At least a few times a month across all the mom/parent groups I am in, some flustered, frantic mom or dad will post that they are quickly approaching the end of their family leave with their company and will need to return to work soon, and they haven’t yet decided on whether they will choose to hire a nanny or put their child in daycare. And every single time a post like this comes up, the same answers in different tones and levels of exasperation or insistence will respond. Some are level headed and say there are pros and cons to both, then briefly highlight those pros and cons; others will be determined to convince you that only one path is the right path. And very, very occasionally, someone will try to shame you for even wanting to go back to work and say that “they’re only this little once,” and insist that the REAL best path is for you to simply quit your job and be a full-time, stay-at-home parent (never mind that 95% of these posts are in New York City, and specifically Manhattan, where the cost of living is extremely, extremely high, and most people with a child will need a dual income household just to pay the bills and ensure some level of savings is still happening. And to further complicate that last point: here in the U.S., employment is not just your source of income; it’s also in more cases than not your source of fully or partially subsidized healthcare, any perks you get, as well as, well, part of your identity. We do live in a country where people “live to work” as a culture.

After a week and a half of having Kaia at daycare/school, having started at about 16.5 months of age, this is generally what I’ve come up with for pros and cons:

Nanny pros:

Childcare comes to you; super convenient

Nanny acts as your backup care for nights/days out for dinner, theater, etc.

More personalized childcare (the nanny contract explicitly states that the nanny follows your instructions for everything from feeding, like baby-led weaning, to what activities the child will do, etc.). Granted, as discussed in previous posts about our ex-nanny, that was not always the case with insolent nannies, but at least “personalized care” is in THEORY what is supposed to happen.

If you work from home, you will still get to see your child come in and out throughout the day and not miss them as much

Nanny will take care of child-related tasks to relieve you from doing them, such as baby laundry, cleaning of playmat, cleaning the child’s bedroom/play areas, changing station, baby bath tub, toys, etc.

Nanny takes care of weekday baby bathing

Since your baby will be around fewer people vs. in daycare, baby is less likely to get sick as often

Nanny cons:

It’s EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, at least in HCOL areas like New York City. Nannies will charge anywhere from $20-35/hour. The majority will expect that you pay for their monthly Metrocard, snacks, and by law, you also have to pay them for federal holidays, five days sick leave, plus at minimum 10 PTO days. They also require guaranteed hours per week since they rely on you solely for their income; this means that even if you choose not to use them for a given day or week, you will still need to pay them for the minimum number of guaranteed hours on their contract. So in other words, even when you don’t “use” their services, you still have to pay them like you are.

If you pay on the books, expect to pay a lot more than you originally imagined for things like household employer insurance, employer-side taxes. You will also have a lot more research and paperwork to do for them to have this set up and be legal. If you pay off the books… well, good luck to you for not getting caught. Plus, it will be massive sums of cash out of an ATM every single week for you — eeek.

Nannies are like the rest of us: they have opinions and preferences for the way things should be done, and oftentimes, this is not going to jive with what you want. Because of this, there can be a LOT of emotional labor done on the family’s part to ensure that the nanny is actually following the way YOU want to raise your child and teach them.. and handling your belongings as you want them to be handled. It can be extremely taxing and emotionally exhausting.

Nannies, for the most part, are not actual “educators”: the majority do not have an early childhood education background, and so baby may not do all the activities that she could do if she were in a daycare that does do them. Nannies may not always do things to help your child develop every step of the way. Because of this, some nannies are better suited for young infants, vs. others that are suited for older toddlers. Not all nannies can truly “grow” with a family.

You are relying on a single person to care for your child. If nanny gets sick and takes a sick day, you have no plan B or substitute to rely on. If she quits with zero notice (that sounds familiar), it’s on you to figure out backup childcare and the move-forward plan. You are also relying on the idea that they will be honest and report back what really happened. Even if you have cameras all over your house, you still can’t see what they are doing when they take your child out of your house, so you have to trust what they say is true.

You’ll always have a stranger in your home. While you may get used to having them around and they may become like family… guess what? They aren’t family. They are your employee. You have to be comfortable with this. That means that they may snoop, eat the snacks you reserved for yourself, etc., and you just have to suck it up.

Daycare pros:

Exposure to lots of other children of a similar age, and adults who are trained in all ways possible (early childhood education, CPR, etc.). Child is likely to be more socialized this way. They can also be “peer pressured” into things they may not have naturally done on their own, like building blocks, walking, etc., earlier, simply because they see other kids doing this.

Your baby will have a guaranteed network of “friends,” and you could build a network of parent friends, as well.

Set curriculum for learning: you never have to worry about your child getting bored because most daycares will have a set curriculum that is age appropriate for learning new skills and experiences. Every day will be guaranteed exposure to a variety of things without you constantly checking in and being prescriptive, like music, reading/books, learning new sounds, gestures, yoga, exercise, arts and crafts, science, etc.

