Daycare - final thoughts

A few concluding thoughts on the subject.

We finally decided to pull our son out of daycare for many of the reasons I've listed my previous posts.

He was starting to adjust to daycare during the second week. The last two to three days that he went, he started to have larger breaks from crying and I didn't see him hyperventilate much anymore. Also, when I picked him up, I found him sitting with his teacher and reading a book or playing with a ball or resting quietly on their shoulder. He stopped crying desperately to reach me when he saw me come in as he did in the first few days. But we knew this was going to happen. Children are very adaptable at a young age. Put them in most any environment long enough and they will adapt, even with different personalities. We knew this. So this was never ever a criterion for us to pull him out. But I had to mention this because we've been advised so many times to "give him more time" to adjust assuming that we're pulling him out because of this, despite us explaining clearly that this was not the case. We definitely did not like his teachers much for not so much as reassuring him a few times until told, but always knew that this would not prevent him from adjusting to them nevertheless.

He did catch his first bug there in the short time that he was there. We also expected this. It got both of us too. This was another reason why we pulled him out, albeit one slightly lower in priority. While we have no problem exposing him to normal levels of germs around the house, outside on grass / ground and such, we were not very comfortable with him being whammed with daycare germs at age one. This is a much debated topic among pediatricians and parents. I've been advised over and over to both ends by many different people. Most non-doctors tell me to put him in daycare and let germs wham the sh** out of him. Doctors have told me children don't really build immunity enough to handle strong germs until about age 3, so it's better to expose them to school-level germs then. Most articles I've read on the topic seem to agree that as long as you're not cleaning every corner of your house with bleach and alcohol every single day and keeping your kids confined to one super freaky clean room all day, it's enough exposure to germs. If they're regularly meeting other people, crawling all over the place, being allowed to play outside, putting toys from the floor in their mouth, most normal things in other words, that is sufficient exposure to germs. I think from a common sense stand point that makes sense to me. We do all those things. We also never used hand sanitizers, instead, always washed hands with soap and water while handling him even as a little baby. As much of a clean freak that I am, heaven knows our house is far from super freaky clean. So for now we've decided that we don't want to fall sick as a family every month, over and over again. Once in a while is enough. So again, daycare is out until he is a bit older.

My biggest reasons were -

• Lack of general fun (free singing / dancing / silliness which we highly encourage)
• Lack of physical and emotional closeness - Vik, true to being our son, likes a lot of physical closeness apart from emotional closeness. We are big on hugs as a family. :-) Daycare is anything but. We don't want him to become less caring and spirited due to the lack of a loving environment at such a young age. When he goes to school later, he will understand the separation. But at one, he is entitled not to! Also, the personalities (or lack of) of some of the other children in his classroom worried us.  
• Developmental aspects - Don't think a group setting is good for Vik at his age. He learns a lot from "talking" to us and being responded to. He also learns a lot from free unstructured self exploration of not just his toys but also many other things around the house and outside. Both of which are severely lacking at daycare (see my earlier post on this). 
• Adding to the above point - Encouraging curiosity and "organic" creativity as opposed to contrived activities. 

As he grows up, he will definitely look to other children to play with as opposed to adult company that he now primarily seeks (which is appropriate for his age). He will also play and learn differently at an older age and actually benefit from structured activities. At that time, we will revisit our daycare decision. Whatever the case, for now though, we've found him a nanny. We really hope she is a good one for him!