Should my 13 month old go to to daycare or is it unnatural?

NY runner dad wrote: This morning, she got free from the daycare lady and ran back to me in tears calling "dadda".

Pics of dada?

Kids are very resilient, so I agree with the daycare worker that your child WILL adapt and eventually not even run to you when you show up to get her.

We did that with or first child...started day care at one year old. We stopped it shortly afterwards (about 3 months) because we felt like we never saw her. We moved from super expensive Washington DC back to Ohio so that my wife could be a stay at home mom. Best thing we ever did.

Does your wife make a LOT of money? Do you? Can one of you be a stay-at-home parent for a while? If so, I'd do that...we DID do that.

My daughter is 19 months and has been in daycare since the age of 6 months. Started at 2 days a week, now up to 4. She absolutely loves it, to the point where I struggle to get her to leave some evenings when I pick her up. But ... the big but .... it certainly wasn't always like that. Those first few weeks (and it does take that long, at least) are tough, walking away from your crying (screaming even) child is not easy. They told me it would pass and of course it did.

In the year or so she's been there I've seen plenty of other new kids come along and the pattern is always the same .... they cry, scream, wail etc. after their parents leave, and that lasts for a couple of weeks but I see those same kids now and they're as happy as anything.

From my experience, I'd say just prepare yourself for the fact that it might stay this way for another 2 or 3 weeks but it WILL get better, and she will enjoy it. Kids that age don't hold grudges, they're always delighted to see you when you come along again, 100% of the time. And one thing it's absolutely not, is unnatural. It'll help her develop intellectually and socially. Good luck

I'm a director of a preschool and we see kids cry right up until the moment their parent pull out of the parking lot. A minute later, the teacher has the kid working with school materials.

If you have any doubts, go to the daycare without your child and ask to observe for the drop-off "hour" and see this for yourself.

Who is going to love your kid as much as you and your wife? No one else will even come close day care is a horrific thing. My wife and I won't let anyone but family watch the kids I wouldn't have it any other way. Looking back at the end of your life your kids are going to be what matter most to you. Don't miss the opportunity to raise them. It kills me to have to go to work each day knowing my wife will be there with them. Don't lose a single moment money ain't worth it.

PRO: it is hard for you especially if you have been breastfeeding your daughter, but the separation now, the weaning if you will, will be good for her in the long run

CON: your wife could be wanting to de-establish you as the primary caregiver, this is a preamble to divorce

tread carefully, this could all be the beginning of the end for you

Question for Flagpole: does real man include breastfeeding kids while working from home? seems like it should if you are under 40

Thanks, Flagpole. We live in an expensive area and we need two incomes. I've managed to work from home with the baby last year and made $45K (just finished my taxes), but now that she's walking, I don't see how I can work as much with her around. My wife works full time at the office and makes $70K/year. She likes her job.

I hate to see my daughter cry at the daycare but having a nanny at home would be more expensive. Also, since I'm working at home most of the time, it wouldn't be easy to share the space with a nanny.

I'll give it another week and see how it goes. If it's the same at the end of the week, I'll reconsider.

Creeky, thank you. That gives me hope. Our goal was also to move from 20h/week right now (3 days) up to 4 days a week by the end of the year, if all goes well.

We were thinking it could be good for her. She's very social like my wife, always waving hello and goodbye to people when we go for walks. It was a big surprise for me to see her so upset.

This ^ is a classic example of incredibly lame logic.

You child WILL adapt. True.

On the other hand, people adapt to getting sold into slavery, being raped, going blind, and watching their friends get their legs blown off in war. As a result anyone can immediately see (well, anyone but good ole flaggy) that the fact that someone WILL adapt has ABSOLUTELY ZERO BEARING on the desirability (or even acceptability) of that which they are adapting to.

Random3 and WeeOne, I appreciate your comments. The thing is, even if money wasn't an issue, I thought that my daughter would get bored spending most of her time with me and not learn as much. We don't have other kids and don't know young families around us to have kids play together.

At daycare she can play with other kids and they have music, art and yoga, whatever that means for babies.

We went through this when we had our first child. At first, we attempted to rationalize and convince ourselves it would be fine to leave our daughter with strangers. In the end, so what if they "adapt" to being dumped off at daycare. No one cares about your child, much less loves your child like you do. Decided to scale back our lifestyle and reevaluate our priorities. Children grow up quickly and it is important to be there for them.

To the OP:

No worries. There is nothing natural about day care. There is also nothing natural about being surrounded by only 2 - 5 family members all day, each day. Either way is a trade off. Your daughter will most likely be fine in day care. Being with a bunch of other kids can be very helpful for her learning and growing. So, don't worry about it.

