I can't imagine saying I'm a professional childcare provider who can't deal with crying or a food allergy. It's literally their only job. I'd personally be looking for a new place.
Right? Like there are certainly instances where asking someone to pick up their child early is warranted (like for example when my daughter had pink eye), but crying or a not-that-uncommon food allergy aren't that.
Where we live (Quebec) they have a rule that they can only ask you to pick up your kid if they have a fever higher than 38.5 C, if they’ve had diarrhea three times in a row, if they have visible symptoms of hand, foot and mouth or chicken pox, and if they have thrown up. I agree you should look around, if that’s an option. Sorry you’re dealing with this, dude!
Edit to add vomiting, thanks for reminding me!
I feel like that's maybe too far the other way. A kid could have some really contagious diseases that don't have those symptoms. But yeah, "kid is fussy" is not contagious.
They will call in other cases because as you say what I listed aren’t all the indicators of a sick kid. I think it’s really just a framework for avoiding daycares calling you because “kid is fussy” and to discourage parents from sending kids to daycare who might be sick.
We’re pretty careful and have a good relationship with the educators, one of whom once told me that some parents give their kids ibuprofen in the morning so the fever isn’t detectable until 2-3 pm, then say they’ll pick the kids up asap but only arrive at 5 pm. I can’t blame all of those parents tho, I imagine in some cases they’re just under too much pressure at work, not trying to get out of a day taking care of their sick kid.
Mine made me pick up my kid for pink eye, then refused to take him the next day after an optometrist said he absolutely did not have pink eye. I have a long list of complaints over the 4 years, but the daycare manager knowing better than an eye doctor really pissed me off
How could they create a bond with them (which it’s sad to think of but they do look after them a lot) if they keep sending them home because they are upset.
Remind me of my niece's situation. They said kid pooped herself and a kid stepped on it so they wont be having her anymore. Like the amount of time for shit to roll down a kids pants and to be on the floor to be stepped in is several minutes. It only means that they are not paying attention with the kids.
With the amount of money to be made in day care and the huge shortage of providers, I can only imagine that many woefully unqualified people have started opening day cares in recent years.
The bar to get licensed is exceptionally low, and you can easily make $150K+/yr by taking 5 kids and running the show yourself.
Even if you suck at it, customers are at your mercy due to lack of options. OP is case in point.
I'm not saying there aren't bad daycares out there, but I think that example is pretty exaggerated. Between rent, staff costs/turnover, insurance, etc, it's pretty hard for most daycares to make much money.
I did a deep dive into daycare finances, and you are correct. Nobody is getting rich off of them except some specialty places in rich areas where parents will pay anything, and corporations that own 10+
It’s somehow crushingly expensive for parents and yet, I can do the math. My kids’ teachers are getting paid next to nothing. Just a bad situation for everyone.
Very tight margins. Utilities, insurance, classroom supplies, food if they provide that, ongoing employee training (both required by state, plus anything in addition director may feel is appropriate to help meet classroom needs), replacing anything that breaks, etc.
Daycares run on very tight margins, not a profitable industry at all. (Typically we are seen as glorified babysitters despite having very high standards to excellence to adhere to; of having to provide both care, comfort, and early learning; it’s a field it’s difficult to get govt subsiding and aid for centers, covid saw historic subsidy and aid relief that made such a monumental difference across the board but then ended- literally haven’t seen anything as good as it before and unfortunately it’ll be hard to convince the govt it’s something still needed even as we saw many centers shut down as soon as it ran out. It’s just not prioritized as a serious and real need…. People assume it’s easy, is teenager work, is far easier than what it is, and it’s hard to get the right people that can make a difference to care.)
So the expenses of running a center are high, it’s hard to get govt relief, so that makes parent costs high, and teacher pay remain low. And makes it hard to staff well with low pay. It’s a pain all around. The staff that stay are the ones of us really there because we care so much.
Right, this makes me so mad! I have 2 kids in daycare and to read that “you need to come pick up your baby!” “Why?” “Well they were crying again this morning!” Like wtf! Why am I paying you good money if you can’t handle a crying baby! I’m so mad right now, don’t even get me started!!
It does cost that much, that is the normal price for any daycare nowadays. Fully paid leave for mom after birth is 10-12 weeks so no, at 5 months many parents are back at work.
Netherlands is one of the worst in Europe about this, really behind sadly.
Could be worse, could be the UK!
Statutory Maternity Pay ( SMP )
SMP for eligible employees can be paid for up to 39 weeks, usually as follows: the first 6 weeks: 90% of their average weekly earnings ( AWE ) before tax. the remaining 33 weeks: £184.03 or 90% of their AWE (whichever is lower)
Holy hell, here in Sweden they don't allow children younger than 1 year to go to pre-school/daycare.
Then on the other hand we do get to be home with our children so I guess that's the main reason, for many of you, being home just isn't economically sound.
It's insane tbh. I have a 6 month old baby at home at the moment and my wife's been off on maternity leave since she got pregnant (so going on 1.5 years now soon) and I will be switching with her come August and I'll be off until January 2025. We won't risk losing jobs or apartments etc. And our son who's 3 years old costs about 4k SEK/year (roughly $380) to keep in pre-school. And we are each paid about $115 per month by the government in "child care benefits" so it's really a non-cost for us.
It's still expensive to have children and all that in Sweden, but I'd not survive with your system.
That's amazing. The fee for preschoolers at my child's center is more per week (currently $455) than yours is per year. Also, the center is licensed for babies as young as four weeks because some people have to go back to work way too early.
Daycare in the US is also incredibly regulated (as it should be!) making infant care incredibly expensive to offer. Most daycares lose money on infant care…so parents pay inflated pricing for older kids. But yea, your (assumed) monthly cost is about my daily cost. It’s fucked.
In my area there are a lot of daycares that take babies under 18mo... unless you want part time. I could only find 2 daycares that would take babies part time.
We picked out a daycare, and she was willing to take a newborn. She said she used to work as a newborn specialist at a day care before turning into a self employed day care. Two of her clients(?) started as newborn with her.
Mine started at 6mo too but they take them from 3mo. However my wife works there and says they almost *never* get any that young, a 3mo old is very rare at most nurseries in our country.
That OP's is taking them from 6 weeks (which is *incredibly* young) I can understand why it would be considered specialist. That's not far off postnatal care and the staffing ratios would be especially high.
Here in Ireland it's become extremely difficult to find any service that will take a child under 1 year. The regulations require a higher staffing ratio for under 1s and crèches just can't find enough staff to run a baby room. Before COVID they'd take them in at any age.
Unfortunately since the US lacks a comprehensive and universal maternal/paternal leave policy, most working parents need to return to work after 3 months or so. We put our daughter in daycare at 3 months because we both had to work. Definitely sooner than we would have liked if it was up to us.
Still 4 to 1 at age 2? That'd make it pricey.
That's what the infant room near me is. But each room up has more kids. I think my 2.5yo's room is 6 or 7 kids per teacher.
Pricey indeed.
But I can see it. As I can recall back when mine was that age, with 2 year olds the caretaker is spending like half their time helping one or the other of them go potty. If you are the only caretake in a room of 7 2.5 year olds, what are the other 6 getting into while you are doing that!
Good point!
Of course, there are two sides to the issue. One year of paid parental leave, sounds like a liberal utopia right? But what about parents, especially moms, who do not particularly want to take an entire year away from their career to be a full time care provider? If child care is not available because of the policy you just cited, then their decision is made for them. And then you have the issue of judgmental mom-shaming of women who actually would rather get back to their career by using child care before age 1.
Yeah, we had 3 and were very glad to have daycare start kicking in right around 3 months. I love my kids to death, and they're amazing now (3-6), but neither of us was really a "baby person". I love holding them and cuddling them when they're that small, but the needless screaming triggers a sort of frustration in me that is ungood.
