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Preemies
13 Month Olds to Start Daycare - Feeling Overwhelmed :(
Hello,
I'm a lurker but first time poster, so I hope you'll have me. 
My twin daughters are former 35 weekers. I am also a work at home mom and have been with them since the day they were born. They are now 13 months (about 12 months adjusted) and because my business is expanding, DH and I are seriously considering putting the girls in daycare 2 days a week, just so I can get more work done during the week. I'm also finding it increasingly hard to manage a business full time and be a full time mom to 2 toddlers at the same time.
Our girls would be put in the 12-18 month group, and we spent a good amount of time in this class with the caretakers and children yesterday. There were about 6 kids total in the group. Here's where my problems start:
Most of the kids in their age group were mostly walking. One of my daughters is walking but the other one is still cruising. She's always been about a month behind in terms of gross motor skills, but we've never been concerned; we just let her go at her own pace.
The daycare feeds all of the children together as a group. A lot of the kids are already self-feeding finger foods. My girls are still getting the hang of table food and it's progressing very slowly. My younger daughter is extremely picky and will basically try to gag and make vomiting motions if we even try to give her something new or anything that's not a puree.
Also, it looks like all of the children in their age group are on sippy cups. We've been trying, but they're still on bottles. And I'm ashamed to admit this, but they're still not able to hold their own bottles yet, so I still feed them both.
We were seriously considering starting daycare in August, but I feel so overwhelmed. I feel like my girls will be the "babies" of their age group. I also feel like I let them down as a mom and have an overwhelming sense of guilt. Like I should have pushed the table foods and sippy cups months ago and it's my fault they're not doing these things.
I don't really know what to do. Am I overreacting? Has anyone else been in the same situation? I never compared my little ones to other full term babies before because I knew they would do things on their own pace, but now that they might be put in an environment where everyone else seems to be so far ahead of them, it just makes me feel so sad. Any advice would be appreciated, and I apologize for rambling!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: 13 Month Olds to Start Daycare - Feeling Overwhelmed :(
I don't have experience with the daycare thing, because I'm extremely lucky to have my husband watch my DD at home while I work (I'm a teacher, he's a dairy farmer who milks before and after school--so we're swapping places all day long until 7 pm). I have thought about it, though, and I would have exactly the same concerns you do. My daughter (18 months Monday, born 10 weeks early, so adjusted is 15 1/2 months). I don't think too much of her delays, bc I know kids go at their own pace and she was pretty premature.
My daughter still won't hold her own bottle, and we still feed her from a bottle for her morning and night milk. She will do a straw sippy cup, but we haven'ttried the regular ones (the tip-up ones) for a few months since she started with the straw kind. She took a while before finger foods really happened, and she's still not walking or talking at all, so I would feel incredibly disappointed in myself and worried for her confidence if she had to go to daycare.
It's a little different since I have a singleton versus your twins, but sometimes I wonder if she had more kids around her, and mostly older ones or those "ahead" of her with milestones is that maybe she will see their example and want to imitate them sooner. I would like her to be around more kids her own age sometimes for the socialization and modeling she would get from them.
I would voice your concerns to the daycare, and if you don't like their answers, go elsewhere.
good luck!
Hi Sahara78,
I didn't get a chance to express my concerns yet with the daycare director but did mention to the head caregiver in their class that we were still working on the table foods thing. We didn't get into too many details during the visit, but she said it wouldn't be a problem and that they would work with them. I think it's definitely something I will need to address again, though.
It's really hard to WAH with 2 little ones! Now that they're all over the place, it's pretty much impossible to get any work done.
Did it take long for your daughter to adjust to daycare?
Hi takmjs,
That's exactly how I feel - not only would I be disappointed in myself, but I'd also be worried for their confidence. We looked into getting a part time nanny (which would actually be cheaper than a lot of the daycares in our area), but I really do like the socialization they'd be getting from daycare. None of our friends have children yet, and they have no cousins or other family their age, so there's not a lot of opportunity for them to get that socializing and modeling from other kids. I plan on having a more in depth conversation with the daycare director next week and see what she says about my concerns.
I don't think I wrote this milestone down of when she mastered finger foods, but I would guess we started giving her small baby-food pieces (gerber puffs, freeze-dried yogurt, etc.) at about 11 months/9 months adjusted. I remember thinking when we gave her her birthday cupcake that she didn't know what to d with it because she wasn't used to this giant piece of food in front of her; she only does the tiny bites we give her. She picked the concept of finger foods up pretty easily (I loved watching her little fingers try to pick up food initially) once we started. We stayed with those treats for quite a while (a couple months) before moving on to more adult food, because we knew those were the easy-dissolving kind.
We would still do purees a lot partly bc I had bought a lot and we had so much in our cupboard we needed to use up, and partly because it was what she was used to. After she got pretty good at finger foods, she didn't want to be fed by a spoon any more. She now realizes some things are easier with a spoon (peas) and just have to be done that way (liquidy foods like applesauce or the spaghetti sauce), so she doesn't fight us too much.
Just a few weeks ago was when I went to my mom's house with my DD and we didn't bring any food with us. We are mostly letting her eat what we eat, or we'd make an easy substitute if it was something super-spicy or crunchy.
We just had a birth to 3 eval bc she's not talking or walking yet, and they gave us some good suggestions for those things (and she did qualify for their services with 30-40% delay). We've started sign language for a couple words, and we realized we feed her when we feel like she should be eating, so she hasn't had to tell us when she's hungry. They said she should be using utensils about this age--at least getting started with them. So it's been a challenge to get her to use the spoon, and they want her to try stabbing something with a baby fork and bringing it to her mouth, too. We haven't tried that yet, but probably in the next couple days. They also said she should be able to do the spout sippy cup by now.
Any other questions, let me know. Sorry so long!
I've been there. My D started daycare when she was 10m actual 7m adjusted. Developmentally she was pretty far behind her classmates. She wasn't even sitting up 100% of the time and the other kids were all crawling/cruising. Like you I was very nervous but we really didn't have any other options bc this was the only spot her school had open. I talked to her pedi and her developmental specialist. They both loved the idea of her going into a class with older kids. They said kids will "play to their level of competition". She quickly caught up with the other kids. Now she's 2.5 and you can't tell any difference between her and her peers.
GL! I know it's stressful.