I will tell you what I did in the same situation which can be quite challenging but to me it was worth it.

I remember like it was yesterday the day that my own mom left me at a pre-school for the first time. It terrified me that she just left me with total strangers and walked away. As a result I was determined that my own daughter would not experience this (Yes, they WILL get over it but that doesn't mean it is A-OK).

So, the first day of her day care I stayed with my daughter the entire time. She clung to me for a while before curiosity got the best of her and she went to explore. She came back when she wanted and then explored some more. When she had had enough we left (not a full day of day care). The next day same thing - only now she was less clingy, more engaged with other kids and lasted a bit longer. Repeat.

After a week or two she was totally ready to go on her own. No clinging. No tears. No terror. After that it was regular drop-offs like everyone else.

Now, your day care provider might discourage this sort of thing. Mine did. But I was very clear on what I would be doing, its purpose, and the end game. So they bought in, if reluctantly. If they hadn't, I would have looked for another provider.

Not saying that you want to do this - it is a pretty substantial investment and you almost certainly will meet resistance from your provider. But for me it was the only way that made sense.

That's a good idea that makes perfect sense to me. However the daycare where we go to has a policy of parents leaving right away. They even have a gate that parents are not supposed to cross at drop-off. They told me that if I stayed longer, my daughter would just cry longer.

Let me see. I will ask if I can stay this week. It just makes sense. That could give my daughter time to get used to her new surroundings.

A good daycare can be great, and I would argue in many cases a very valuable supplement to one's own parenting efforts. I am constantly impressed by the variety of activities offered by my kid's daycare (or "school" as we call it, because that is what it is), and I just don't think you can beat the opportunities to socialize with peers (and teach younger kids and learn from older kids). Unless you have a well-designed educational curriculum mapped out, a slate of available playdate partners, and a full schedule of age-appropriate sports and cultural activities, I'd take the daycare any day of the week. Yes, you need to do your homework to find a quality daycare (obviously not all daycares are created equal, and family daycares in particular can be really hit-or-miss), but if you do I think it can be a great move. As to your original question, an adjustment period is totally normal, particularly if your kid is starting a bit later (many start earlier than 13 mo., at least where my kid goes). FWIW, financial resources are not an issue for us, and we are making the same decision for our second kid (already booked a spot). Good luck!

PS I'm not judging anyone for making the opposite choice here -- I'm glad it works for you -- but I'd lay off the moralistic BS. Staying at home is simply not the right choice for everyone.

Our preschool won't let you stay. Our school is small and one crying child disrupts the entire school. Most children will not calm down while their parent is there.

I advise you to go without your child and observe how the staff calms other children in the same situation. If they can't get a child calm and engaged, after their parent leaves, you need to find another daycare/preschool.

Do the math. You make $45K before taxes which equates to what? Under $3K/month after taxes? If you are in an expensive area, you're probably paying $1000-$1500 for daycare. Is the small amount you are able to bring home after taxes and after paying for daycare worth missing out on not raising your child?

Missing out on a career is not an issue. It's not like if you took time off to raise your kid(s) until at least grade school that you couldn't pick up another $45k job after that break.

Being the primary care giver make interfere with your training schedule though.

She may well continue to cry at departure for a long time, and I don't know what the daycare is like but the bottom line in my view is that an educated family will be the best place for young children and will give them an enormous edge from the constant interaction and intellectual stimulation (if you don't rely on videos and tv and ipads and the like) when they get to pre-school (at 4) or kindergarten. For my daughter, who is six, her three years of being with us really accelerated her abilities. At 3 she started 3 day a week care with a very good teacher, who did a great job with too many kids, earlier than I wanted but it was better than pre-k, kindergarten and 1st grade. Her development definitely slowed down from school and she lost her early fitness from the sedentary schools, but there is no way in my mind that she would have already read dozens and dozens of full-length chapter books and scored so well without those years of full-time attention from us. I'm fighting to get my son at least three years at home as well, but he'll at least be at 2 years home before he starts anything. The other thing is that the kids that young get each other (and the family) sick almost every week.

On the social side, my daughter is very social and so I would always take her to playgrounds and to the children's library and children's art at the museum and so forth, as well as play dates, so that she always got to socialize with a lot of kids every day and stayed much more active than if we stayed at home all day and that would get me wasting time on letsrun instead of reading to her, having her draw, and talking, which really is the essence of the educational development for young children.

Children will develop better if you raise them and teach them from home. Read them books, spend time with them. Daycare comparatively stunts their educational growth.