not have too much furniture in her house and one of her bedrooms was dedicated to kids and toys. She had a son of her own, who is also a very sweet boy and loves playing with Aadi.

From day one, I asked her to keep a schedule of what Aadi does during the day just like how we had at Day Care. But on top of that I also get extra information about his day… like how he tried to crawl and what words he is trying to say. How much he smiles at her neighbors and that he's become a favorite among her friends. She makes sure he finishes all the food I give him and also suggests me if she thinks his schedule needs to be adjusted. She tries really hard to make sure he takes at least 2 naps during the day. Aadi also seems to really love her. When we go to drop him, he gives her a big smile and I can tell how happy he is to see her. He is still happy and smiling when I go to pick him up and that is such a big relief to me. His laughter tell me that I made a right decision by changing him from her day care. And the fact that he is building friendship with our friend’s baby is an added bonus.

I agree there are not as much activities with her as he had at day care and not as many kids to socialize. Also, kids do not learn to sleep and play on their own, as they would have to at day care. They do get lot more attention and love here. So some would say, they get spoiled more. But i feel they need that in earlier years of their life to build their confidence. We also ran into trouble when Nanny's dad passed away and she had to go to India for a month. She was able to find us a new nanny for a month before she left. But if was again a new adjustment for Aadi and us. When she returned from India, Aadi did not recognize her anymore. But it took them only a day to rebuild their friendship. When I came to pick him up on her first day back, he did not want to come home with me.

I cannot say one it better than the other. It all is about what you experience and the person who ends up taking care of your child. If the caregiver at day care had been nice, I would never have changed Aadi's daycare even though he was falling sick. And we really lucked out with Aadi's Nanny. Not all Nannies’ are this nice and caring. I have heard some parent’s horror stories about nannies that beat and are short tempered. Finally you just have to listen to your instinct and your baby’s smile will tell you if you have made the right decision for him.