Whether or not to Return to Work After Child Birth: There Are Better Options

I know I am not the first or only mother to agonize over this - but the question over whether or not to return to work after having my child began almost as soon as I found out I was pregnant. Of course, I assured my employer that I would return, even though I had that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of having to leave my child in someone else's care. You have to take everything into account: the health and safety of your child, your family finances, your own peace of mind. In my opinion, the only right answer would be for me to stay home with my child until it was time for him to go to school. But, when we crunched the numbers, I found that I had to go back to work temporarily until things were more secure. This put me at working for 6 months and putting my child in daycare in the meantime.

Then you have to worry about all the different options there are for daycare. I thought it best to seek out the advice of those who had gone before, and that is how I learned about Bay Harbour Child Care. I was told some raving reviews about how wonderful the caretakers/nurses are, and how the staff is very friendly, how safe the atmosphere feels, and all sorts of glowing things. Let me tell you, this proved true only in the first week.

The nurses are friendly insofar as they say hello to you in the morning and have a smile on their face. They seem to rely heavily on bouncy seats and swings to keep the children quiet. There was barely any holding of the kids beyond what was necessary for feeding times and changing, and the occasional screamer. But, at least they smiled. The management was not friendly at all. This one lady got upset at me when one of my son's bottles went missing and I was asking why and where it was. Her explanation was that "well, you write his name so small on there anyway". His name, by the way, is a fairly common name, but they misspelled his name on all the forms and on the stickers above his crib and cubby. Despite repeated attempts to get them to correct this, in the end they simply cut the extra letter out of one of the stickers and shoddily glued the paper back together. I found that to be very insulting.

In the rather small baby room, they keep children from 3 months to 18 months. Now, that is quite a spread. The little ones were getting run over by the older children. I hadn't even considered this before. As a first-time parent - what do I know about baby stages? It would have been more appropriate to keep 6 months to a year in one room and then one to two years in another and so on. Also, the floor has barely any toys or activities for the children. It's great for a child who hasn't yet figured out how to roll over or who isn't crawling, but once they're moving around, the facilities become far from adequate. But what did the nurses care, as long as they had the bouncy sweets and swings to lull the children back into dormancy, all was right with the world.

There was one lady I liked. She seemed to have a real knack and genuine love for children, and my child gravitated towards her. But she was gone within a month of us going here.

It took me about three months to not only find another place that met all my expectations (security, tons of floor space, toys for the kids, small class size, loving nurses, freedom for the children to play and explore with supervision, of course), but to also get on the waiting list and pray that a new spot opened up quickly. Well, as luck would have it, we got in. My child has just blossomed since he's been going here. He no longer looks sad when I pick him up. And when I go to visit him (as I do every day at lunch time), he's always on the floor playing either quietly by himself or with another toddler. Everyone is friendly, even the management, and while this place isn't heaven (heaven would be for us to be home), it works for now. In a few short months, we will fulfill our dream of me being home with my child and leaving daycare behind.