Daycare
Has anyone sent their baby to daycare?! If so tell me good stories as it’s almost that time for me to send my baby to child care!
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My son started going just after 12m and he loves it. Runs in every day. Says goodbye to his friends. He’s learned SO much. Words are popping up everywhere but also just how to sit calmly, wait his turn in lines, listening better, and sharing better. He’s even learned how to go to sleep more independently. We don’t have to rock him for 45 minutes anymore haha. He eats vegetables there, won’t touch them at home at all haha.
Everyone scares mamas about the illness. But he’s been in daycare for 14m and hasn’t ever been sick. I know we are lucky and it is definitely not the norm, but positive stories do exist!
I don’t have to work but I like my job (and I’m good at it, it also has lots of perks). So knowing he likes school helps me be able to focus at work and on me.
Our daycare is 7:30-5:30, all meals, milk, and snacks included. It’s $478.50/month Canadian (so like $340/usd). The teachers are great. We have an app and they update everything. Milk, food, diapers, potty, photos, program
My best advice is to do a lot of research. Compare compare compare. lol see if the care matches the price tag. Ask a lot of questions too. Depending on your babies age I’d recommend one that includes snacks and lunch. Most of them don’t offer that and that was a perk I loved about mine. Also look and see if your county has one. I went with my own choice but my county has one low cost but it did have requirements of your child needing to be mostly potty trained
Both of my kids are thriving in daycare! I’ve had at least one child in daycare for over 4 years now. Our center has very low turnover, very responsive staff and I can tell they genuinely care about the kids (as a teacher of almost 2 decades who teaches early childhood I feel like I can absolutely tell lol).
Yes, they get sick all the time for the first year. And it’s extremely expensive - more than our mortgage when it’s two kids. But that’s anywhere in the US, for the most part. I will be so sad when my oldest goes to kindergarten next year and then again in a few years when my youngest will finish!
Good daycare workers are amazing and can absolutely be an extended part of your village. There are so many bad stories you hear on the internet, but in real life I know so many kids in daycare that are all doing great.
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Nursery food day 1 - ROCKY ROAD?
I’ve lost my lid today, please tell me I’m well positioned to do so…
My 9 month old started nursery and as part of his lunch he was served pesto and spinach pasta (fine!) which he managed well as I have been doing a combination of BLW and textured puréed food…
Then it said he had rocky road (all).
I queried this whether it was an automatic entry because that was the lunch provided for the day, to be told he had some rocky road whilst being supervised.
He’s 9 months old, has had no refined sugar in his diet in line with NHS and early years guidance, he’s certainly not had marshmallows, chocolate (sugar and caffeine content) and biscuit/whole nuts.
On what fucking planet is this an age appropriate meal?
I’m devastated as I was feeling anxious about handing over the care of my son for a day and half a week as it is but now this has shattered trust.
In addition, the initial response was that I hadn’t told them Noah wasn’t eating anything with refined sugar content at home when I inducted him…
Am I missing something? Should my child be battling choking hazards, consuming refined sugar when he’s only just cut two teeth and consuming caffeine?
No hate to anyone who makes any other decisions but this has really rattled me. Surely it’s not a “standard?’’
Help a mama out
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Am I wrong?
I genuinely want to hear other people’s perspectives because I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I have primary custody of my two children, ages 2 and 3. Their father has visitation every third weekend. Our divorce decree, which he agreed to, states that if he moves outside the designated area, he loses overnight visitation.
Knowing this, he voluntarily chose to move over an hour away to live with a girlfriend and her children. At the time, he’d known her for approximately TWO WEEKS.
Because of that decision, his visitation changed to Saturdays, 9 a.m.–6 p.m., every third weekend. No overnights.
Despite this, I’ve tried accommodating him with additional time, hotels, and Airbnbs. But it’s not working. The children have fun with him, but they come home extremely dysregulated. Hitting, fighting, tantrums, sleep issues, etc. It lasts for DAYS, and I’ve documented a consistent pattern.
I don’t believe he’s intentionally doing anything wrong during visits. I believe the instability and transitions are difficult for two toddlers.
Recently, they got sick after visiting him. Obviously, sickness happens. But it brought up an even bigger frustration. Who handles the appointments, sleepless nights, medications, and everything else? Me and my fiancé. Their dad gets to return to the life he chose while I’m responsible for everything that comes afterward.
I ended up reaching out to his girlfriend. Not my smartest move, I know. But I genuinely couldn’t believe another mother would support a man voluntarily reducing his time with his own children to live with her.
Turns out, she knows and fully supports his decision.
They’ve been together around four months, and she’s already referring to parenting my children as “we,” “us,” and “team,” talking about how much they love the girls despite never having met them. Her responses also sounded completely AI-generated.
Ultimately, they’re both comfortable with him being a weekend parent. He considers himself a present, involved father and doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong.
When I asked about accountability for voluntarily choosing less time with his children, their response was essentially, “The choice was made. How do we move forward?”
But why am I expected to accommodate a decision that HE made at the expense of his relationship with his children?
I understand some parents have limited visitation due to circumstances outside their control. But this wasn’t one of those situations. He had the opportunity to be more involved and willingly chose less.
And now I’m expected to make his life easier, deal with the emotional aftermath of his visits, and support their plans to eventually become a blended family.
Am I wrong for thinking that being a good dad requires more than exercising the bare minimum visitation? Because I genuinely believe my children deserve better than a father who’s content seeing them twice a month when he could have chosen differently.
I really want unbiased perspectives. Am I expecting too much, or has the bar for being a present parent gotten this low?
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Daycare
Has anyone sent their baby to daycare?! If so tell me good stories as it’s almost that time for me to send my baby to child care!
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Am I wrong?
My husband the past 2 days has come home from work after being gone all day and as soon as he comes in the door says he’s going upstairs to work on his leg that has been tight and aching. And left me to get the kids dinner, and do their whole bed time routine alone because it’s taken that long for him to do his stuff. When I had a problem with it he acted like I’m the bad guy because “he’s been gone all day and not had a minute to himself”. Am I wrong for being upset???
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Partners lack of effort (need advice!)
So my boyfriend came home today and I asked if we could go and get washing up liquid because I needed to wash little ones bottles. She’s formula fed, so we really need to have soap for clean bottles.
He said no I’m not going to go. Bare in mind she’s had a bug for 5 days no stop diarrhoea and I’ve got the flu. I said why? And he responded because if we didn’t have any soap in the world you would just make do and rinse them.
I’m thinking okay fine sure but we’re not in end times, we have money to buy soap and it’s 2 minutes away.
Long story short I ended up going because he wouldn’t and her bottles need to be cleaned.
Am I being unreasonable? I just feel like this isn’t fair especially because she has a bug and I’ve now got a temperature from going outside and the change in environments from hot to cold.
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Where are all my mums of babies still not eating?
How are we coping? I feel at my whits end with cooking /making /buying things all for him to spit it out, cry, clamp his mouth shut, face away etc etc 🙃
‘Food before one is just for fun’ they say - but yet I also see things like ‘they must be getting fish twice a week’ - ‘3 veggies per day’ , ‘plenty of iron rich foods’ - so which one is it !
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