News flash: Miss H is not the sweet, silly little baby anymore:


Instead, she is this incredibly adorable, super fun big girl:

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And being a big girl is starting to come with some big changes. Including a big change to Miss H’s day-to-day life. Soon she will be saying goodbye to her beloved (so incredibly awesome!) nanny and nanny share buddy and heading off to daycare. Sniffle.

I’ve shared in the past the positives and negatives of our nanny share. And the positives have far outweighed the negatives, as we have gotten to know another family in our neighborhood, Miss H has another little girl that she has grown up with like a sister, and Miss H has been blessed with the world’s most wonderful, loving, and caring nanny. The only negatives have been the first nanny we hired, who was not a good fit for taking on the demands of a nanny share. But once we found our current nanny, it was a 120% confirmation that this was the right thing for us.

Now fast forward to last fall. With Miss H and her nanny share buddy M getting bigger, we knew that eventually we would be looking into the next step for Miss H. That timeline was moved up a bit because we knew that M’s family were planning to move out of the city at some point. Because they didn’t have a definite timeline, we started looking into daycare programs late last fall to see what was available in our area, what the waitlists were like, etc. We didn’t have a definite start date in mind, but we wanted to do our research.

What we found out was that (surprise, surprise) good programs were expensive and competitive to get into. Most places were telling us at least a 1-2 year wait. As we gathered information, we started to get worried. The estimated timeframes we were given were just estimates and could be shorter or longer than expected. We didn’t want to necessarily leave the other family or our nanny in a lurch, and we didn’t want to be left in a lurch either!

Once I had a handful of places I was looking at, I made a spreadsheet tracking basic information: costs, application process, waitlist timeframe, point of contact, etc. Our primary priorities were:

  • Cost / if they allowed partial weeks
  • Location / if it was accessible by walking or train from our home
  • The priorities of the center (educational philosophy, food served, etc)
  • How the center responded to my inquiries (how quickly they responded, how helpful they were over email or phone, etc)

I had to look at the bottom line and rule out places that I felt were too pricey for us. Once we realized that the places we were looking at were also going to be a long wait to get in, we started to get worried. And then, in doing some more research online, I came across the most adorable daycare/pre-school in our neighborhood. It was brand new (not yet opened!), boasted a fun and arts-based curriculum, organic breakfasts and lunches, yoga lessons, foreign language classes, and was very walkable from our home.

We contacted them right away without yet knowing the cost, already falling in love with the idea of the place. We were so excited that while we were waiting for the response to the initial email I had sent, Mr. H called to set up a tour. After that meeting was set up, I received the email response to my inquiry, along with pricing. My stomach dropped when I saw that this center would be $40 more per week over the most expensive place on our list. Gulp!

Saddened, I told Mr. H to go ahead with the tour set for the next morning, because sometimes seeing something great (even if you can’t have it!) can be a great benchmark for comparing other places – you have to see the best to identify the worst.

Mr. H came back from his tour (I couldn’t go due to work) incredibly energized and excited about the center. And the fact that because it was new, there would be no waitlist – if we wanted to move forward with it we could put down a deposit and secure a spot. Because it was completely outside of our current budget for childcare putting Miss H into the program 5 days a week is not possible. But we found out that they do allow partial weeks, and 3 days per week is about what we are currently paying our nanny.

Because we felt so good about what this program has to offer and that it feels like a good fit for our family, we decided to move forward with 3 days per week and have Mr. H continue his daddy/daughter days 2 days a week. We can eventually bump Miss H up to full time in the future, but for right now this is a nice transition for her and for our wallets.

Of course, there is still the situation with our beloved nanny and nanny share family. The center has allowed us some flexibility on our start date, so Miss H will start in April right after she turns 2. We were then able to give the other family and our nanny almost 4 months notice. It saddens us greatly to break up the “dream team” because they all love one another so much – Miss H doesn’t even glance at us when her nanny is in the room! If money weren’t an issue we would consider trying to keep our nanny on ourselves when the time came, but we simply can’t afford to do so. And we know that by the time next year at the latest we would want to put Miss H into some sort of program anyway, so it wouldn’t make sense to try and find another family to join our nanny share.

So, we’re going to enjoy the next few months of our incredibly awesome childcare and hope that the upcoming transition goes well and also proves to be incredibly awesome. We know it won’t be easy, but we certainly hope it is worth it. We also know that by opting for a new center we will be experiencing some growing pains with the program, but we feel confident that we are making the right decision. We also know that for our family, a guaranteed spot in a (new) center that we like makes more sense than waiting 1-2 years for a spot in an established center.

As Miss H makes that transition from a nanny to daycare, I’ll be ready to share the good and the bad along the way.

Has your LO ever experience a similar change in childcare? Was it tough to handle?