Family daycare OR childcare centres?

[preciousbabyboy]

What is you personal preferance, and what are the deciding factors into your decision for daycare?

[Silverbaby]

We went with family day care for the following reasons

smaller groups
more homely atmosphere
apparently it's better for boys

HTH
:)
Silverbaby

[aimz]

i started with family day care until Chloe was nearly 10 months old - i loved it however my day care mum quit and gave me 2 days notice, which i wasnt real happy about, even though i loved her!

as i needed care straight away and didnt feel a connection with any of the other day care mums who had teh available days i looked in to child care centres.

i fell in love with the one she is at and has been for 8 months, they are wonderful. its a family owned and run centre, that employ mainly older women, who only work 4 days a week and they supply all food. the carers are just beautiful people and i love the interaction she gets iwth other kids. she gets to paint, cook, colour, and play all day. they supply the food which makes it SO much easier and i think it is reasonably priced $56 a day!!

i guess my deciding factor was that day care dont have sick days

[QTB]

we started with family day care... and loooved DSs carer, but she was taking alot of time off sick... and i had no care for him if she was sick. i also found that there were no other kids DSs age - there was a 5 & 4 & 2month old... (he was 1 at the time) so didnt really get good social interaction with other kiddies

now hes in a centre and i prefer it, hes got loooots of other kiddies his age, they never cant take him because a carer is sick etc... its more reliable.

[SimplyMum]

Ds has never been in Family Daycare and TBH I didn't like the sounds of it. I felt it was structured enough- anyone could be a family daycarer where I wanted more substantial qualifications and guantees.
He was in a small daycare centre though but I found them very rude and unprofessional. I moved him to a bigger care centre and I fell in love with them. There is no set time to pick him up- they have great activities for him and are very in-tuned to his personality and can cater activities to suit.

[Dannielle]

I put my girls in CCC to sort of prepare them a bit for school.

There is plenty of children their age and they get to do a variety of things and have a school readiness program.

[only1mica]

at Family daycare...I love that there is only a few other kids - and DD had bonded with these kids now...its a great little group.

The carer is great...I am now looking for one closer to me just cause our current carrer is going on maternity leave in about a month.

[2s'nuff]

We've always been with a Child Care Centre. DD1 was such a demanding baby (reflux) that I was battling to cope at home with her. And I felt it wasn't fair on the carer to put her into Family Care. When I enquired at Family Care she said she was going on holidays soon, which would have left me in the lurch - that was the
deciding factor.

We love our CCC, the kids get to interact with lots of others, and as for bugs/germs I found my kids have never really been sick. I don't know if they are better prepared to deal with the bugs as they encounter them more often, or that our centre is very strict with sick kids.

[mitty]

Personally I would go for family day care providing you had a great carer. They tend to fill up fast.

I have used both and worked in both situations.

I have seen some horror things in a child care centre where once a ladder was left in a Jnr kindy room and a child climbed right up to the top of this huge ladder. I was in another room and was absolutely shocked(was a volunteer assistant whilst studying).

I have also seen how the kids are yelled at and rounded up in another centre where I worked. Inappropriate language was also used.

Whilst I had my son in a centre I was often rang up to go and collect him because he had sore, yucky eyes.

No problem until I got there and there was nothing wrong with them(yes he was a very whingy problem baby). He had just woken up and had sleep in them.

I eventually pulled him out to be told that the centre would have trouble paying its girls. This come from the owner of the centre.

I was glad i did pull him out, cos if that was all they were worried about then they obviously dont focus on the kids. Kids are only worth money to them .

[mitty]

Forgot to add there is always going to be 'good' and 'bad' child care centres. Same goes for family day carers.

But when you find the perfect one stick to it.

If you are going to go with family day care my advice is to check whether they have a back up carer for when they get sick or go on holiday and how closely they work with this back up carer.

Do the kids get to associate with the back up carer regularly so they no then when the time comes for them to stay with them etc.

[~Emmylou~]

FDC is definitely my preference for babies. One on one, consistent care; a smaller group of children and a quieter, more homelike environment. I think all these things are preferable for kids under about 3. That said though it has to be a good FDC. I've always been extreeemly picky in this regard, wouldn't settle for anyone I wasn't 100% happy with even to the point of looking for over three months recently when we had to move carers. But once I found someone I was happy with he settled immediately and we've had no problems.

After about 3 I think they're more equipped to deal with the more stimulating environment and larger group dynamic of a centre...DD has just started in a wonderful centre after being in FDC and she's loving the stimulation and being with other kids.

I think both arrangements have their plusses and minuses, it's just a matter of working out what would suit your little one's personality and what suits you and then just being picky until you find it ;)

[topaz]

FDC is definitely my preference for babies. One on one, consistent care; a smaller group of children and a quieter, more homelike environment. I think all these things are preferable for kids under about 3. That said though it has to be a good FDC.


Agreed. My little one is due to start FDC in a couple of weeks & we chose this option for these reasons :)