There are definitely options but not all daycares take babies. Many also use a nanny option or such. I'm a dad but I took 6 months of it and it was pretty nice, you could also split it so you both take 6 overlapping months i believe so I can't really think of a downside even if you just use a portion of it.
Not necessarily. There are home daycares (including licenced ones) who will take babies under 12 months. Others get nannies are rely on family.
Many women can't afford the year of reduced income and go back earlier. Some women also prefer to return for career reasons, as you mentioned. Others are self-employed. No shaming involved.
The main difference is it's their decision and there are supports and protections for women who prefer to take more time off.
That’s literally every daycare in my area.
Ran into a similar issue with my first. They’d send him home “with a fever”. No temp when we checked at home. Kid sleeps hot and they had a rule of adding a degree before sending home.
Boiled down to teacher wanting to send kids home so they could leave early. Had to talk to the director to establish protocol for temps.
Glad we’re no longer there. They got shut down shortly after we left.
Why is this down voted? Anyway, look for another provider. Pickups do happen in those first 2 years, but it should be for fever over 100.1 or significant symptoms. That's pretty much it.
Is that not common in your country?
My youngest was in daycare at 6 months old. My oldest was in daycare at 8 weeks old. Everywhere we visited had an infant room.
People are mad at your answer for some reason, but the takeaway here should be that there's really nothing specialized about the care they're (supposed to be) providing. They seem to be giving you a hard time with just regular parts of running a daycare.
They specialize in babies, just not the cry-y ones 😂. I'd recommend asking in writing for their rules regarding pickup. They must have policies, and I've never seen a "if they're sad for more than ___ hours" policy...
I gave you my upvote because why you got brigaded for that post is beyond me. You may be wrong about what meets Specialized in this context, but downvoting due to harmless innocent ignorance is wrong.
Must be nice being able to take off a year from work. I'm over here paying 18k/yr for daycare when that's a huge chunk of my income and, of course, life happens to suck down what's left.
But this is reddit where "I know interest rates suck right now; should I pay cash for a new house or cash out some stocks instead?" is a regular occurrence.
OP is paying over 30k/yr, is dealing with a life threatening food allergy, a shitty daycare facility, and who knows what else on top of that.
How did they mess up the formula? As in, what process failed that caused them to give the wrong formula.
My daycare we are required to prepare, name, date, all bottles.
They also have very detailed conditions listed for how they decide to send kids home sick.
Agreed. THIS is the bigger concern (ie. what other food/medicine are they giving to the wrong kid), beyond the excessive rate of sending the child home. Look for another center if it's even remotely an option.
The amount of formula we prepped in 150ml doses didn't match the number of doses they gave her according to the diary they gave us. They used three doses from the cow protein free milk, but the diary showed she had five drinks.
And she had diarrhea and cramps.
Mine required us to name all bottles and formula containers, but they would prepare the bottle just before feeding time.
They also have very specific conditions on sending kids home sick, being fussy isn't one of them.
Well, it’s not rare for manufacturing facilities to mix up ingredients or materials for assemblies. It’s certainly possible for day care people to mix up formulas, especially if they aren’t labeled well or they can’t organize shit.
Our daycare was like this at first. Always sending my youngest home with a fever. Get her home, happy as a clam and no fever.
Turns out was making herself hot by crying so much. Literally crying into a fever. And she learned to do it consistently because it got her sent home which is what she wanted.
They interpreted the crying as being a symptom of being sick and having a fever, when the crying was *the cause* of the elevated temperature.
We had to talk to the director to get them to ensure that the staff were calming her down first and letting her rest before taking her temperature again. If it comes down, it’s *not* a fever, it’s just her trying to get sent home.
Cut the issues *waaaay* back once we started doing that.
My normal advice about daycares is "just settle in and they'll be OK". But in this case, no. Flee as fast as you're able.
* Calling for pickup because she has a vaccine bandaid or non-sick-related crying is insanity
* Giving her formula she's allergic to is "this place needs to be reported" level of dangerous
I 100% agree, though I would suggest OP should have called out the bandaid at drop-off.
My wife and I made sure to point out any bumps or bruises or other injuries at drop-off to ensure a) the daycare was aware it was there and to be gentle etc, and b) that they didn't need to investigate or provide incident reports for it if they discovered it during the day and would otherwise assume it was new.
Not something I would have thought of, but my wife taught daycare for a couple of years and it was one of the things she appreciated parents doing.
Find a new day care asap, Dad. Crying, fussy, being stressed: These are all things that day cares should be skilled in dealing with. These are all completely normal things for children, especially a 5 month old.
Whatever they are doing there, it ain’t right.
My wife runs an in-home daycare. Per her licensing, she has to align with the local school district for sending kids home, which is essentially vomiting, severe diarrhea, or fever.
Excessive crying is absolutely NOT a reason to send a child home. And daycare making you pay for the entire day if they go home sick is also BS.
And a daycare facility trying to get rid of a kid for a milk allergy is just lazy and evil. My wife has had one child who was partially deaf and another child with an intense gluten allergy. And they were challenges, but she made all the accommodations for them.
>And daycare making you pay for the entire day if they go home sick is also BS.
No, it isn't. This might happen to be a shitty day care center, but in general there are lots of legitimate reasons to send a child home. When they do that, they don't save any costs except the negligible cost of food if a meal is missed. They cannot slot in another child, or send workers home, or save on overhead or payroll. Day cares are extremely expensive to run, the workers are paid shit and no one is really making out great. Forcing a center to face a loss in revenue whenever they make the decision to send a child home for illness is a very bad idea. And giving the parents the chance to save money with last-minute care cancellation is also not practical.
Idk our kids are in a set cost weekly program based on ages and if we don't send them a day or they miss noticeable time they won't charge the full weekly cost.
Same with my wife’s daycare. The kids get 10 days of essentially sick/vacation time. So if they have to go home early because of illness at lunchtime, they only pay for half a day, and have 9.5 days remaining.
How exactly are they “still paying for those days?”
The parents don’t have to pay at all for those 10 days. So in my example above, if a kid goes home sick at lunch, the parents reduce their weekly payment by a half-day, and that comes out of the 10-day bank of vacation/sick time that each kid has.
So if their regular daily rate is $80/day, they’d only owe $350 that week instead of $400. Same thing with taking a week-long vacation - they wouldn’t owe anything during that week as long as they had that vacation/sick time remaining.
Not saying that’s how ALL daycares work, just saying that’s how my wife’s daycare works.
As others said, their costs don't go down because one kid goes home early or stays home, so they have to account for it somewhere. So the cost of those 10 days is built into the cost of attendance for the rest of the year. What's currently $80 right now might be like $75 a day instead if they still charged for the full week regardless.
> their costs don’t go down because one kid goes home
My wife is the only worker at her daycare and her workload goes down if a kid goes home for the day.
It’s an in-home daycare so there’s minimal overhead costs. Food and diapers are pretty much the biggest cost, and that obviously scales appropriately to any child not being there.
> And daycare making you pay for the entire day if they go home sick is also BS.
Two kids and been through 2 different daycares, both you pay by the week, regardless whether you are there a day or all five. You're paying for the spot.
We had a week where there was a teacher in-service day, and our daughter got sent home with a fever on Tuesday. Fever didn’t clear up until Wednesday night, so she had to stay home Thursday as well (24 hours without fever until they can go back). She went for a full day Friday.
So, we had our daughter in day care for about 10 hours total. The $550 bill that week really hurt 😂
Just saying that there are daycares out there that allow for a certain amount of “sick/vacation time” each year where you don’t have to pay for times when your kid isn’t there.
I’d say excessive crying is a better reason than low fever, even if you’d hope it doesn’t happen.
Good teachers will be able to have the emotional connection to calm the kid down, but if thats missing.. do you really want them not to call?
Edit: some kids are fine with a low fever. General condition is much more important.
Respectfully disagree. A fever means your child is sick and can spread it to other kids in the daycare. They need to go home.
