Babies in Distress: Horrors of Daycare

For two years after college, I worked as a teacher in a daycare center. My experience at this job, as well as being a parent, and talking with others about this topic has led me one conclusion. Daycare is not good.

I am not going to start up the Mommy War again. It has all been said and done. I am not resurrecting the age of question should women (parents) be working outside the home? Of course, that is not my point. We need to work. But there are other childcare options besides daycare. I am also not knocking the day care workers, they have a tough job. Many are underpaid, and lack sufficient early child education.

Just do your research. Ask questions. Never trust blindly. I am here to share my knowledge, and truth about what happens when you drop your child or baby off at daycare.

I will refer to the child care center I worked at as The Warehouse, as I cannot disclose the name of the establishment for obvious reasons. I worked at the warehouse for two years, on year with the under one year old group (infants and newborns), and the second year teaching pre kindergarten. I am going to share with you now my experience in working with the infants. There are some babies that are in what we called half day programs, others full day. Full day is sad. There are too many infants assigned to the workers for us to be able to give them individual attention. That is a plain fact. If you are one person, with five or eight babies, you only have two hands, and two eyes. There is no possible way we could give your baby the attention that they deserve. Many of the full day infants are dropped off at eight o'clock a.m. and picked up at six o'clock p.m. That is a ten hour day, this is a long day for an adult to work, but for a baby this is their life. Wake up, get in the car, get dropped off with people too busy to give me the attention I deserve , for a whole ten hours, get picked up, eat dinner, bathe, do it all again tomorrow.

One client, whose two children were in our care, was a well known pediatrician. She had two daughters, ages nine months and four years old. It was saddening to me when the little one began to call me "mama". I corrected her, and eventually she called me 'ja' for Joy, as Miss Joy was too complicated. For all the time I spent with her, it was no wonder she called me mama. I was all she knew all day. What is even sadder than that is, I know I was not able to give her the attention she deserved. Quick feedings, quick diaper changes, I talked to her, played with her when I could. That was when I was not cleaning up, sanitizing, preparing meals, bottles, or tending to the other (up to six at any given time) infants and their needs. My attention was spread thin. I always wondered how moms of sextuplets managed. My hats off to you, I know I was praying for the clock to speed up, and reach six p.m. so I could go home and relax!

Being a mother myself now, it is shameful to think that one would wish the day would go by quickly as to 'get away' from the children. And to think a young girl as myself, as much as I loved my job, and the children, that one would actually leave their children in the care of someone who felt this way. I know I was not the only one. The other girls working at the center, would pop their head in the room and say..."Three more hours...then we are out of here". Day in and day out, this was not only my job, but this was life for these babies. The most important time for experiencing the bond with a person, and the bond was to be to me, and I was just a paid caretaker with a schedule.

Can you imagine what my schedule was like on a daily basis? Most moms brought pre made bottles with formula, others pumped breast milk. Some babies where being introduced to solids. Ever feed a baby? Not easy. This can be messy and time consuming. You must write down what they ate and how much, and at what time. If they weren't hungry then, try again later. Meanwhile another was hungry again, but moms instructions are...feed ONLY at specified intervals. That baby is crying and obviously still hungry, getting the others upset. Here is five month old eating (drinking) just formula, no introduction to cereal yet, the others are eating cereal. Mom is persistent in her belief that cereal should not be given until the baby is six months old. Now this is easy for 'mom' who is sitting behind her quiet desk, and has us doing the dirty work. Hey mom, here is an idea, take care of your own baby! See the resentment? The workers would have discussions like this frequently.

When we were not going crazy keeping up with the feeding, changing, interactive play schedule, we were sanitizing. There were posters everywhere warning of the inevitable. Beware Rhinovirus, The Common Cold. All the details and directions on hand washing were posted over the sink. Now we had a rule, there would be no 'sick' children aloud in daycare. Sick would mean fever, or vomiting within 24 hours prior. But imagine a child with green boogies dripping down his lip playing throwing his pacifier into your babies crib. Hand washing only does so much. These children were sick all the time! Did they get to stay home and recover? "No way, can't miss a day of work. I can't find anyone to watch him." So everyone gets sick, and it cycles. Some doctor prescribes antibiotics; we add that to the schedule, a dose for this one, a dose for that one...until the germs are now super germs. Now imagine pink eye, or diarrhea. Are you ready for a shocker? A friend of mine worked in a state run daycare center. A baby bit another baby. The biter in question was taking daily, the prescriptions given to a baby born to a HIV infected mother. This information was not to be disclosed, as it was confidential. My friend checked for broken skin, she was okay, only teeth marks. The director of the program told the biters mom that if it happened AGAIN she would have to go elsewhere. My friend asked me what to do. She told the mom of the child that was bitten, what she knew, then she quit her job. Just to note, before I get feedback on it, there has to be certain things happening for the transmission of HIV to happen, and confidentiality is an issue of its' own. But, let us just be careful, and informed.

Floor time for the babies was a big thing. We put some babies on the floor, all crawling around, playing with toys etc. Some were starting to just pull themselves up. Many of their first steps were with us. We were excited for them! We were excited! We would write down the time of the event, we even had a disposable camera (this was before digital) and we tried to catch the moment to share with mom or dad. In the beginning, I was so excited to share the news at the end of the day. But the reactions were various. On more than just one occasion, I would beam as I saw a parent walk in at the end of the day, "Elizabeth took a step today!" only to be answered with, "Oh yeah she did that the other day." Well excuse me for my excitement, and thanks for telling me. I only spend ten hours a day with your child. How about a little communication? Here I am writing down every little detail of what Elizabeth ate, when she had a bowel movement, and what toy she liked that day, and you don't even think to tell me she started taking steps? Then they wonder why when child care workers quit. Perhaps we did more work than we where paid for? We cared too much? Not enough? They wonder why the next provider is not as caring as you were. The turn over rate for this job is very high.

Ultimately, it is your choice. I can only give you my first hand experience. Every one of us is in a different situation. I know where my children are, and who they are with. I don't trust anyone just because they are licensed. There has to be a better solution when we need childcare.