Comparing Day Care Center's to In-Home Center

When my daughter was 1 i put here in a home day care. She loved it,and when she turned 4 i put here in preschool. I think they get more attention from the care giver versus having tons of kids around in daycares

Here's a point of view from the other side, I worked in a "day care"/child development center for years before staying home with my son. My first job was in a franchized center, my second at a college lab school where we taught adult students to teach preschool hands on. I worked with infants and toddlers at both places and I can say that the first was a terrible terrible place to work due to underpaid, undereducated, and overworked teachers where they almost daily went over state regulated ratios to save having to pay an extra teacher for one or two extra kids. The second job was a wonderful place to work where we were paid well, had plenty of vacation and sick time, teachers had bachelors and masters degrees, and we were often under ratio (1 teacher to 3 or 4 toddlers instead of 4-6). The kids in both places were unhappy, had behavior problems, and parents were constantly complaining (now as a mom I understand why). I don't think large scale "centers" can provide what young children NEED - a comfortable, homey feeling where emotions are more important than making sure the floor is clean enough to present to parents taking the "tour." My suggestion would be to see if there is any way possible to stay home (even buying a smaller cheaper house, selling the SUV for a used car), but if you're already strapped and being home is not an option, then go for home care, especially one that a friend can recommend... look for real loving care - someone who's heart is truly invested in the kids, it may be a hard search, but well worth it.

I run a home daycare and I believe a home environment with a nurturing "mother" type provider is better for the younger, under 2, aged kids. If you interview home daycares, all of the woman are either mothers or were mothers with kids grown up and moved on. Although the daycare facilities may have mothers working there, most of them are younger "teens" handling the kids and ran by either an director or supervisor. Also you will see in most cases more bad behavior learned in a daycare facilities. I don't know how many times I have heard of babies having bite marks or scratches from other kids. Now I am not saying home daycares will not have this and trust me, I have dealt with everything, but usually in a home daycare it is corrected or dealt with. Usually in a daycare it seems to a fighting battle. Good Luck

M.

I have one son, 4 years old and he was in an in-home daycare for the 3 years. He loved it and was part of the family. He started pre-school this past September and it was a bit of a culture shock due to the bigger enviornment, but has done really well. Personally, when I was looking for daycare when he was an infant I visited a lot of day care centers and just felt like it was too "institutional" for our taste...I hope that doesn't sound to harsh, we just felt better in a smaller enviornment. Also both in-house day care places were referrals from other people. (one was new borns up to a year and the second was toddlers)

If you're concerned about your child's wellbeing and health, Never put your child in a large day care/facility! Here's why...
Due to the fact that we both have to work, our son (who's now 18 months) has been in daycare since he was 3 months old. We chose to find a small In-Home daycare close to our home rather than a "facility". There were only 7 other children, all under 3 and 3 adults to take care of them, about 2/1 ratio. The woman who ran the daycare (in her early 40s with kids of her own) along with her mother and sister. They were extremely nurturing and there were plenty of toys, interactive learning games, reading time, along with a musician that came in one day a week to show the kids a new instrument. It was a wonderful environment since he could not be home with us, and our son hardly ever cried when we dropped him off in the morning, which is always a good sign that he feels comfortable with the people he's with.
We moved to another city when he was one year old, we had referrals to another great small 6 children In-Home daycare but she didn't have an opening for another 4 months so we had to put our son in a daycare facility in the meantime. We checked all 5 facilities thoroughly and picked the one we thought was the best. IT WAS AWFUL! Our son cried and screamed every single day we dropped him off, even after months of being there. To go from a child who's use to being in daycare and loved it, to now screaming and chasing you to the door every morning, it was heartbreaking. These large daycare facilities are run like corporations, it's about the bottom line, money, not the nurturing care of a child. It's 1 adult per 4 children, so in a room full of soon to be walking, very mobile one year olds, there are only 2-3 adults depending. Not to mention they are usually very young, in their 20s, not required to be certified in CPR, and have never had children of their own. The facilities train them to feed the kids (which by the way is terrible cafeteria style food), try and put them down for naps if they can if not no one cares, and change diapers, that's it. There's no concern for the child's development or health. Our son was sick almost every other week. Safety is at it's bare minimum. I walked in one afternoon to pick up our son and one of the "teachers" was trying to get something out of his mouth, but at one year old they don't just say "ahhhh", you have to swipe it out of their mouth. Our son didn't say "ahhh" so the teacher just walked away from him. I quickly picked him up and used my finger to swipe a pebble out of his mouth that he could easily of choked on. The facility manager did nothing about this.
He's back in a wonderful In-Home daycare (the one we were waiting for) and after his first day there he quickly adapted and never once cried when we drop him off, in fact he leans out of my arms to our daycare woman every morning with a smile on his face. She makes her own gourmet food every day for the children so I know he's well nourished and in the 4+ months he's been there he's only had one cold. He feels loved & safe when he's there, you can tell by just how much he loves going each morning.
Every mother I've ever spoke to about the larger facility daycares has had a similar experience and either found a small home daycare or hired a personal nanny (if you can afford it). Sorry this is so lengthy, but I speak from experience and I hope this helps you.