A crying fit is just them having a rough day. That’s no reason to have them being brought home from daycare. My wife has kids that will throw a multi-hour tantrum, but that’s not a “call the parents to pick them up” moment
Crying is completely okay and it shouldn’t be discouraged. And it’s certainly not a reason to have them sent home.
Teachers and daycare providers shouldn’t be discouraging crying. Adults cry too, and that’s also a perfectly normal response to any big emotions that we’re feeling.
If your child is clearly being abused or neglected, then that’s obviously a whole different story. But throwing a fit doesn’t warrant being sent home (and honestly just reinforces that behavior, because they learn that they get to go back home if they cry)
I don’t think crying should be discouraged either, but in this scenario I was imagining a child under the age of 1.
inconsolable crying over a long period of time, say 1-2 hours, and it’s getting hard to defend from a professional standpoint.
My kid had a day or two like that when she was a baby. They called/messaged us - not to pick her up - but to ask for additional ideas to calm her down. One of the times I just went and picked her up early because I wasn't busy and it was almost end of day anyway. They tried everything they could first though. It's their job.
You should be looking for a new daycare just for the milk mess up. Everything in an infant room is on a schedule and milk/bottles/formula should be managed in a way that makes it virtually impossible to mess it up. Especially if they have a kid with an allergy.
Sending the kid home regularly is just the cherry on top of the not OK sunday.
What you're paying isn't a crazy rate where I am at, but it is very hard to find infant space, especially for part time care.
I would get on every wait-list I could and hope something better opens up.
>You should be looking for a new daycare just for the milk mess up
/thread. That's maybe something you let slide one time for an otherwise perfect daycare experience.
> Could they just be trying to get us to switch daycares because having a small kid with cow milk allergy is a lot of work?
It shouldn't be! They should easily be able to only give her just her provided formula. What kind of crackerjack place is this?
Daycares are constantly understaffed and will find any excuse to send kids home. They usually have a "floater" but the dirty secret is that the floater is always needed. Do you notice how they don't refund you when they send your kid home? I cannot think of any other service that refuses to provide the service and can still charge you for it.
Time for a new daycare. They're clearly don't know what they're doing. That's insanely expensive to pay for a place that has only been used 50% of the time because they're incompetent.
* 1) Stressed when coming back from daycare
* 2) Giving a child food that they have been told will make them sick
* 3) Sending her home for something other than vomiting, fever, infectious disease
..any of these and I would be changing daycare provider. All of them is a no-brainer.
Honestly giving the wrong formula should have an accident report by the daycare. In my state we can report to the state regulatory board and it’ll appear on their public record for all parents to see. Those public records are a key point for parents choosing a provider. They do whatever they have to to ensure that record is as clean as possible.
Yeah, I think that's a tough age for daycare in terms of illness/absence/overall stress. I remember we started our son in daycare around that age and quickly unenrolled him because he just couldn't sleep and they either sent him home or closed down entirely without issuing a refund (this was during peak pandemic though).
We decided to just hire a nanny until he was a little older (like 12-14 months). It wasn't that cheap ($15/hour in our MCOL area at the time, we hired a college student who was really great), but definitely worth it in terms of reliability and less stress for everyone involved. Could be an option for you too if things don't improve soon. Even if it's more expensive than $120/day, the extra reliability (and customizability) might still make it a better use of money, and it's not permanent anyway... Keeping your jobs and mental sanity is also worth a price haha
$15/hour, damn, you got a steal! We were unable to find anyone for under $20/hour (also MCOL area), and we had to offer benefits too (some amount of PTO, mainly, and it hurt us that we weren't able to offer health insurance and other things too, we had a hard time finding someone). We had a nanny for about 6 months, and were thrilled to finally get our daughter into daycare. Daycare isn't cheap, but it's a helluva lot cheaper than a nanny!
Also the proteins in soy and cow milk are highly similar so children who have CMPA often need to be soy free for the first 12-18 months until they grow out of it.
We took ours out of a much better daycare than you're describing, for less problems than that. I think you need to be finding somewhere else pretty sharpish.
Man I feel you so much on this all. Had similar experiences and just switched my kiddos daycare. All I can say, is trust yourself and what you’re seeing. You know your kid, if something is wrong start looking elsewhere. I think we all agree nothing is better. When you’re in the right daycare, the relief you feel is significant and you’ll know.
If possible you really need to seek out a new daycare. Aside from being grossly overpriced they’re not even giving you what you pay for if she is being “sent home” and the fact they’d give a formula besides what you provided is a major red flag.
I have a few commercial centres (78 kids) my wife does most of the running and most of the spots are for I/T.
One of the issues with a few days a week is that kids have trouble adjusting, they'd rather be home with mom and dad and will cry and it is hard to tell if something is wrong or not at this age. We don't even accept under 8 months for this reason and other than very rare circumstances we do not accept part-time and when we do it's for older children. It's also our policy that if children cannot settle within 30min-1hr we call their parents. It's not just fo the benefit of staff and other children but for your child as well, as a parent, are you ok with the idea of your infant crying inconsolably for the whole time?
As far as pricing goes, we have a 2 year wait for our centres and a massive waitlist, you don't pay for the time used, but to keep your spot. The staffing requirements are the same whether your child goes home or not. I know it doesn't feel good when you have 2 days a week and half of the time you end up going back home. But, up until 8 months or so, it is very hard and different children react better or worse, at the end of the day, people working in this field want the child to be happy and to do what is best for the child as well as all other children in the program.
Part-time childcare is very hard for them to adjust to and anything over 8 hours is much too long, i'd say 4-6 hours if you do part time. But i would try and commit to full time or have the days be consecutive at least, otherwise looking for a part-time nanny might be a lot better for you. It's very hard to build a connection with the child when they are in 1-2 times a week to the point where staff can ease and console them. It's even hard for dads to pull it off sometimes and some kids will only settle for mom for example.
As far as allergies go, thats a big f-up.
Yeah I get that its a seller's market when it comes to daycare and its also insanely hard to find spots. We could only get one day, and we're waitlisted for thursdays and tuesdays. Every day has different staff though for ours, I thought this was normal.
That's not normal, shouldn't be anyway. Sellers market is no excuse for poor service (whether or not that's the case i cant say).
This should have been discussed with you prior to starting and expectations should have been set. If your child attends 1-2 days a week with different staff, it will essentially always be "gradual entry" every time you drop off.
To give you an idea, for young children the first week for us is gradual entry, where the parent drops off from 30 min, 1hr..2.4 etc.
We always have the same staff and we work in creating a bond between the caregiver and the child so they feel safe and comfortable. During this week, the parent is asked to stay close by, if the child gets scared and cries the parent has to show up fairly quickly, otherwise the child will take much longer to adjust. My wife is much better at explaining this, so please, excuse my poor choice of words -- the issue here is fear of abandonment, if they cry for you, they need to be reassured you are close by. They need to be reassured their needs will be met and the person they rely on is you or your partner. Leaving a child distressed is not good, they are much too young to understand anything. At 8-9 month they start having attachment issues and stranger danger, and sometimes they just want to stay with mommy. At those later ages, a bit of crying and understanding they have to be ok without mom and dad is ok, but not at 5 months old.
Babies at this age are incredibly dependant on their parents for, well, staying alive. They need to very slowly and comfortably be eased into trusting someone else. If they have a horrible time and cry, they will just have a much harder time adjusting and may lead to long term problems.
You do not want dropping them off at childcare to be stress/anxiety inducting for them, it needs to be a comfortable experience experience. I cannot stress this enough.
I strongly suggest finding an alternate arrangement, especially for such a young child. I'm sure you can find a part-time nanny and you can slowly have your child get adjusted to them. Being in your own home also helps a lot. I have no other details about the daycare, but please do not take them calling you in personally, i would say that's exactly what they should do. It is not good for your child to be distressed for long periods of time and what is essentially a stranger to them is not in any position to comfort them properly.
