Daycare - To Spare Their Feelings or Not (the teachers that is)

So the dilemma of switching our son to a new daycare has passed. It was difficult at first because we didn't want to hurt the feelings of the ones that have kept him since he was three months old. In the grand scheme of things, we shouldn't have even considered those folks at all and only thought of our son. We just didn't want to have them think it was them as to the reason why we left. I guess somewhat it was. We felt they couldn't provide for our son.

Momma T didn't want to leave and I did... one of the many disagreements that we would face and tackle I am sure. We of course spoke of the pros and cons of both places. The biggest one was his growth as a person. While they were super nice at the old place and really loved him, we just felt like they were not going to be able to challenge him like he was already seeking. The new morning teacher at the old place couldn't even speak proper English and they watched videos during the day. Don't get me wrong... we watch tv too, but we watch educational tv for our lil guy. They had videos like Scooby Doo and other cartoons like that which we don't watch.

Momma T didn't want him to leave because she was worried about money and thought it was okay for him to stay at the old place until he was two or so. The biggest deciding factor for me was that he was already transitioning out of the baby room to a new one so why not just go ahead and make the big move. Besides he did not care for the new morning teacher that much anyway. It was kind of strange that he did not take to her. I think she tried too hard with him. Another thing that really worried us was that they would let other teachers come in and take him out of the room and parade him around the daycare to other classrooms and such. We thought we put a stop to it when we found out it occurred, but it still continued to happen.

It is pretty sad when we would come home and read his daily papers and they would say things like "He ain't ate yet" or when we would circle things on the menu for him to eat and they wouldn't feed him because if they fed him spaghetti in the baby room, they would have to feed the other kids around his same age in the baby room too. I would go in the next day and ask how he liked the spaghetti and they would say oh we didn't feed it to him because they wouldn't bring it to the room. We just started getting too many differing stories from each of the teachers there and couldn't put our finger on some things.

Momma T witnessed an older child jump on one of our lil guys' classmates because she had fallen on the floor and he started banging her head on the floor. I refused to let him transition to that room and was adamant about moving him to this other school. I kept him out a week so I could have him try out his new school. He gave me very little trouble about going there that week. He walked in and began playing with the toys and getting acquainted with the new teacher. She is super nice. The only concern I have is that the teachers he used to have were much older and grandmothers and these new teachers at the new school seem to be just out of the womb in comparison. Ha ha ha... they are very enthusiastic though and do lots of great things with the kids.

When we took him back to his old school after that week our lil guy had a problem going back. It was time to tell the old daycare of our plans and to tell them that he was not to go to the other room for as long as he is there. They did something really great for us... they let us go that day pretty much even though they normally had a two week rule. I have to say that his teacher that he would have gone to took it really personal and started to have a tremendous attitude with us.

All I can say throughout this whole process is to follow your gut at all times and if something doesn't feel right to you then it probably isn't. Never second guess yourself ever... you need to think about the welfare of your child and don't ever feel like you are being rude or a jerk. There are definitely ways to handle all situations to where you can turn an odd situation into a win-win. The old place has told us we are more than welcome to bring him back anytime if we need to for the day or whatever.

Now as far as the price goes... here comes the hard to swallow part. The old place was $135 a week... the new place is $210 a week. OUCH!!!! But hey he is our son, he is worth it and deserves the best life has to offer him. You get what you pay for!!!!

He does art and learns sign language and sleeps on a cot. He eats like a champ and loves his teachers and outside playtime. He loves it so much that he craves to go outside all the time now. He is doing so well and everyone just loves him. He certainly does make an impression wherever he goes.

I think this decision that we came to mutually and as a team has worked out and I cannot wait until we get to hang his art work at our offices and at home. I will post some of it on here!