Topic: childcare?

[micah]

to my fellow breeders, aka, those of you with children - either young or grown...

Did both you and your spouse work when your child was born? if so, what did you do about daycare? or did one of you stop working?  if you didn't both work, how did you afford to live on one income?

When my brother and I were little my mom stayed home with us and sold tupperware on the weekends. I wish I could have my wife become a stay at home mom but we're currently in no shape to afford that and, more importantly, she doesn't really want to be a stay-at-home mom.  That leaves us with day care.  Infant care in our area seems to cost between $1,300 and $1,500 a month.  That's more than our rent and it's 2/3 of my wife's take home pay.  We knew it was expensive before we decided to have a baby and we're more than fine with making sacrifices and eliminating other costs to afford our child - (in other words, I'm not whining about how expensive it is so don't jump on me about that.)

I'm just curious how others handled this hurdle in life.  Your thoughts? 

For example, we have a friend who's husband works in an office but her company lets her work from home and her retired inlaws watch their baby while she works.  I had a coworker at my last job who worked from home 3 days a week and only put her son in daycare 2-days a week.

[jkim]

My grandparents took care of me for a lot of my pre-preschool days.  Even then, I sometimes went to a daycare with a lady that was taking care of a bunch of other kids at a time. In kindergarten, a family friend picked me and my friend up because we had half days.  Her mom would record Mr. Rogers for us.

Oh, and my mom did stay home for the first year or so with me, and worked through my younger brother.  I think she blames his early speech problems because she left him home with my Korean-speaking grandparents...

[charlie]

For the first kid, the first 12 weeks my wife stayed home getting money from the state (about 55% of her income). She only got that money for 12 weeks, so she went back to work after that. She had wanted to reduce hours a little and work from home a little to reduce stress once the baby was old enough for daycare. They said ok, but after the baby was born changed their minds (doh!). So the wife worked full time, 40 hours a week starting when the kid was about 13 weeks old.

We put the baby in daycare 40 hours a week. It was about $900 for us, but like you that was most of my wife's take home pay. Still, she wanted to keep the job, so we gave that a try. At that daycare, we only saved about $100 if we only used 3 days instead of 5, so there wasn't much difference in cost to try to reduce days.

Our kid seemed to adjust just fine, I don't think the 40 hours/week in daycare was bad for her. But both of us working full time and then taking care of the kid at night was pretty stressful. After about 7 months my wife was pretty burnt out, so she decided to quit her job completely and stay home with the baby.

For the second kid, she was still at home, so we didn't put the baby in daycare at all. But we did hire a babysitter for a few hours twice a week so she could get a break and also get some side projects done.

• Do you have anybody available that you trust and who can and would want to help watch the kid a couple days a week? Your mom or your wife's mom?
• Can your wife work from home at all? It's hard to work from home full time and watch the kid by yourself, but a few hours a week or a few days a week is probably doable and could help reduce day care costs.
• Can you work at home at all? Depending on how good you are with the baby, this could help as well, or you and your wife could both work from home the same day and take turns doing the baby duty so you both can get more done and avoid too much stress.
• Can your wife reduce her hours at all? Working 30-32 hours is a lot less stressful than working 40 hours a week.

[Jake]

I think that every one with a baby has to go through this difficult decision whether or not to stay at home with the kid or opt for daycare and go to work. My wife stayed home for the first 4 weeks, and then she was back to work full time, 40hrs/week. My mom was in town for the first two months, so that was not a big deal...but when she left, we had to adjust quite a bit.

She now works at home and at night. I come home at 6pm, we eat dinner, and she goes to work from 7pm to 1am - the other 10 hours she works at home when she can. We can do that because of her position...she could do 95% of her job at home, and that is what we initially thought will happen, but she quickly realized that she is able to do twice as much work at the office - there are too many distractions at home.

So I take care of the baby during the evening.

When, God willing, we're be blessed with a second kid we'll have some more choices to make. But one thing is for sure, she will not be working full time anymore. We both feel strongly about having one of us, in this case her, raise our kids instead of a stranger - and I am not knocking anyone who does this, we just don't feel comfortable with the idea. It will be difficult to raise the family on my salary alone, but on a budget I'm sure we can do it.

Right now we think she might continue working part time - upto 25 hours, or I will concentrate more on making some more side money building furniture. We will need to subsidize our income somehow to cover for insurance, otherwise, she will go on a public plan.

But, whatever you do, I recommend having a routine with your baby. Babies, and kids, love routines! But it takes a lot of commitment from the parents to make it happen. Our son is still sick, so the routine is a little off kilter now, but here is pretty much how every day (weekday goes)

1:30am - Feeding
5:30am - Feeding
6am-8am - when I get up to get ready for work I put him to bed with my wife...he is usually wide awake, but sometimes falls back to sleep and that way my wife can have some more shuteye.
9am - Feeding
9:30am - 12pm - play time...with my wife and/or by himself.
12pm - Feeding
12:30-1:30/2 - nap time
2-3:30 - play time
3:30 - feeding (solid foods now!) he just had his first apple and cherry - he liked it!
4-4:15 - nap time
4:15 - 5:30: high chair play time (this is when my wife cooks dinner or works)
5:45pm - we eat dinner he'll also get a few ounces of milk
6:20-7pm - we all spend time together - usually resting and playing on our bed.
7-7:45 play time with daddy (today is nap time because he is sick)
7:45 - bath time
8 - feeding
by 8:30 he is in his crib sleeping. That leaves me with bout 5 and a half hours to help around the house, cook dinner, clean, catch up on the internet, whatever...I go to sleep anytime between midnight and 1 am. Every other day I get up for the first feeding.

This might be pretty loaded, but once you do it for a few weeks, it becomes second nature. The baby likes it and it leaves us with time to actually get something done - but above all, our days are pretty predictable.

I encourage starting a routine 4-6 weeks after your kid is born.

enjoy.

[Jake]

oh, and BTW, I started catching some additional Zzzzz's at lunchtime a few times a week. When I'm feeling really tired, I grab a really quick bite to eat and go out to the car to nap - just set a wake up alarm!.

[kermi3]

Just a pop in from a non-parent....

I did an assessment of a 2 year old's adaptive skills - basically how well does the kid do the things you need to do to survive, communicate, and socialize - I haven't finished scoring it yet, but first glance says the kid is off the charts...

The kid is in a spectacular day care (daily).  Both parents work.  Mom drops the kid off each day, dad picks him up around 5 if he can, if not, mom picks the kid up on her way home...I know these parents well, they're great parents - but it was clear from the interview that a good constructive daycare with a well trained and professional staff/curriculum did a lot for this kid...