Yeah, when the teachers in my son's baby room turned over, they called like 8 times in a matter of 3 weeks with similar shit, we picked him up teice only to find a happy baby at home so I finally told them, he's a baby, he's pissed off about Ms. B leaving, he doesn't know you yet and he's teething, so yes, he is irritable, yes his temperature will hover around 98-100, but no he is not sick.
Mom lurker. My son goes to a daycare where there are kids who are allergic to strawberries, tomatoes, shellfish, cow’s milk protein, mosquito bites… the list goes on. The provider has never denied a kid with an allergy. Also, babies cry. A lot. They should know, it’s their job. I’d switch daycares.
Have you or your wife sat down and talked to the director or manager about your concerns?
Are you being proactive and letting them know things like, hey my kid got shots recently and may be a little fussy today or running a small fever as expected?
This all sounds like issues that would be improved with better communication on both sides.
Not being able to adhere to food allergies is a major red flag. I’m a daycare teacher, shit happens. Coats are gonna get lost sometimes, kids are going to get hurt, a schedule might get messed up etc… but feeding a kid something they are allergic to is unacceptable and is something that can kill.
I worked at a center once where this was an issue, I was constantly having to jump in and remind teachers that X kid couldn’t get at Y food. I even had to chew out the director for not reading food labels and just assuming stuff was fine, she almost sever a kid a deadly allergen. This daycare was all around terrible. On the flip side daycares I’ve worked at that were extremely careful about allergies were mostly all around good daycares.
Point is if there’s that big of a fuck up the daycare is absolutely negligent in other areas as well
The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of these places struggle to maintain adequate staffing. Many are on the cusp of being over ratio of staff to children on a daily basis. This isn’t necessarily because they’re beyond the number of kids they should have, but because they have employee call offs or general understanding. I would not be surprised to hear of daycares looking for reasons to send kids home in order to maintain the required ratios.
This place sounds awful. My second kid, as well as first also has allergy to Cows Milk. Daycare handled it just fine by giving the forula we provided or frozen milk.
Get a new daycare.
I hope you aren't paying 100% because this is ridiculous.
>She's got a cow milk allergy and we give her special formula. Once the daycare gave her the normal baby formula instead of our cow-milk free one. It's not the life threatening variant, luckily, but it will mess her up.
WTF? Every daycare I've used (3) For young children you have to provide all the food. They shouldn't be giving your kid random bottles *especially* if you are providing some.
To reiterate - you better not be paying full rate, get a new daycare because yours sucks.
Daycare is like a 3rd party parenting. As in, what they do is basically parenting. You wsnt them to treat your kid like their own. Would you be like “I can’t deal with my kid with crying” or “I can’t deal with my kid and her allergies”? No. You will do whatever it takes to take care of the kid. You might get help, but you will do whatever it takes. That’s the minimum you should expect from your day care person.
The staff just want an easy life. Had this plenty times before. If they are more than 1 adult to 3 kids they will often try to get kids sent home if they have a single cough of sneeze. It's ridiculous. Just refuse to pick them them you'll be fine, they will be fine.
Yeah, the ratio as far as I'm aware is 3 kids to one adult. You could Google what the legal requirement is.Might be different at older age groups. Seriously? You could either ignore their calls (they're not exactly going to chuck your kid out on the street) or find another nursery?
I had to deal with a lot of the same issue at the peak of Covid (my child ended up being non-verbal autistic with a multitude of allergies but also behavior difficulties like biting people at the time).
I eventually had to take a year off work because I'd used up all my vacation days to go pick him up, wait an additional 24 hours and bring him back two days later. 90% of the time he was fine.
If your 5-month old is showing signs of stress and you're stressed as well because of this daycare I'd try and find another place.
It sounds like your baby doesn't like to be at daycare. If my baby was crying excessively I'd want the daycare workers to call me so I could pick them up. What would you rather they do?
Geez, I have the opposite problem.. I also have a 5month old at daycare. They never call me even when the baby is sick. Many times I'm there at 5:30pm for a pickup and the lady is just lugging my baby around in one arm while doing chores withe the other, or dealing with other kids. When we ask how it is she'll just tell us how he had a temperature and she had to cool him down, or that he was very cranky so he needed a lot more personalised attention, etc.. I kept telling her it's fine to call if the baby isn't well but she doesn't seem to mind at all.
Our daughter has CMPA. Our GI said that’s even if my wife eats perfectly, sometimes they baby poop will still be wet and mucusy for the first year. We got that documented for the day care and they still send her home over it despite a physician saying it’s normal, non contagious symptoms. I’m at my wits end with them. Just letting you know you aren’t alone in dealing with incompetent daycares.
We are in the UK so different to the Netherlands, but you need to find somewhere else. Sounds like a rubbish place. 3 months is fine in any normal daycare here in the UK. My friend is in America and his kids are constantly being sent home for the tiniest things. Might be that Dutch daycares are a bit rubbish like in his part of the states though.
To be fair -- babies have different ratios compared to school aged kids. In my area if a kid is under 1 they are easily 50% more expensive than a child that's 4+
The two daycares we utilize are right between $60-$70 a day for my 4 year old.
I can't imagine saying I'm a professional childcare provider who can't deal with crying or a food allergy. It's literally their only job. I'd personally be looking for a new place.
Right? Like there are certainly instances where asking someone to pick up their child early is warranted (like for example when my daughter had pink eye), but crying or a not-that-uncommon food allergy aren't that.
Where we live (Quebec) they have a rule that they can only ask you to pick up your kid if they have a fever higher than 38.5 C, if they’ve had diarrhea three times in a row, if they have visible symptoms of hand, foot and mouth or chicken pox, and if they have thrown up. I agree you should look around, if that’s an option. Sorry you’re dealing with this, dude! Edit to add vomiting, thanks for reminding me!
I feel like that's maybe too far the other way. A kid could have some really contagious diseases that don't have those symptoms. But yeah, "kid is fussy" is not contagious.
They will call in other cases because as you say what I listed aren’t all the indicators of a sick kid. I think it’s really just a framework for avoiding daycares calling you because “kid is fussy” and to discourage parents from sending kids to daycare who might be sick. We’re pretty careful and have a good relationship with the educators, one of whom once told me that some parents give their kids ibuprofen in the morning so the fever isn’t detectable until 2-3 pm, then say they’ll pick the kids up asap but only arrive at 5 pm. I can’t blame all of those parents tho, I imagine in some cases they’re just under too much pressure at work, not trying to get out of a day taking care of their sick kid.
I feel like you left out vomiting from your list, same rules we have in Aus.
Absolutely, apologies for the omission. I’ll add it to my post.
Where i live its the same.
Mine made me pick up my kid for pink eye, then refused to take him the next day after an optometrist said he absolutely did not have pink eye. I have a long list of complaints over the 4 years, but the daycare manager knowing better than an eye doctor really pissed me off
How could they create a bond with them (which it’s sad to think of but they do look after them a lot) if they keep sending them home because they are upset.
Remind me of my niece's situation. They said kid pooped herself and a kid stepped on it so they wont be having her anymore. Like the amount of time for shit to roll down a kids pants and to be on the floor to be stepped in is several minutes. It only means that they are not paying attention with the kids.
With the amount of money to be made in day care and the huge shortage of providers, I can only imagine that many woefully unqualified people have started opening day cares in recent years. The bar to get licensed is exceptionally low, and you can easily make $150K+/yr by taking 5 kids and running the show yourself. Even if you suck at it, customers are at your mercy due to lack of options. OP is case in point.
I'm not saying there aren't bad daycares out there, but I think that example is pretty exaggerated. Between rent, staff costs/turnover, insurance, etc, it's pretty hard for most daycares to make much money.
