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Austin Babies
**the nestie formerly known as karen2508**
Several dorky infant daycare prep questions
These questions are so basic, I can't even believe I'm asking them. But I don't want to show up on DD's first day and realize I completely forgot something I was supposed to bring or something...plus, the Austin nestie brain trust is such a great resource for these types of questions!!
- How do you provide breast milk for your LO? Do you bring 2-3 bottles already prepared, or bring frozen bags of breast milk and let the caregiver make the bottles as needed? Do you store extra breast milk at day care in case your LO needs it? What about when LO is going through a growth spurt and eating all the time?
- The supplies list for our day care includes vinyl gloves for diaper changes. Are caregivers required to use these? It never would have occurred to me to need to provide a box of gloves to be used on my kiddo's tush, and I'm just wondering if this is normal/stadard. If so, where the heck do I get said gloves?
- We have to provide our own crib sheet at daycare. If it's not dirty, do I have to take it home every day?
- Diapers - if everything's supposed to be labeled with my kid's name, can I just label the outside of the diaper package, or do I have to write her name on every. single. diaper?
- Do you leave your diaper bag at day care each day, or do you just pack your kid's stuff in a random backpack/tote bag/something else? If you leave an actual diaper bag, what kind? I only have a small petunia picklebottom, and no way will it hold all the junk she's supposed to take up there (and I wouldn't leave that one behind, anyway).
DD starts day care in exactly two weeks. I've really enjoyed getting to not be neurotic about this kind of stuff the last couple months...and not looking forward to the return to stress and anxiety. Yuck. And I'm sure I'll have more questions...so thanks for your patience!!
**the nestie formerly known as karen2508**
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Several dorky infant daycare prep questions
- For BM, I prep the bottle myself and take it in. I like this better than relying on them. Although they'd do exactly what I asked, I still prep the bottles and take it in. I defrost the milk at home so they aren't dealing with it.
- Our daycare provides gloves and they wear them for changes and trash them immediately afterwards for sanitary reasons. They probably just want you to buy a box for their supplies.
- Crib sheets are taken home 1x per week.
- For extra clothes, blankets, bibs, etc, I leave there. For bottles or daily items, we take in the diaper bag and leave the bag there during the day. Daycare has a cubby to keep all the things she needs to be stored there. They put dirty clothes or empty bottles in there each day for me to take home.
- Each day I would bring 2-3 prepared bottles labeled with full name and date (I used masking tape). Our daycare had a freezer so I kept one or two bags of frozen BM for the days she needed more. Initially she ate little and I wasted a ton of BM. Once she adjusted, after a few days or so, she ate normally.
- We've only used daycare centers and the ones I have experienced did not require the parents to provide gloves. If I had to, I would look at ordering in bulk online (amazon) or Sams/costco.
- One center laundered the crib sheets we provided daily. The other center provided the sheets and I don't think they launder daily. Depending on the day, poop, etc they may not need daily washing. We currently provide our own blanket for nap and I switch them out weekly. We have an extra in her cubby just in case.
- One center wanted us to label each diaper, we just cracked open the package and wrote DD's initial on each diaper fold using a fine tipped marker. The other center was ok with just labeling the bag.
- We used a smaller insulated bag for transporting the daily BM and whatnot. It's about the size of a 6-pack cooler. We just left at the center during the day. One center had a drawer under the crib for all DD's things, the other has cubbies.
Another thing was leaving the car seat. The first daycare we went to allowed us to leave the carseat at the school so we only needed two bases for the infant carrier. Our current center does not allow this, they claim not to have room.
We put DD in daycare about a week before I returned to work. Those first few days were rough, more so for me and DH. After a few days though, we found our grove and DD loved being around all of the kids.
GL
-Ours uses gloves too, although they provide them.
-Our daycare washes sheets daily. I take her blanket home on Fridays to wash over the weekend.
-We just put DD's name on the outside of the diaper package, and the daycare staff go through and label every single diaper with her initials. I'd ask what they prefer.
-We have a cubby to keep her extra clothes, bibs, pacis in. The only things we transport daily every morning are bottles. They put the dirty bottles, bowls, clothes in the cubby for us to take home at the end of the day. It usually all fits in my shoulder bag.
GL! It's overwhelming at first, but it gets much easier pretty quickly!
- bottles - i prep bottles the night before. We send three 6 ounce bottles (in the beginning we sent 4 oz, but quickly went up to 6oz). Our center requires they be prepared by the family. When we were breast feeding I did leave a couple of bags of frozen breast milk in the freezer in case she was still hungry. Honestly, it never got used. I labeled all her bottles with Mabel's Labels. They are great and make it through the dishwasher.
- gloves - our center uses gloves for all diaper changes as well. we dont have to provide them. I second buying a bunch in bulk.
- sheets - we can bring our own sheet or use the centers sheets. we just use the center's sheets because its easier. if we were to use our own then we would wash it weekly or if it got dirty.
- Diapers - For us its easier just to take a big box of diapers and wipes. We just label the box or the outside plastic wrapping with her name.
- Find out if your center has a cubby for each child. In LO's cubby we leave a bunch of clothes, pacifiers, socks, diaper cream, etc. The only thing I bring daily is a small cooler bag with her bottles. The only time I leave a full diaper bag is when a grandparent is picking her up. The center has everything she needs in her cubby.
I ff so I would take empty bottles, a can of formula and a gallon of water and they would let me know when we needed more of anything.
I'm pretty sure they're required to wear the gloves. We never had to bring any but they do go through a ton because they get thrown away between each kid.
In the infant room, we didn't have to supply linens. Now that DD sleeps on a mat, we supply a sheet and blanket and they are sent home every Friday to be washed.
We label the outside of the package and the center initials each diaper when they open the package.
We bought a cheap diaper bag from Wal-Mart to lug things to and from daycare. I would leave it there during the day and they would have it packed with bottles/dirty clothes for us to take home every night. It helped to pack everything in it the night before so we could just grab it and go in the morning.
Some other things you might want to take and leave there (now or as she gets older) are: diaper cream, sun block, bug spray, gas drops, a swaddle blanket (if she uses one), extra clothes, etc.
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