Tag: day care

Have you ever noticed how babies fall asleep when there is too much commotion, only to wake up and be fussy after? This enviable skill impresses me – oh how I’d love to just shut out the world sometimes. However, I could skip the fussy part. Unfortunately, now I seem to just skip to the fussy part.

Our world is super stimulating! You know how tired you are after going to a big box store, like Costco? Those harsh lights. All that packaging to look at. The bad muzak. I’m always in such a bad mood after a trip to a superstore and just want to tune out the world. Now, what does this have to do with children?

I’ll tell ya – my daughter’s day care. It assaults my senses. When I first walked in I was completely overwhelmed with all the colors, the patterns, the stuffed animals, the alphabet posters, the this and the that…it was like the room was yelling at me, you know, how a deaf person yells. Not angry or even particularly excited, just loud.

Now, why, you ask, did I put my daughter in this day care? Simple. Had to. Our situation at home quickly became untenable – staying at home with two kids is hard. When one of those children is a newborn and you’re breastfeeding, it’s downright impossible. I was out numbered.

Plus, I needed to sprout at least 2, if not 4, more hands. Picture this: one mom, one baby attached to boob, one (maybe) free hand to play with, discipline and otherwise look after a toddler…well, you’re starting to see my dilemma.

Add a dash of sleeplessness and a pinch of a short fuse and now the picture is getting clearer. Not a good situation for any of us.

So, back to daycare…my daughter’s playmate attends this daycare. The playmate she sees multiple times a week. The playmate she spontaneously announced that she “loves.” Can you imagine – my little girl, in love at age 2 (OMG! I’m gonna have my hands full).

Said playmate makes her feel comfortable and I needed something in her life to make her feel comfortable since our home life makes her feel decidedly uncomfortable right now (a new baby will do that) Plus, the director of this daycare is lovely, a good cook and very good with children.

It’s just her aesthetics I abhor. Is that terrible, to let aesthetics dictate my choice of daycare? I mean, aesthetics can guide a decision about a bed, a stroller, even a car seat (as long as the safety issues are well researched). But a daycare?

Yes, a daycare.

For now, my child is very happy at this daycare so I’m not changing her. But, you can bet your sweet patooty I’m taking aesthetics into account when we apply to preschools! I’m not even kidding.

There are, in fact, scientific reasons why aesthetics should be taken in to account when deciding about your little one’s environment that I won’t get into now. It’d just sound like rationalization. But, suffice it to say, I’m opting for a more calm and quiet approach when it comes to our long term child care/education plans.

photo credit: kevindooley

I was reading an article in the New Yorker about breastfeeding and was stunned at the idea that we, as mothers, may becoming our own wet nurses because of the preference of pumping over breastfeeding.  As a mother who had difficulty with breast feeding because my milk had trouble traveling down my milk ducts to get to my baby, I relied on whatever means possible to give my baby the best that I could.  While formula ultimately became my only option, I find it disheartening to hear about the continued controversy over formula versus breastfeeding.  And now with pumping added to the mix… oiy!

Clearly the nutrients in breast milk are vastly superior to anything that can be manufactured, however, this argument seems to had led to unfortunate consequences.  Here in California, lactation consultants reinforce the practice of breastfeeding to the point of being pushers.  While I applaud the effort, I feel like their emphasis is misplaced.  Instead of reinforcing the notion that breastfeeding is as much about human connection as giving nutrients, the focus on breast milk has not made things better for the baby or the mother.

What a great pity that mothers are being encouraged to do themselves out of what must surely be the most important job in the world, raising the next generation.   Children are being given over to the often very capable hands of day care workers and nannies with bottles of expressed milk.  Capable but can we really say they have the same amount of time and attention needed to fully attune to the new baby.  Breast feeding is about more than giving nutrients to the infant, it is about attunement and bonding.  The first year of a baby’s life is so crucial and so much is now known about the impact of attunement and attachment on infants and the impact of neuronal development.  It’s strange that in a society that is gung ho about the academic development of children so little attention is paid to the all important emotional development which creates stability later on in life.  Surely bonding with mom, more than flash cards and tutors at the age of three, is setting them up for the ability to attend and learn later on.

Not to mention the headache attached to pumping.  Breasts fill and must be drained on a schedule.  The horror stories I’ve heard about women heading off to an icky restroom to pump for 15 minutes is shocking.  I mean would you feed your baby a sandwich in a restroom?   And as for the office restroom, it is dare I say humiliating to be hooked up to a pump like Bessie the cow and have your co-workers come in!  Some offices do have lactation rooms, which is a start, but again that skirts the issue.

I am absolutely not against a mom choosing to return to work after having a baby nor am I opposed to pumping.  What I am opposed to is the lack of discussion around all of the consequences of the myriad choices we mothers have.  Long term consequences.  I feel that, as a society, we should be discussing the effect of day care and nannys as well as breast milk when we discuss what is best for baby.  If we conduct experiments and studies on breast milk, shouldn’t we pay the same attention to the choice to contract out raising our children?

photo credit: Raphael Goetter