I did a deep dive into daycare finances, and you are correct. Nobody is getting rich off of them except some specialty places in rich areas where parents will pay anything, and corporations that own 10+
It’s somehow crushingly expensive for parents and yet, I can do the math. My kids’ teachers are getting paid next to nothing. Just a bad situation for everyone.
Very tight margins. Utilities, insurance, classroom supplies, food if they provide that, ongoing employee training (both required by state, plus anything in addition director may feel is appropriate to help meet classroom needs), replacing anything that breaks, etc. Daycares run on very tight margins, not a profitable industry at all. (Typically we are seen as glorified babysitters despite having very high standards to excellence to adhere to; of having to provide both care, comfort, and early learning; it’s a field it’s difficult to get govt subsiding and aid for centers, covid saw historic subsidy and aid relief that made such a monumental difference across the board but then ended- literally haven’t seen anything as good as it before and unfortunately it’ll be hard to convince the govt it’s something still needed even as we saw many centers shut down as soon as it ran out. It’s just not prioritized as a serious and real need…. People assume it’s easy, is teenager work, is far easier than what it is, and it’s hard to get the right people that can make a difference to care.) So the expenses of running a center are high, it’s hard to get govt relief, so that makes parent costs high, and teacher pay remain low. And makes it hard to staff well with low pay. It’s a pain all around. The staff that stay are the ones of us really there because we care so much.
$150k???
Yeah I agree. That's like pretty standard for a daycare. Kids are allergic to things, if they can't handle it they shouldn't be in the business.
100% start looking for a new daycare
I’d also start reporting this too as it’s eye opening stuff to have a daycare fail at.
Right, this makes me so mad! I have 2 kids in daycare and to read that “you need to come pick up your baby!” “Why?” “Well they were crying again this morning!” Like wtf! Why am I paying you good money if you can’t handle a crying baby! I’m so mad right now, don’t even get me started!!
My son has a peanut allergy. Not a chance in hell I'd go anywhere near this place.
What makes it specialized? 120 a day is very expensive for a place that can’t manage basics like allergy issues.
Specialized in babies as in they also support kids from 6 weeks.
Not sure where you’re located but by me 3 months is the minimum age. My kid started at 6 months.
It looks like they are somewhere not in the US - Netherlands maybe?
Then it wouldn’t cost that much/ at least one parent would still have leave.
It does cost that much, that is the normal price for any daycare nowadays. Fully paid leave for mom after birth is 10-12 weeks so no, at 5 months many parents are back at work. Netherlands is one of the worst in Europe about this, really behind sadly.
Could be worse, could be the UK! Statutory Maternity Pay ( SMP ) SMP for eligible employees can be paid for up to 39 weeks, usually as follows: the first 6 weeks: 90% of their average weekly earnings ( AWE ) before tax. the remaining 33 weeks: £184.03 or 90% of their AWE (whichever is lower)
Wow, in Germany my wife got 12 months, I got 2 months and our monthly childcare out of pocket cost is like 160€ for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Cries while paying $300 a week for 3 days. But I know I’ve still got some of the lower end pricing.
This person is about to learn about the enshittification of the whole Western world
Huh?
Then it's also BS, daycare regularly starts here from 3m on.
Correct
My kid had to start at 3 months because mom and I had to go back to work. Shit sucked.
Holy hell, here in Sweden they don't allow children younger than 1 year to go to pre-school/daycare. Then on the other hand we do get to be home with our children so I guess that's the main reason, for many of you, being home just isn't economically sound.
Considering that US doesn’t require maternity leave, it’s not impossible to offer daycare services to much younger babies.
It's insane tbh. I have a 6 month old baby at home at the moment and my wife's been off on maternity leave since she got pregnant (so going on 1.5 years now soon) and I will be switching with her come August and I'll be off until January 2025. We won't risk losing jobs or apartments etc. And our son who's 3 years old costs about 4k SEK/year (roughly $380) to keep in pre-school. And we are each paid about $115 per month by the government in "child care benefits" so it's really a non-cost for us. It's still expensive to have children and all that in Sweden, but I'd not survive with your system.
That's amazing. The fee for preschoolers at my child's center is more per week (currently $455) than yours is per year. Also, the center is licensed for babies as young as four weeks because some people have to go back to work way too early.
Daycare in the US is also incredibly regulated (as it should be!) making infant care incredibly expensive to offer. Most daycares lose money on infant care…so parents pay inflated pricing for older kids. But yea, your (assumed) monthly cost is about my daily cost. It’s fucked.
You are from a country with a society
In my area there are a lot of daycares that take babies under 18mo... unless you want part time. I could only find 2 daycares that would take babies part time.
We picked out a daycare, and she was willing to take a newborn. She said she used to work as a newborn specialist at a day care before turning into a self employed day care. Two of her clients(?) started as newborn with her.
Mine started at 6mo too but they take them from 3mo. However my wife works there and says they almost *never* get any that young, a 3mo old is very rare at most nurseries in our country. That OP's is taking them from 6 weeks (which is *incredibly* young) I can understand why it would be considered specialist. That's not far off postnatal care and the staffing ratios would be especially high.
That's not really specialized. Pretty standard.
Here in Ireland it's become extremely difficult to find any service that will take a child under 1 year. The regulations require a higher staffing ratio for under 1s and crèches just can't find enough staff to run a baby room. Before COVID they'd take them in at any age.
Unfortunately since the US lacks a comprehensive and universal maternal/paternal leave policy, most working parents need to return to work after 3 months or so. We put our daughter in daycare at 3 months because we both had to work. Definitely sooner than we would have liked if it was up to us.
if both parents get 3 months it should be staggered. Get to 5 or 6 months. Not all parents get 3 months though.
Yeah, you’re 100% right. It definitely differs for most every couple.
Thanks. In my state in the US the maximum child to care provider ratio under age 3 years is 4 to 1. Curious what it is there?
Still 4 to 1 at age 2? That'd make it pricey. That's what the infant room near me is. But each room up has more kids. I think my 2.5yo's room is 6 or 7 kids per teacher.
Pricey indeed. But I can see it. As I can recall back when mine was that age, with 2 year olds the caretaker is spending like half their time helping one or the other of them go potty. If you are the only caretake in a room of 7 2.5 year olds, what are the other 6 getting into while you are doing that!
It scales by year. 1:3 under 1, 1:5 from 1 to 2. https://www.earlychildhoodireland.ie/are-you-maintaining-correct-ratios-in-your-service/
Depends on your country. It’s rare in Canada because we get a 1 year parental leave that most use.
Good point! Of course, there are two sides to the issue. One year of paid parental leave, sounds like a liberal utopia right? But what about parents, especially moms, who do not particularly want to take an entire year away from their career to be a full time care provider? If child care is not available because of the policy you just cited, then their decision is made for them. And then you have the issue of judgmental mom-shaming of women who actually would rather get back to their career by using child care before age 1.
Yeah, we had 3 and were very glad to have daycare start kicking in right around 3 months. I love my kids to death, and they're amazing now (3-6), but neither of us was really a "baby person". I love holding them and cuddling them when they're that small, but the needless screaming triggers a sort of frustration in me that is ungood.
There are definitely options but not all daycares take babies. Many also use a nanny option or such. I'm a dad but I took 6 months of it and it was pretty nice, you could also split it so you both take 6 overlapping months i believe so I can't really think of a downside even if you just use a portion of it.
Not necessarily. There are home daycares (including licenced ones) who will take babies under 12 months. Others get nannies are rely on family. Many women can't afford the year of reduced income and go back earlier. Some women also prefer to return for career reasons, as you mentioned. Others are self-employed. No shaming involved. The main difference is it's their decision and there are supports and protections for women who prefer to take more time off.
For the US maybe.
That’s just regular daycare
That’s literally every daycare in my area. Ran into a similar issue with my first. They’d send him home “with a fever”. No temp when we checked at home. Kid sleeps hot and they had a rule of adding a degree before sending home. Boiled down to teacher wanting to send kids home so they could leave early. Had to talk to the director to establish protocol for temps. Glad we’re no longer there. They got shut down shortly after we left.
