Day Care Woes

[judecorp]

In the search for new day care, I keep coming up sad and disappointed.

I thought I had found an okay compromise day care (not as good as the one I have, but seemed okay, the woman seemed nice, references were good, etc.) and was all set to give her the go-ahead, but I decided to ask about television watching since there was quite a bit of TV in the house (pretty much one in every room).

She wrote back that the kids watch cartoons until 9:30am, and then she puts the TV on so she can make lunch, and then sometimes she plans a movie for the kids. That's a whole hell of a lot of TV, especially when Punk would arrive at 8am so there's 1.5 hours of TV/day right there. I am not militantly anti-TV but I really don't want to pay someone to plonk my 13 month old in front of a TV for multiple hours per day every day. Especially when it is reported like no big deal.

I am so torn up about this. I was a little cheesed about the nap issue (they nap from 1-3 and she is not terribly flexible about this even though my child takes 2 naps/day and wakes up early in the morning) but figured some schedule-tweaking could offset some of that. But I am so broken up about the television business.

ARGH. We are never going to find another child care and Jen's new job starts next week and I am so sick of having to fly by the seat of my pants all the time and getting everything dumped on last minute. I really gave myself time to find a nice day care for Punk and was able to introduce her gradually and find a good fit and everything was really, really good. And this just sucks.

And I am really tired of things sucking.

Comments

[hetterrific.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I hope you find something soon. Daycare issues suck.

[tea-soaked.livejournal.com]

I would not be okay with that much TV... I'm sorry about your day care woes.

[hoo.livejournal.com]

This is one of the reasons we pay college tuition rates for the corporate daycare that V receives.

[jadefu.livejournal.com]

As an employee of an educational tv station, that's too much tv, plus unsupervised? Children's television isn't supposed to be a babysitter. So yeah, you're thinking the right thing.

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

Sorry this is proving to be so difficult. Is there any way that it can work to keep your current childcare? can you carpool with someone else's kid?

[(Anonymous)]

Don't compromise! Go with your gut. Don't take this lady. Naps and tv are big issues. Melissa

[kaleidoscopeeye.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I am sorry you guys are going through this.

[hope-persists.livejournal.com]

ooooh yeah, that much tv is bad news. here's hoping the kathy sitch works out. i'll email you with info this afternoon.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

If she *needs* that much TV, it would seem that she is over-committed in terms of the number of kids she is responsible for. I know when I was a teenage babysitter (oh, that was forever ago!) - I always preferred to have one-on-one time with kids (reading, walking about in the backyard, etc.) but if I had 3-4 kids, I often had to rely on TV a bit more because I had to multi-task.

[oppendonnell.livejournal.com]

I emailed my sister to see if she knows of any leads in your town. Big hugs to you.....the childcare thing is literally gut-wrenching.