Hellobee

I always knew that I was going to work after having kids because I couldn’t hack it as a SAHM. To be honest parenting was so much harder for me when the kids were younger and I felt like I was just surviving. I’d be so drained after the weekend and looked forward to having childcare again on Mondays! But now that the kids are 3 1/2 and 5 1/2, I find myself wanting to work less and spend more time with them, especially when I think about the fleeting nature of early childhood. This is what I consider the “golden era” when the kids are more independent and don’t need you all the time, but they still want to hang out with you before they become tweens/teens and their friends become the center of their worlds. They are such fun little people right now.

Even though Charlie is in public school, we still have a lot of childcare decisions to make. Childcare also changes for many families from year to year, as kids develop their own interests. For example one of Charlie’s closest friends will be starting a gymnastics program 3 days a week in the fall, and she’ll continue going to the after school program she and Charlie currently attend the other 2 days. Many parents of public school aged kids around here do a combination of after school program, babysitter, and classes/lessons. Several friends even leave work early one day a week and pick up their kids right after school.

It’s difficult to know what type of childcare will work best for you because it’s a personal choice, your needs change, and there are so many other variables like hours and cost. The kids have had a nanny, attended daycare, preschool, public school, summer camps, language schools, and after school programs. Looking back there are some changes I would have made, but overall we feel very lucky to have had flexibility in our schedules as well as so many different options from which to choose.

Here is what childcare has looked like for Charlie and Olive and what I would have done differently:

Charlie:
4 months – 21 months: Nanny
21 months – 3 1/2 years: Daycare
3 3/4 years – 5 1/2 (Current): Public School + 5 days after school program
4 1/2 years: Summer Camp
5 years: Korean school on Saturdays

Charlie at 12 months old

Olive:
2 months – 16 months: Nanny
16 months – 2 3/4: Daycare
3 – 3 1/2 years (Current): Preschool
3 1/2: Korean school on Saturdays
3 1/2 years: Summer Camp next month

Olive at 12 months

N A N N Y  &  D A Y C A R E

I outlined the pros and cons of a nanny and daycare here, the financial cost of a nanny vs. daycare in our neighborhood here, and why we decided to send Charlie to full-time daycare even though that wasn’t our original plan. I think a nanny was the right choice for us the first year of life because of the personalized attention. The biggest cons were the cost, and dealing with all the taxes and paperwork — it was such a big pain!

The biggest change I would have made to our childcare would be to send the kids to daycare sooner. I ended up loving daycare so much more than I expected. Both kids absolutely thrived there. Charlie started at 21 months and Olive started at 16 months, but I think the one year mark would have been a great time to start. The transition was a little rocky for Charlie, and I think it probably would have been easier if he started when he was a little younger. Olive also began Early Intervention shortly after she started daycare, and one of the biggest recommendations therapists have for kids with delays is to attend daycare. Olive hit so many milestones after starting and it had a huge impact on her both socially and physically. Overall I think daycare really helped Charlie and Olive to be very social, confident, flexible, and comfortable around adults. I am a huge daycare fan.

starting daycare at 21 months

P R E S C H O O L

We never sent Charlie to preschool because it made more sense to keep him in the same daycare once Olive started since it was one mixed age class. It was so wonderful to drop them off and pick them up in the same place, and it made their bond even stronger. Charlie was also pretty precocious, so even though he was the youngest kid in his pre-k class the following year, he was fine academically.

With Olive however, we decided to send her to a different 3’s preschool program. Our small, loving daycare was perfect for younger kids, but we wanted something that would engage her senses better. By this time she had graduated out of Early Intervention, and we had figured out that she was a sensory seeker. Her new preschool had much better facilities and resources. A couple months after she started preschool (just before she turned 3), she had a big language explosion. We visited my parents in December and when my mom visited in April, she was amazed at the difference!

The downsides of preschool are that they are pricey, many of them have shorter hours than daycare, they follow the public school year calendar, and take summers off. But I have no regrets in enrolling Olive in preschool. I think the variety of activities and larger classes has better prepared her for public pre-k this September.

A F T E R  S C H O O L

Enrolling Charlie in the on-site after school program during his pre-k year was a no brainer because it was so convenient and affordable. We did the same thing when he entered kindergarten at a new school. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do about after school care come this fall when both kids will be in public school at two different schools. I now realize that doing after school 5 days a week is too much. It probably contributed to Charlie’s behavioral problems because he was tired from having such a long day and not enough free play.

For the past couple of months I’ve been trying to pick Charlie up early almost every day because his after school program, while great, is also very scheduled. He has been getting tons more free play. The time period in which they can get this type of free play is limited, especially as school becomes more demanding, so I want to maximize it as much as I can.

Now we have to decide what to do about after school care come the fall. I really want to work a lot less and spend more time with the kids, but I don’t think that’s in the cards for our near future. I’m thinking of a combination of after school/babysitter who takes them to the playground/early pickup by me. But I’m not sure what that combination is yet. After school programs are by far the most convenient and affordable, so it might make the most sense to enroll 5 days a week and pick up early when I can, or do a babysitter share.

Charlie’s Kindergarten class picture

S U M M E R  C A M P

The kids are off for at least 2 months every summer, which means that they will be attending a summer camp of some sort every year. Last year Charlie attended a summer camp from 9am-4pm Monday-Friday, and he had the time of his life. One day a week they went swimming at a public pool, another day they played sports in the park, and the remaining 3 days they went on field trips to the beach, museums, amusement parks, etc. This year both Charlie and Olive will be attending that summer camp. It is nothing but playing all day, every day.

While these 8-week long camps are convenient (you can do less weeks), many parents opt to do a combination of shorter camps that target their kids’ specific interests. Olive’s friend is going to zoo camp for instance because he loves animals. There is a camp for pretty much any interest in our area, and next summer I think we might experiment with sending Charlie to a couple like an art camp. For now it is just too convenient to have both kids in one place, and we know they will have a blast.

K O R E A N  S C H O O L

At the beginning of this year, we enrolled Charlie and Olive in Korean school for 4 hours every Saturday morning.  I’ve done an abysmal job of teaching the kids any Korean, and language acquisition really is easiest for young kids so I didn’t want to put it off any longer. Attending Korean school once a week is a slow-learning process when we don’t speak it at home. But in addition to the language, they also learn taekwondo, Korean culture, music, and dance, and now they really identify with being Korean.

Honestly I think 4 hours is a little long for 3-year olds, but because Olive is younger her pronunciation is actually better than Charlie’s. They love going to Korean school and even though it is sad to lose our Saturdays, it’s worth it.

.  .  .  .  .

So that’s what our childcare has looked like for the past 6 years. If I could do it again, and in an ideal world, it would look like this:

Nanny – 3 months – 1 year
Daycare – 1-3
Preschool – 3-4
Pre-k and beyond – 4 + after school 2 days/week + sitter 2 days/week

Would you change anything about your childcare choices?