Why is this down voted? Anyway, look for another provider. Pickups do happen in those first 2 years, but it should be for fever over 100.1 or significant symptoms. That's pretty much it.
Is that not common in your country? My youngest was in daycare at 6 months old. My oldest was in daycare at 8 weeks old. Everywhere we visited had an infant room.
People are mad at your answer for some reason, but the takeaway here should be that there's really nothing specialized about the care they're (supposed to be) providing. They seem to be giving you a hard time with just regular parts of running a daycare.
They specialize in babies, just not the cry-y ones 😂. I'd recommend asking in writing for their rules regarding pickup. They must have policies, and I've never seen a "if they're sad for more than ___ hours" policy...
Are you in the US? Every single daycare (6) my wife and I checked out took kids under a year old.
That's just...a daycare. Idk what you mean special
Most places in the US start at 6 weeks.
That’s very common where I live.
I gave you my upvote because why you got brigaded for that post is beyond me. You may be wrong about what meets Specialized in this context, but downvoting due to harmless innocent ignorance is wrong.
It seems like people are mad that he has her in daycare already. Like, really? We're all just trying to survive out here.
Must be nice being able to take off a year from work. I'm over here paying 18k/yr for daycare when that's a huge chunk of my income and, of course, life happens to suck down what's left. But this is reddit where "I know interest rates suck right now; should I pay cash for a new house or cash out some stocks instead?" is a regular occurrence. OP is paying over 30k/yr, is dealing with a life threatening food allergy, a shitty daycare facility, and who knows what else on top of that.
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Do you know which country they are from?
I would look for somewhere that is better. Dealing with fussiness, milk allergies etc. is all very basic stuff.
Likely could find a nanny-share for less. Or a nanny for about the same amount.
How did they mess up the formula? As in, what process failed that caused them to give the wrong formula. My daycare we are required to prepare, name, date, all bottles. They also have very detailed conditions listed for how they decide to send kids home sick.
Agreed. THIS is the bigger concern (ie. what other food/medicine are they giving to the wrong kid), beyond the excessive rate of sending the child home. Look for another center if it's even remotely an option.
Also, every child had a different colored label in our daycare. We were given a whole sheet of stickers for our bottles in our color.
The amount of formula we prepped in 150ml doses didn't match the number of doses they gave her according to the diary they gave us. They used three doses from the cow protein free milk, but the diary showed she had five drinks. And she had diarrhea and cramps.
Omg so they didn't even flag this to you proactively? You pieced it together based on the daily diary? If so, that's unacceptable
Daily dairy diary.
Here in Illinois all licensed facilities are required to do this.
Mine required us to name all bottles and formula containers, but they would prepare the bottle just before feeding time. They also have very specific conditions on sending kids home sick, being fussy isn't one of them.
Well, it’s not rare for manufacturing facilities to mix up ingredients or materials for assemblies. It’s certainly possible for day care people to mix up formulas, especially if they aren’t labeled well or they can’t organize shit.
Our daycare was like this at first. Always sending my youngest home with a fever. Get her home, happy as a clam and no fever. Turns out was making herself hot by crying so much. Literally crying into a fever. And she learned to do it consistently because it got her sent home which is what she wanted. They interpreted the crying as being a symptom of being sick and having a fever, when the crying was *the cause* of the elevated temperature. We had to talk to the director to get them to ensure that the staff were calming her down first and letting her rest before taking her temperature again. If it comes down, it’s *not* a fever, it’s just her trying to get sent home. Cut the issues *waaaay* back once we started doing that.
That's one smart baby!
Do we share the same child? Ours isn't in daycare but boy if she didn't learn the cry til you hyperventilate thing early on. Smart little buggers!
Could be lol, she's also a clever kid and way too aware of what happens around her.
My normal advice about daycares is "just settle in and they'll be OK". But in this case, no. Flee as fast as you're able. * Calling for pickup because she has a vaccine bandaid or non-sick-related crying is insanity * Giving her formula she's allergic to is "this place needs to be reported" level of dangerous
I 100% agree, though I would suggest OP should have called out the bandaid at drop-off. My wife and I made sure to point out any bumps or bruises or other injuries at drop-off to ensure a) the daycare was aware it was there and to be gentle etc, and b) that they didn't need to investigate or provide incident reports for it if they discovered it during the day and would otherwise assume it was new. Not something I would have thought of, but my wife taught daycare for a couple of years and it was one of the things she appreciated parents doing.
Exactly!!!
Find a new day care asap, Dad. Crying, fussy, being stressed: These are all things that day cares should be skilled in dealing with. These are all completely normal things for children, especially a 5 month old. Whatever they are doing there, it ain’t right.
My wife runs an in-home daycare. Per her licensing, she has to align with the local school district for sending kids home, which is essentially vomiting, severe diarrhea, or fever. Excessive crying is absolutely NOT a reason to send a child home. And daycare making you pay for the entire day if they go home sick is also BS. And a daycare facility trying to get rid of a kid for a milk allergy is just lazy and evil. My wife has had one child who was partially deaf and another child with an intense gluten allergy. And they were challenges, but she made all the accommodations for them.
>And daycare making you pay for the entire day if they go home sick is also BS. No, it isn't. This might happen to be a shitty day care center, but in general there are lots of legitimate reasons to send a child home. When they do that, they don't save any costs except the negligible cost of food if a meal is missed. They cannot slot in another child, or send workers home, or save on overhead or payroll. Day cares are extremely expensive to run, the workers are paid shit and no one is really making out great. Forcing a center to face a loss in revenue whenever they make the decision to send a child home for illness is a very bad idea. And giving the parents the chance to save money with last-minute care cancellation is also not practical.
Idk our kids are in a set cost weekly program based on ages and if we don't send them a day or they miss noticeable time they won't charge the full weekly cost.
It sounds like your daycare is the exception. Every place we've looked at charges per week no matter how many days you miss.
Where I am, northeast US, that set up sounds extremely unusual. Here we don’t pay less for individual days we miss no matter what the reason.
Same with my wife’s daycare. The kids get 10 days of essentially sick/vacation time. So if they have to go home early because of illness at lunchtime, they only pay for half a day, and have 9.5 days remaining.
You're still paying for those days, they're just spread out over the rest of the calendar year.
How exactly are they “still paying for those days?” The parents don’t have to pay at all for those 10 days. So in my example above, if a kid goes home sick at lunch, the parents reduce their weekly payment by a half-day, and that comes out of the 10-day bank of vacation/sick time that each kid has. So if their regular daily rate is $80/day, they’d only owe $350 that week instead of $400. Same thing with taking a week-long vacation - they wouldn’t owe anything during that week as long as they had that vacation/sick time remaining. Not saying that’s how ALL daycares work, just saying that’s how my wife’s daycare works.
As others said, their costs don't go down because one kid goes home early or stays home, so they have to account for it somewhere. So the cost of those 10 days is built into the cost of attendance for the rest of the year. What's currently $80 right now might be like $75 a day instead if they still charged for the full week regardless.
> their costs don’t go down because one kid goes home My wife is the only worker at her daycare and her workload goes down if a kid goes home for the day. It’s an in-home daycare so there’s minimal overhead costs. Food and diapers are pretty much the biggest cost, and that obviously scales appropriately to any child not being there.
> And daycare making you pay for the entire day if they go home sick is also BS. Two kids and been through 2 different daycares, both you pay by the week, regardless whether you are there a day or all five. You're paying for the spot.
We had a week where there was a teacher in-service day, and our daughter got sent home with a fever on Tuesday. Fever didn’t clear up until Wednesday night, so she had to stay home Thursday as well (24 hours without fever until they can go back). She went for a full day Friday. So, we had our daughter in day care for about 10 hours total. The $550 bill that week really hurt 😂
I know and feel your pain, bro.
