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December 2010 Moms
kat81again2
member
daycare - edited
kat81again2
member
DS is at a fancy daycare. We are expecting #2 in Sept and tried to enroll him/her in the infant room but it was full by the time we signed up. So, in January #2 will go to a new center and we might pull DS from his current center to go to the new one just so we don't have to do two pickups and drop offs every day (the two are not far from each other, but this would all fall on me and I'll be too busy to put up with that.) The new center is cheaper but not quite as nice...in a lot of way that don't matter, but in a few ways that do kind of matter.
My question is about something else, though. At DS's current center, they are about to start "summer" next week. A lot of kids will move up in classrooms at this time, and others will move up in the fall. DS is slated to move up in the fall, whereas his best friends who are slightly older will move up next week. We didn't like this at first, but the more we thought about it the more we REALLY don't like it, so we decided to speak up...today...just days before the change is supposed to occur (for the other kids). In addition to the friend thing, I'm concerned about DS potentially needing to transition in Sept and again in Jan (June and Jan seems easier). I'm also concerned about DS having a new baby and the daycare transition at almost exactly the same time. He'll get to his new classroom and have a sibling probably two weeks later. That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. And finally, DS loves the outdoors, and where we live it's too cold to be out most of the winter. The older kid classroom has a more elaborate play area with more advanced stuff, and it just suits him better. Given that this is his strength it just seems to make sense for him to be there during these precious months before the cold sets in.
Are we idiots to be bringing this up at the last minute to the daycare? How hard should we push for it? The rest of the back story is that the DS's current teachers believe he is immature in some other ways, so it was very unsurprising that they didn't want to move him up right away. We have sort of butted heads on some of this stuff, but they're the ones who work with him every day so I have to defer to them on his readiness to some degree. I just think that because his strength is the outdoors they might not be factoring that in enough in the decision. The daycare knows about my pregnancy and due date but they didn't know about the pregnancy when they first made the decision so it was not factored in then. I do wonder what sort of toll a classroom transition + baby will have on DS in Sept.
ETA: We talked again to DS's current daycare, and they will definitely not move him up this summer. The room is full and they don't think he's ready (or, just not more ready than the kids they already selected for that full room, so it's moot). So now our options are
a) stick with the current plan, when DS will move up to the new classroom in Sept. He will see familiar faces in there from the kids he knew Sept-May of this school year and kids who are moving up with him at that time, as well as familiar school-wide policies, but new space and new teachers, and some new kids. But then possibly move him to an entirely new center (with all new kids and teachers and everything) in January or shortly thereafter.
b) decide it sucks for DS to have to move up classrooms in Sept, and move him to the new daycare center in August, which means some wasted fees. Also, DS will probably transition at some point within classrooms there (maybe around January, possibly sooner), as they will likely start him at an earlier level. And we're not even sure they are open for August for him.
And orthogonally to this, we can keep DS in the same place Sept-May of next year, or switch him to the new center in January. If we keep him in the same center I'll have to do a horrible double pick-up and drop-off every day (and it really will be me doing it every day), but DS will be in the better daycare that is also familiar to him.
This all would have been a lot easier if we had just signed up #2 for DS's center earlier on.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: daycare - edited
If it was me, I would switch sooner rather than later. A new baby is a huge transition all by itself so I wouldn't want to switch daycare and have to deal with the new baby all at once.
Could you switch mid-summer instead of in the fall?
When could new baby potentially switch to DS's current center? I know with ours siblings get moved to the top of the wait list and they are very accommodating.
If you would only be doing the 2 pick ups for a month or so I would keep him where he is and move LO over later. If it's going to be much longer I would switch him to the new center now.
Don't stress too much about the changing rooms and new baby stuff - kids are so resilient - he'll adjust quickly no matter what.
No, they only do switches in June or Sept. I guess we will keep pushing for this.
Because our center works on a "school year" process, we probably would not be able to start the new baby until June at the very earliest, and more likely Sept of the following year! So it would be a LONG time of two drop offs.
But thank you for the "don't stress" advice...DS is quite adaptable and will deal. He had to come to this center after a move away from his home and grandparents and he adjusted within a week, so this shouldn't be so bad. it will be harder for him to adjust to a new baby, though, for sure.
He probably could start before January, but we've already paid quite a bit in registration fees at our current center and the truth is we like it more than the new one! So we do want to keep him there longer. But yes, we are sort of wondering if we want him to go to the new center in Aug/Sept once the summer term is up in his current center. We won't be able to switch in July to the new center because they require more advance notice than that. And I guess we are still not 100% sure we want DS to go to the new center at all; there is always a chance we'd get off the wait list for the current center for his younger sibling. We just haven't decided yet on the new center for DS.
We were crazy and moved a couple weeks before baby 2 was born! Nate switched to a new house, new daycare, and new brother all within two weeks + staying with my sister while we were at the hospital. He did fine! Daycares generally follow the same schedules and we kept the same routines in the new house before baby and kept him in daycare the first 8 weeks of maternity leave. I worried for nothing!
Can you move him now to the new center so he can adjust before baby?
OK this is encouraging. I think that kids rarely drop out here but I guess someone might. And now they know. They also know all of our feelings about it, including the new baby, which they did not know before. But as of now we are not going to be able to go to the new room.
That is good to know...he probably will be fine with having to move to a new center. It's just sensitive because he'll have that and the new baby and might be at a sensitive time with something like potty training, and I don't want to have negative progress, y'know? It was easier for him to move and start a new daycare last summer (which we did with no problems) because nothing else was going on in his life like potty training. He was totally cool with it all.
I'm not sure if we can move him to the new center before the baby comes, nor am I sure we want to...we just haven't decided on the new center for him yet. We know we don't like it quite as much, but it is also cheaper, so that's a plus. If it weren't for the two drop-offs, though, we'd be keeping him at the current one, so we're kind of thinking we want to delay his moving to the new one. But yeah, the fact he'd only be in the new classroom for a few months does cut against our desire to ever have him move to that room, and cuts towards just putting him in the new center earlier on, if they have space.