Reliability/predictability: If your teacher gets sick, a substitute teacher will take her place. If that substitute gets sick, another teacher will come in and take their place. There are many backups here, and your child will never not have teachers there!

Accountability: If a teacher does something that disappoints you or your child, you can speak up to them and their managers/administrators, and these challenges will get addressed.

In most cases, daycare will be CHEAPER than having a nanny, if not all cases. It’s still expensive in our area, but it’s still cheaper than having our ex nanny.

Daycare cons:

THE SICKNESSES. Your baby will get sick. It’s inevitable. You just have to suck it up and look at the bright side: baby’s immune system is getting stronger with each illness!

Set times/hours mean less flexibility for your own schedule

You will have to do drop-offs/pick-ups

If doing things unconventionally, like baby led weaning, many daycares will not do this for liability reasons. Daycares are also notorious for not handling breast milk in the way it would be handled at home.

All items that go into daycare need to be labeled with your child’s name – like literally, every. Single. One. Emotional labor, much?

Daycare will not do any of your child-related chores, so you will need to do laundry, all of baby’s cleaning, baths, etc.

I think this adequately sums up how I feel? In retrospect, I think we could have put Kaia in daycare at 13-14 months to help with her growth and development. I was never that keen on her being in daycare and having the daycare teachers mess with my breast milk, nor did I want them shoving purees down her throat.

After just five days at her school, Kaia has already gotten sick. She was already a little feverish overnight from Thursday to Friday. She vomited a little in class on Friday according to her teacher. And Friday night, I could tell that she had phlegm in her throat and was definitely coughing. I had to do multiple nose sucks out of her nose over the weekend, resulting in a LOT of boogers and gunk coming out. It was unpleasant for all of us. And that doesn’t even include the trail of snot and goo she left all over our duvet cover since she refused to sleep on her crib bed. She had a fever above 100 F on and off. So Chris suggested she stay at home with us for an extra day to recover and get extra TLC from us, especially with all her nose wiping and her meals. She, along with almost all babies/toddlers, never eat as well when they are under the weather.

This will be our new reality given she’s going to be exposed to all the germs and all the different boogery, snotty kids at daycare moving forward. It was inevitable that she’d get exposed sooner rather than later, so I’m just bracing myself and hoping hard that she will not be sick every week.

I cannot count the number of stories I have heard from friends, colleagues, and ex-colleagues regarding what a cesspool daycares are for babies and young toddlers. This is part of the reason I was really against Kaia being in daycare when I went back to work at around 20 weeks age. All I thought about was: she’ll be sick every day! Then, we’ll get sick every day and have to take time off! She won’t be accepted at daycare when she’s sick, or she’ll be sent home! Plus, they’ll muck up all my breast milk and not handle it properly! As an exclusive pumping mama, that really freaked me out. At the end of the day, all children need to build up their immune systems sooner or later, and at some point, we have to let them go out into the “wild,” or daycare/school. So they will get sick sooner or later. The question is: when do we want to allow that to finally happen?

Well, Kaia survived five consecutive days of daycare. On Thursday night, Chris said she seemed a bit feverish. Then, she apparently vomited a little in class on Friday, according to the teacher. After she vomited, though, she seemed happy again and ate pretty much all her lunch and snacks. But this morning, she woke up boogery, coughing, and a little feverish. I also woke up this morning with a slightly sore throat. But alas, we have no way of knowing whether little Kaia’s throat is sore.

I guess we’re no exception to having kids getting sick at daycare quite quickly. I just hope this doesn’t happen every single week.

Yesterday, Kaia did not have the greatest lunch. She was teething and upset for a lot of the morning, and when she saw that the other kids on the lunch program had pasta and she did not, she had a bit of a meltdown. Her teacher improvised though, and while she initially served her vegetables first, then her protein and carbs, she mixed all the food up for her to eat. Kaia eventually ate almost everything, which was a good sign. But then I realized another burden on me: what am I supposed to do about her wanting other kids’ food… monitor the daily lunch menu to make sure she doesn’t have a need for jealousy over their food??

Kaia’s class currently has four students and two teachers. There is one main teacher and one assistant teacher. The assistant teacher is there to open, while the main teacher is there to close. The assistant teacher was seemingly out today, so she had a sub in her place who we hadn’t met before. When I took a peek on the camera this morning, I noticed my baby with a pacifier in her mouth looking very upset. She had food put in front of her that I packed for her morning snack, but she wasn’t touching it. The spoon and cut kiwi were sitting in front of her, too, but the teacher wasn’t helping her with her food at all. Instead, this substitute teacher was helping feed the other two kids and leaving Kaia to her own devices. I was NOT happy to see this, and was planning to message the assistant director and the teacher to call this out. This was after Kaia had a rough start when Chris dropped her off. She was visibly upset and crying when he left, but she didn’t seem to get much comforting from this sub.