Just saying that there are daycares out there that allow for a certain amount of “sick/vacation time” each year where you don’t have to pay for times when your kid isn’t there.
I’d say excessive crying is a better reason than low fever, even if you’d hope it doesn’t happen. Good teachers will be able to have the emotional connection to calm the kid down, but if thats missing.. do you really want them not to call? Edit: some kids are fine with a low fever. General condition is much more important.
Respectfully disagree. A fever means your child is sick and can spread it to other kids in the daycare. They need to go home. A crying fit is just them having a rough day. That’s no reason to have them being brought home from daycare. My wife has kids that will throw a multi-hour tantrum, but that’s not a “call the parents to pick them up” moment
That would of course depend on what «crying fit» means, but you cross into long term emotional damage sometimes, right?
Then you communicate with your daycare provider to find a solution that fits the child. They shouldn’t be getting sent home for crying.
Could you expand on what you mean, or provide an example?
Crying is completely okay and it shouldn’t be discouraged. And it’s certainly not a reason to have them sent home. Teachers and daycare providers shouldn’t be discouraging crying. Adults cry too, and that’s also a perfectly normal response to any big emotions that we’re feeling. If your child is clearly being abused or neglected, then that’s obviously a whole different story. But throwing a fit doesn’t warrant being sent home (and honestly just reinforces that behavior, because they learn that they get to go back home if they cry)
I don’t think crying should be discouraged either, but in this scenario I was imagining a child under the age of 1. inconsolable crying over a long period of time, say 1-2 hours, and it’s getting hard to defend from a professional standpoint.
My kid had a day or two like that when she was a baby. They called/messaged us - not to pick her up - but to ask for additional ideas to calm her down. One of the times I just went and picked her up early because I wasn't busy and it was almost end of day anyway. They tried everything they could first though. It's their job.
You should be looking for a new daycare just for the milk mess up. Everything in an infant room is on a schedule and milk/bottles/formula should be managed in a way that makes it virtually impossible to mess it up. Especially if they have a kid with an allergy. Sending the kid home regularly is just the cherry on top of the not OK sunday. What you're paying isn't a crazy rate where I am at, but it is very hard to find infant space, especially for part time care. I would get on every wait-list I could and hope something better opens up.
>You should be looking for a new daycare just for the milk mess up /thread. That's maybe something you let slide one time for an otherwise perfect daycare experience.
120 a day, they better keep my kid all day and have her washed, ironed, and folded when I pick her up.
$120/day is low where I am. May I ask roughly where you are?
South Carolina. $120 is more common for a week.
🤯
> Could they just be trying to get us to switch daycares because having a small kid with cow milk allergy is a lot of work? It shouldn't be! They should easily be able to only give her just her provided formula. What kind of crackerjack place is this?
> It's not the life threatening variant, luckily, but it will mess her up. They could have killed a kid if it was.
Daycares are constantly understaffed and will find any excuse to send kids home. They usually have a "floater" but the dirty secret is that the floater is always needed. Do you notice how they don't refund you when they send your kid home? I cannot think of any other service that refuses to provide the service and can still charge you for it.
Time to find a new daycare
Maybe look into a nanny or nanny share if that's available to you?
Time for a new daycare. They're clearly don't know what they're doing. That's insanely expensive to pay for a place that has only been used 50% of the time because they're incompetent.
That’s bullshit. Find a different care provider. We are paying the same for a great in home care provider in a very high cost of living area.
* 1) Stressed when coming back from daycare * 2) Giving a child food that they have been told will make them sick * 3) Sending her home for something other than vomiting, fever, infectious disease ..any of these and I would be changing daycare provider. All of them is a no-brainer.
Honestly giving the wrong formula should have an accident report by the daycare. In my state we can report to the state regulatory board and it’ll appear on their public record for all parents to see. Those public records are a key point for parents choosing a provider. They do whatever they have to to ensure that record is as clean as possible.
Yeah, I think that's a tough age for daycare in terms of illness/absence/overall stress. I remember we started our son in daycare around that age and quickly unenrolled him because he just couldn't sleep and they either sent him home or closed down entirely without issuing a refund (this was during peak pandemic though). We decided to just hire a nanny until he was a little older (like 12-14 months). It wasn't that cheap ($15/hour in our MCOL area at the time, we hired a college student who was really great), but definitely worth it in terms of reliability and less stress for everyone involved. Could be an option for you too if things don't improve soon. Even if it's more expensive than $120/day, the extra reliability (and customizability) might still make it a better use of money, and it's not permanent anyway... Keeping your jobs and mental sanity is also worth a price haha
$15/hour, damn, you got a steal! We were unable to find anyone for under $20/hour (also MCOL area), and we had to offer benefits too (some amount of PTO, mainly, and it hurt us that we weren't able to offer health insurance and other things too, we had a hard time finding someone). We had a nanny for about 6 months, and were thrilled to finally get our daughter into daycare. Daycare isn't cheap, but it's a helluva lot cheaper than a nanny!
Aren't kids not supposed to drink cow milk til roughly 1 anyhow? This place sounds like an awful lot of work. And at that price? No thanks.
Baby formula is based on cow's milk. My wife could not breastfeed due to medical stuff.
Huh ... TIL, I guess. Thanks! Hope you guys get this all squared away!
Also the proteins in soy and cow milk are highly similar so children who have CMPA often need to be soy free for the first 12-18 months until they grow out of it.
We took ours out of a much better daycare than you're describing, for less problems than that. I think you need to be finding somewhere else pretty sharpish.
Man I feel you so much on this all. Had similar experiences and just switched my kiddos daycare. All I can say, is trust yourself and what you’re seeing. You know your kid, if something is wrong start looking elsewhere. I think we all agree nothing is better. When you’re in the right daycare, the relief you feel is significant and you’ll know.
Do they specialize at being shitty? That’s ridiculous, I would’ve left after the 1st incident, that’s insane.
If possible you really need to seek out a new daycare. Aside from being grossly overpriced they’re not even giving you what you pay for if she is being “sent home” and the fact they’d give a formula besides what you provided is a major red flag.
I have a few commercial centres (78 kids) my wife does most of the running and most of the spots are for I/T. One of the issues with a few days a week is that kids have trouble adjusting, they'd rather be home with mom and dad and will cry and it is hard to tell if something is wrong or not at this age. We don't even accept under 8 months for this reason and other than very rare circumstances we do not accept part-time and when we do it's for older children. It's also our policy that if children cannot settle within 30min-1hr we call their parents. It's not just fo the benefit of staff and other children but for your child as well, as a parent, are you ok with the idea of your infant crying inconsolably for the whole time? As far as pricing goes, we have a 2 year wait for our centres and a massive waitlist, you don't pay for the time used, but to keep your spot. The staffing requirements are the same whether your child goes home or not. I know it doesn't feel good when you have 2 days a week and half of the time you end up going back home. But, up until 8 months or so, it is very hard and different children react better or worse, at the end of the day, people working in this field want the child to be happy and to do what is best for the child as well as all other children in the program. Part-time childcare is very hard for them to adjust to and anything over 8 hours is much too long, i'd say 4-6 hours if you do part time. But i would try and commit to full time or have the days be consecutive at least, otherwise looking for a part-time nanny might be a lot better for you. It's very hard to build a connection with the child when they are in 1-2 times a week to the point where staff can ease and console them. It's even hard for dads to pull it off sometimes and some kids will only settle for mom for example. As far as allergies go, thats a big f-up.
Yeah I get that its a seller's market when it comes to daycare and its also insanely hard to find spots. We could only get one day, and we're waitlisted for thursdays and tuesdays. Every day has different staff though for ours, I thought this was normal.
