Transitioning toddler to daycare/preschool

[emma1978]

My ds is 28 months old and my dd is 2 months old. We do have a nanny but she is older and i worry that taking care of 2 kids might be a lot for her (or maybe for anyone??). Anyways, dh and i decided to send ds to daycare 2x week. So we started this months and after only going 4 times he got super sick and even got his little sister sick. Dealing with 2 sick kids is even tougher. So my question is wwyd?? Should i go on with this and ds will just keep being sick all the time or do i pull him out and if its too much for our nanny, i just find someone else?? Will he be less suck if i send him in fall when he is a bit older??? Help!!

[CorpsmanWife]

I have no experience with daycare, but I would think it only gets worse in the fall. My FIL took care of my two nephews. At that time they were 9 months and 3.5. We always worried about my FIL because he is in his 60s and has bad health. He never seem to have a problem with. I would pull him out and give the nanny a shot. She may be amazing with both kids. If not, it would be a great idea to find someone more suitable for the position. Good Luck! I hope the babies are better!

[i.<3.cheesysmiles]

Have you talked to the nanny? How would she feel watching the two children at the same time? I don't think age always is factor. I don;t know how old you are talking about, but I know my aunt is watching two infants, and my other aunt is watching a great grandchild while shuttling her grandkids to and from school. So, I think there are some older women who could do it.

[Suja]

I'd stick with it. Summer is better in terms of illness. One other thing to think about. Mira used to get sick ALL the time in daycare. We switched her to Montessori in February, and she has not missed a single day. She got one wicked bad cold, but I'm pretty sure she got it from her cousin. The one she goes to offers half day classes for kids her age, and the teachers are AMAZING! She gets so much more out of her school than she did her daycare (where the workers were nice, caring people, but not particularly well versed in development).

[tanyachap]

I was in a similar situation. Kevin was 21 months when Matthew was born and Kevin had speech problems and everyone recommended to go to school/daycare part time to interact with kids. Anyway, in my experience it depends on how big the daycare is, how long he stays there, what the student-teacher ratio is etc. IME, the smaller the class, the smaller the school, the smaller the ratio the better chances to keep everything clean with less diseases. Also, I found that putting Kevin for let's say 2 longer days (morning till afternoon) is way more stressful for him than putting him for 5 mornings. Even for his current school he said that he would love to go 5 days but does not want to nap there. The less stressed he is the less sick he will be IME. So if you found a nice but bigger school, I will consider a small one with small classes.

Also, small schools are more flexible. I also found out that when Kevin was younger he preferred going 3 days in a row vs. M, W, F - I think it was more consistent for him. These are obviously things that apply to Kevin so might be totally irrelevant for you DS.

How old is your nanny? Unfortunately, I have heard from a lot of working moms (friends of mine) that older nannies tend to get overwhelmed with a baby and toddler unlike younger ones who have a lot of energy. I know I dont have the energy I had 10 years ago (I am 39). And I have heard comments to that effect from friends. I use a sitter once in a blue moon who is 45 and she says she can only take care of my boys for a couple of hours here and there. She has 3 boys of her own but they are teenagers - she had them young. But again I have seen older moms on this forum say they are doing great.

Personally I would give the preschool another shot for a month or two but if he keeps getting sick, I think it is not worthy and I will try the nanny. I am only saying this because of the large number of older moms in my area who have shared with me that it is difficult to keep up with two kids in their late 30s-early 40s. Of course, it does not mean that your nanny will be overwhelmed. Also, keep in mind that she goes home in the evening to charge her batteries and a mom does not have that option.

[3andMe]

My mom is 65 and she does just as well keeping up with my 3 very energetic children as I do. She does a better job than I do, sometimes, because like Tanya said she gets to go home to a quiet house in the evening and doesn't have to wake up every few hours at night, so I will say it really does depend on the person, or I guess how you define older.

My kids definitely started getting sick more often after they started going to preschool. I do think it was good for them personally to go and develop the long-term interactions and friendships and social structure, and I have heard that children who get sick more often in preschool tend to get sick less often in grade school, when it tends to be more significant to lose school days. However, I think that each individual situation is different. You may have a good nanny and a not-so-great preschool or vice versa, or children who blossom with the personal attention of a nanny or thrive with the more social and perhaps more structured environment of a preschool. It might be better for you to have your children go out to playgrounds and to the zoo with a nanny instead of staying in one place like a preschool, or you may start worrying about your nanny being able to keep track of two kids and hope she doesn't take them anywhere. It's so hard to tell with each situation.

I would not weigh your decision just on the basis of one illness alone, unless you think that preschool has hygiene policies that are not sound. I used to find that every time I took my kids to an indoor playground or children's museum, they would get sick within a week. I would think of the first week of preschool like that, but on a smaller basis.

[emma1978]

Thanks everyone. She is 62 but she has been watching my son for almost 2 years and has done an amazing job with him. He absolutely loves her. I just think 2 young kids is even hard for me and i am 34 (and they are my kids) but i am not sleeping at night and i am working part time on the side (and my parents are helping me a ton). I am going back to work on monday, so i guess we will see how things go.

In my area, preschools start at 2.9 yrs and none before that. SO until october he can only go to daycare. I have found an awesome preschool for him but he can't start till october. I think i am going to try out this daycare for a few more weeks once he gets better but if he is constatly sick, i think i might need to pull him out and try again in october with a preschool

thanks again!!

[CarrieLin]

My thought is that kids need to build their immune systems by being exposed to germs. I am a full time SAHM but my kids go to the gym's childcare 3x's per week, the church for Sunday School and Mops my two older kids go to Preschool. I take them with me to shop at Costco, Target and the grocery store we play in indoor and outdoor playgrounds a couple times a week so they are exposed to all kinds of germs from an early age and we do not get sick often. I think it will just take time for your DS to build immunity to what the kids at the daycare are sharing.

Carrie Lin

[RachelB]

In my experience, which is limited to my one child and a few friends' children, kids start getting sick when they start school/daycare, no matter what the age or season.

DS started Montessori at 10 weeks and was a boogery mess for months. Then we switched him to a structured educational daycare at 15 months and he was getting sick all over again - the doctor said new school, new kids, new germs.

My friend kept her daughter out of daycare initially bc it was winter (cold and flu season) and went with a nanny until her second child was born. I think her DD was 18 months when she started school - had pneumonia with the first two weeks.

If I was in your situation I'd try to see how many of the kids in the daycare will be going to the same preschool, talk to the moms there. I'd probably assume that the illnesses will get better over the summer but that when you start school in the fall you may go through the same bout with colds since its a new environment. I'd also be as diligent as possible with the hand washing after daycare, maybe even bring a change of clothes to switch into before going home (boogers booger everywhere).

Good luck! I hope for all your sakes the illness get better soon, one way or the other.

K

[Suja]

I was talking to Mira's reacher about how she isn't as sick any more, and she said that a contributing factor would be that she is now potty trained, and washing her hands all the time as a consequence.

[tanyachap]

I have to say that I totally agree that little kids have to build their immune system but I have to also admit that I would not want this build-up to occur while I have a newborn. So I totally agree in principle that OP's son has to get sick at times, I would personally would not want to deal with a sick newborn. So if the daycare gets him too sick I will pull him out if I were the OP. A cold can be easy for a 4 year old and quite devastating for a little baby. But that's just me. My younger son was constantly sick the first 18 months of his life and it was not something I want to experience again. In my case though, Kevin had to attend programs for certain reasons and we just had to endure it. Very very exhausting .... Nearly lost my mind