Nina Sy wrote:When did you decide to have your baby placed in a daycare center and how did it work for you?  What should we expect?  What questions should we be asking ourselves and the daycare administrator?

I started my daughter part time at 9 or 10 mos before going back to work, then full time once I started working. We are at a home daycare (Happyland Daycare in thornhill woods) with about 7 or 8 other kids attending. We absolutely love our home daycare. The owner is extremely attentive and loving with the children. She also has her ECE and runs her home just like a professional daycare, with a curriculum, menus, daily written reports, a schedule, etc.

What to expect: In the beginning, most children will have separation anxiety and lots of tears, especially as it is their first day really away from you. If you can, try and spend a few hours per day with your child at daycare in their first week. Try easing them in gradually, with a short visit (an hour) the very first day to meet the teachers, then a couple hours, supervised with you, then a visit where you leave for an hour, working them up to a half day and then a full day on their own. While there with your child, try to encourage them to play on their own or with other children.

Things to ask the administrator:

- what is the daily schedule?
- what is the curriculum?
- what is the menu?

Honestly though... most daycare administrators will have the "right answers" to all the above. The best info you can glean is with your eyes, ears and gut. It's really important to have the right intuition about a daycare. These are people youre entrusting your little baby to...so its important that you feel the TLC there. Things I pay alot of attention to is:

a) cleanliness - does the place look cared for? Are the toys in decent condition? In most daycares, kids also spend alot of time playing and sitting on the floor. So check out the floor...is it clean? Are the kids sitting on comfy clean mats, or a dirty cold floor/ carpet? Is the diaper area right beside the food serving area? Is the playground muddy and wet? What about the washrooms? In my opinion, the daycare should be as clean or cleaner than at home.
b) Books - Check out the books the kids are reading. Is it alot of Dora and Disney? Or something more educational?
c) curriculum - does this daycare's music time consist of singing Itsy Bitsy Spider over and over? Or are they introducing anything more original?
d) staff - the most important thing. Your kids need to bond with the staff at the daycare. And that requires people who are actually motivated to take care of your kid all day. Talk to the woman who will be in charge of your child's classroom. Does she look tired? stressed? Does she look like she actually likes her job? Does she spend more time chatting with her coworkers than actually caring for the children? It's sad but many daycare workers are prob paid around $30K-$40K per year. Like teachers or even camp counsellors, many daycare workers are tired, burned out, underpaid and overworked. I've seen alot of daycare workers who look bored, tired, harried and unmotivated. (It's bad enough that we parents are like that ourselves sometimes...) But if you get the vibe that your kid would be just another number to them, run for the hills. You really need to trust that your child will be with someone all day who is as close to a second mother as he/ she will get. Youre basically trusting them to be the caregiver for 40 to 60 hours per week. So If you dont think the teacher can be trusted as a second mother to your baby, walk out of that daycare.
One litmus test for me that a daycare worker really cares for my child is the kind of answer I get when I ask how her day was while I'm picking her up. You know youre in a great daycare when the teacher can tell you, at the end of the day, which toys your child played with, whether she ate more than usual, who she made friends with, what new words she said, and how she finally stood up to the little girl who kept snatching her toys away.  You know youre in a so-so daycare when you get a generic "yeah, she was good, she had a good day..." with blank stares when you ask for elaboration on which child she played with and what activities specifically she enjoyed. If youre not getting much more at the end of the day than the "number of poos and pees" report, then theyre not paying close attention to your child as an individual.     

sorry for the LONG post...but this is a near and dear topic for me...