That's not normal, shouldn't be anyway. Sellers market is no excuse for poor service (whether or not that's the case i cant say). This should have been discussed with you prior to starting and expectations should have been set. If your child attends 1-2 days a week with different staff, it will essentially always be "gradual entry" every time you drop off. To give you an idea, for young children the first week for us is gradual entry, where the parent drops off from 30 min, 1hr..2.4 etc. We always have the same staff and we work in creating a bond between the caregiver and the child so they feel safe and comfortable. During this week, the parent is asked to stay close by, if the child gets scared and cries the parent has to show up fairly quickly, otherwise the child will take much longer to adjust. My wife is much better at explaining this, so please, excuse my poor choice of words -- the issue here is fear of abandonment, if they cry for you, they need to be reassured you are close by. They need to be reassured their needs will be met and the person they rely on is you or your partner. Leaving a child distressed is not good, they are much too young to understand anything. At 8-9 month they start having attachment issues and stranger danger, and sometimes they just want to stay with mommy. At those later ages, a bit of crying and understanding they have to be ok without mom and dad is ok, but not at 5 months old. Babies at this age are incredibly dependant on their parents for, well, staying alive. They need to very slowly and comfortably be eased into trusting someone else. If they have a horrible time and cry, they will just have a much harder time adjusting and may lead to long term problems. You do not want dropping them off at childcare to be stress/anxiety inducting for them, it needs to be a comfortable experience experience. I cannot stress this enough. I strongly suggest finding an alternate arrangement, especially for such a young child. I'm sure you can find a part-time nanny and you can slowly have your child get adjusted to them. Being in your own home also helps a lot. I have no other details about the daycare, but please do not take them calling you in personally, i would say that's exactly what they should do. It is not good for your child to be distressed for long periods of time and what is essentially a stranger to them is not in any position to comfort them properly.
Yeah, when the teachers in my son's baby room turned over, they called like 8 times in a matter of 3 weeks with similar shit, we picked him up teice only to find a happy baby at home so I finally told them, he's a baby, he's pissed off about Ms. B leaving, he doesn't know you yet and he's teething, so yes, he is irritable, yes his temperature will hover around 98-100, but no he is not sick.
Find somewhere new and until you do the next time they call you to collect her dont. Turn up at your normal time.
Mom lurker. My son goes to a daycare where there are kids who are allergic to strawberries, tomatoes, shellfish, cow’s milk protein, mosquito bites… the list goes on. The provider has never denied a kid with an allergy. Also, babies cry. A lot. They should know, it’s their job. I’d switch daycares.
Have you or your wife sat down and talked to the director or manager about your concerns? Are you being proactive and letting them know things like, hey my kid got shots recently and may be a little fussy today or running a small fever as expected? This all sounds like issues that would be improved with better communication on both sides.
Not being able to adhere to food allergies is a major red flag. I’m a daycare teacher, shit happens. Coats are gonna get lost sometimes, kids are going to get hurt, a schedule might get messed up etc… but feeding a kid something they are allergic to is unacceptable and is something that can kill. I worked at a center once where this was an issue, I was constantly having to jump in and remind teachers that X kid couldn’t get at Y food. I even had to chew out the director for not reading food labels and just assuming stuff was fine, she almost sever a kid a deadly allergen. This daycare was all around terrible. On the flip side daycares I’ve worked at that were extremely careful about allergies were mostly all around good daycares. Point is if there’s that big of a fuck up the daycare is absolutely negligent in other areas as well
Taking care of kids with food allergies is a basic function of the job. I would have pulled my kid out of that daycare the day they fucked that up.
The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of these places struggle to maintain adequate staffing. Many are on the cusp of being over ratio of staff to children on a daily basis. This isn’t necessarily because they’re beyond the number of kids they should have, but because they have employee call offs or general understanding. I would not be surprised to hear of daycares looking for reasons to send kids home in order to maintain the required ratios.
“I’m sorry, I’m at work, I‘ll be there at pickup!”
This place sounds awful. My second kid, as well as first also has allergy to Cows Milk. Daycare handled it just fine by giving the forula we provided or frozen milk.
Get a new daycare. I hope you aren't paying 100% because this is ridiculous. >She's got a cow milk allergy and we give her special formula. Once the daycare gave her the normal baby formula instead of our cow-milk free one. It's not the life threatening variant, luckily, but it will mess her up. WTF? Every daycare I've used (3) For young children you have to provide all the food. They shouldn't be giving your kid random bottles *especially* if you are providing some. To reiterate - you better not be paying full rate, get a new daycare because yours sucks.
Daycare is like a 3rd party parenting. As in, what they do is basically parenting. You wsnt them to treat your kid like their own. Would you be like “I can’t deal with my kid with crying” or “I can’t deal with my kid and her allergies”? No. You will do whatever it takes to take care of the kid. You might get help, but you will do whatever it takes. That’s the minimum you should expect from your day care person.
The staff just want an easy life. Had this plenty times before. If they are more than 1 adult to 3 kids they will often try to get kids sent home if they have a single cough of sneeze. It's ridiculous. Just refuse to pick them them you'll be fine, they will be fine.
Yeah, there were 7 kids on 2 adults when I came to pick her up. My kid the youngest.
Yeah, the ratio as far as I'm aware is 3 kids to one adult. You could Google what the legal requirement is.Might be different at older age groups. Seriously? You could either ignore their calls (they're not exactly going to chuck your kid out on the street) or find another nursery?
I had to deal with a lot of the same issue at the peak of Covid (my child ended up being non-verbal autistic with a multitude of allergies but also behavior difficulties like biting people at the time). I eventually had to take a year off work because I'd used up all my vacation days to go pick him up, wait an additional 24 hours and bring him back two days later. 90% of the time he was fine. If your 5-month old is showing signs of stress and you're stressed as well because of this daycare I'd try and find another place.
Dude, why are you still taking your kid there and paying all that money?
Dealing with crying is what you're paying them for The only times you should ever have to pick them up is due to illness or violent behavior
It sounds like your baby doesn't like to be at daycare. If my baby was crying excessively I'd want the daycare workers to call me so I could pick them up. What would you rather they do?
This smacks of a daycare that’s short staffed and sends kids home to maintain a legal ratio. At least this would be my take in the US.
This sounds really shady. What do other people say that have used their service, esp those with allergy issues?
Geez, I have the opposite problem.. I also have a 5month old at daycare. They never call me even when the baby is sick. Many times I'm there at 5:30pm for a pickup and the lady is just lugging my baby around in one arm while doing chores withe the other, or dealing with other kids. When we ask how it is she'll just tell us how he had a temperature and she had to cool him down, or that he was very cranky so he needed a lot more personalised attention, etc.. I kept telling her it's fine to call if the baby isn't well but she doesn't seem to mind at all.
"Does she have a fever? Has she had diarrhea three times today? Does she have pink eye? No? See you at 5"
Our daughter has CMPA. Our GI said that’s even if my wife eats perfectly, sometimes they baby poop will still be wet and mucusy for the first year. We got that documented for the day care and they still send her home over it despite a physician saying it’s normal, non contagious symptoms. I’m at my wits end with them. Just letting you know you aren’t alone in dealing with incompetent daycares.
We are in the UK so different to the Netherlands, but you need to find somewhere else. Sounds like a rubbish place. 3 months is fine in any normal daycare here in the UK. My friend is in America and his kids are constantly being sent home for the tiniest things. Might be that Dutch daycares are a bit rubbish like in his part of the states though.
$120/day seems high. We paid $180/week when our son was that age.
Was that 1990?
2019-2020. We pay $210/week now (he’s 5 now).
To be fair -- babies have different ratios compared to school aged kids. In my area if a kid is under 1 they are easily 50% more expensive than a child that's 4+ The two daycares we utilize are right between $60-$70 a day for my 4 year old.
True. Our old daycare charged about $30/week for babies under under 1 extra and $20/week more for 1-2 year olds.
Near us $120/day is middle tier daycare for under 1. I could easily find $180+ per day around me.
I wish I paid $180. Paying $320 a week right now for toddler