Since a lot of kids are in the process of going back to school right now and I know that looks very different from last year for all of them wether they are going back for in person instruction or virtual learning or some sort of hybrid model due to the current pandemic I thought I would take a moment to talk about our decision to not only send Little Dude back to daycare but to start at a completely new facility in June during what we thought at the the time was the height of the pandemic for our area.
The daycare that Little Dude attended in Virginia Beach from the time he was 11 weeks old until he was approximently 8 months old (with a brief hiatus when we had to go back to Kentucky to help my mom while she recovered from surgery) was perfectly fine. I loved the diversity in students and staff and very much liked the way they were set up for infant care. They allowed me to use cloth diapers and glass bottles and gave great daily reports about how Little Dude had spent his day.
However there were 2 things I really did not like about this center - first and foremost they had an open floor plan with all ages other than infants separated by half walls at most and with 4 year olds and up in the same area together (the center also offers before and after care so there were 4 year olds in the same space as 7 or 8 year olds). While not an inherently bad thing it is not a set up I would choose for my child to be in daily; specifically I would walk in sometimes and a child who had learned a new 4 letter word would be using it loudly so that all of the other children were now learning a 4 letter word, while my husband and I certainly drop our share of F bombs I don't want my child to learn those words sooner than necessary. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the center does not allow parents to provide their childs food, all children must eat the food provided by the center. While the center serves a perfectly fine USDA menu similar to what I had when I was in school my husband and I don't necessarily agree with these guidelines (more on that later) so for these two reasons we had left Little Dude on the waiting list at a couple of other daycares that we like more than the one he was at in VB in hopes that something would open up before he was too far into solid foods.
Luckily for us a global pandemic happened and Little Dude was home with me starting in mid-March before he was really eating more than vegetables at daycare and I had full control over the food he ate daily.
Working from home with an infant is not easy, even though he was only really army crawling and not getting into things yet it was tough juggling giving him the attention he needed and getting my work done. Many nights I would log back on after putting Little Dude to bed or be feeding him dinner in my office while I continued to work because trying to juggle being a full time single mom (remember hubby was deployed until mid June) with being a full time work from home employee was tough.
In the beginning of May I realized that Little Dude was starting to need more hands on attention than I could provide and still get work done, so I called in reinforcements, my mom came to stay with me for a little over 2 weeks and I was able to bust my butt and get reasonably caught up with my work. I knew it would still be tough working from home once she left but we had a general idea that hubby would be home soon and I knew once he came home worst case I could make up the time I needed to stay caught up with my job in the evenings after he came home from work.
Luck was on my side though. The day my mom left my phone rang and it was Lincoln's daycare, they had a spot available for him if I wanted it. I didn't have to take it and I could keep my spot on the wait list until another spot opened up but I could start as early as the next Monday if I wanted.
I talked with the daycare director about the steps they were taking to mitigate COVID-19 risks and decided that the best option for my mental health, Little Dude's development, and our family as a whole was to send him to daycare. While there was certainly a higher risk having him at daycare than having him at home I was impressed by the steps the school was already taking and decided that it was worth the risk for us.
Little Dude has now been at daycare for almost 3 months and there hasn't been a single red flag. They center has not had any cases of COVID among the students, staff, or had any reported related to the immediate households that any students are part of. I am a little extra concerned right now as school is starting back up since the center is integrated with a K-12 school but they are even taking extra steps to protect students there by limiting interactions between grades, using different entrances for various grade levels and keeping staff assigned by age range (daycare, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12) and keeping lunches in classrooms.
Overall I think that it is a tough decision that parents are having to make and that each of us has to make the best decision we can for our families while balancing the risk of exposure against work obligations, technology access, developmental and social needs of the child, and mental health of all involved. I even have one friend who has enrolled her youngest in a private school so that he can attend in person starting day 1 this year while keeping her daughter home for virtual learning through the public schools simply because the children have different personalities and needs and she felt that was the best option for each kid.
It's tough being a parent and I want all of you to know that as long as you make the best decision you can with the information available in the moment you aren't doing anything wrong and you are a great mom/dad for your kid.