Apparently, Chris saw this on the camera, too, and also wasn’t happy, and as soon as I came back from the gym, he called this out to me and insisted that I speak to the teacher about this at pickup. He seemed even more annoyed than I was. Overall, it was a little comical, but could easily be corrected with some firmer communication, both written and in person, and with the assistant director involved. There were always going to be growing pains, and now, we’re just starting to encounter some on day 3. I am hoping that I don’t have to provide too much more constructive feedback; I definitely do not want to come across as a helicopter parent, but I also want to ensure my baby is getting the same attention that the other kids are getting and not getting neglected just because they know she’s generally a self sufficient eater.

Yesterday early evening, when I came to pick up Kaia from school, she was super excited to see me and immediately started smiling and waving her arms up and down. The teacher had given her some crackers since she seemed hungry, and when I came in, she immediately tried to stuff a cracker into my mouth. My sweet baby is always sharing.

However, I made the mistake of not grabbing the stroller from the stroller room first before going into the classroom, and so I saw her, then went to grab the stroller, and came back. Well, she didn’t handle this well, as she assumed I was once again leaving her, so she started yelling and crying, and the teacher had to try to futilely comfort her. I’m definitely not doing that again today.

I asked the teacher how the day went, and she said it was really good. She said Kaia didn’t eat much of her beets when they were all laid out on the plate for her. This seemed odd to me since she usually gobbles up all her beets and then some. I remember, though, that they basically just dumped all the food from her lunch box onto her plate. And the teacher confirmed she gobbled up all her noodles and meat first and ignored the vegetables. I wasn’t sure if this was an acceptable thing to ask, but figured I’d give it a shot: I asked if she could serve and plate her vegetables first, then after she’s eaten some, then serve her meat/protein/carbs. The teacher said it was a completely reasonable request and that she’d be happy to accommodate it, as well as help her with utensil use.

It’s going to take some time to adjust, of course, but I think the first day and a half have been going as well as they could be. I’ve been told by other parents that daycare can take as long as one to two months to adjust, and it will inevitably have ebbs and flows, with some days when the child is happy to go, and other days when it feels like a death sentence for them. So I’m just trying to go with the flow and ensure she’s as comfortable as possible with meals and snacks she enjoys.

I got up extra early this morning to prepare Kaia’s breakfast, breakfast/snack for the mid-morning, and shower before taking her to daycare. I made sure she had foods for lunch she would definitely eat at daycare given they are her favorites: roasted carrots, sauteed mushrooms, steamed beets, scallion oil noodles, and warm spiced chicken thighs. I put sliced grapes and some banana cinnamon oatmeal fingers into a Stasher bag for her mid-morning snack at the center. I also packed her a veggie cheddar and apple whole wheat muffin, plus two mandarins for her afternoon snack. Chris and I went to drop her off for her first day and get her belongings organized. She didn’t seem intimidated at all. She immediately started interacting with the other kids and was barely phased when we left. It seemed like she fit in immediately.

I also handled it all pretty well. I didn’t even cry, much to the surprise of myself and some of my colleagues and friends. Even though we didn’t plan this that far out, I guess I have had time to let all this settle in. The Pookster is only getting older and bigger every day, so I can’t keep her under glass forever. I already do have some feedback to share with the teachers, though, as I don’t think Kaia finished all her lunch based on the live video I have access to, and I want them to save whatever she doesn’t eat in her Omiebox so that I know how much she ate. I also think they need to give her more than 25 minutes to eat lunch, as I thought there was supposed to be a full hour allotted for lunch time?

I spent some of yesterday afternoon labeling all of Kaia’s clothes and random items we need to bring to daycare: blanket, crib sheet, water bottle, utensils, bib, poncho, clothes. I compared all the supplies against the list the director of the daycare provided twice. This afternoon, I spent the entire time cooking and cleaning all the pots and dishes. I made channa masala, scallion oil and noodles, roasted carrots and cauliflower, and roasted warm-spiced chicken thighs. I prepped the food I planned to pack for Kaia for snacks and lunch tomorrow. I packed all the supplies into canvas bags and stored it in the under basket of the stroller already. I felt beyond exhausted by the time dinner time came and Kaia had to be bathed. It was no wonder I ended up going to sleep early with a headache.

At some point yesterday afternoon, Chris asked, “Is there anything else we need to prep for daycare tomorrow?”

“No,” I responded, confused. “I already did everything!”

Being a mom, while very rewarding, can also be very exhausting and completely thankless. Some days, it would be nice to take a total break and just not do anything. In fact, one of my friends who also has kids said that during fights with her spouse, she frequently threatens to not do anything for a whole day (not sure how that actually works out, though. I’m pretty certain knowing her that this is a very empty threat). Then, we can see how the dads survive those days.