[Pebbles2424]

Hi all, needing a bit of advice re some daycare issues.

My 6 mth old DS is starting 3 days per week at childcare early next month. Ive had the spot secured since October and have been sending him for a few hours at a time since then to get used to the place.

We have had a couple of hiccups lately and im not sure how best to approach them, and whether they are normal daycare hiccups or something i should be genuinely annoyed about (being new to the daycare thing im not really sure whats the norm and what isnt in a LDC).

Firstly, hes come home a couple of times recently with formula still left in the dispenser ive sent, when ive only sent one bottle to be made up...ie i send the water in the bottle and the formula in a dispenser, and formula is coming home...hence they are not mixing it up properly. Hes got some tummy issues as it is so im concerned about it not being made properly, and i thought fairly self explanatory if only one bottle and one portion of formula in a dispenser that you would use it all?

Ive written out his routine for them and asked a couple of times that they stick to it as best possible. Last week in particular they strayed from it alot...fed him bottles an hour earlier than they should have, solids an hour later, and didnt put him down for sleeps at the right time. Now hes not a good day sleeper at the best of times but ive worked very hard on this to get him to the point where he will self settle after a good 15 mins or so of winding down in his cot, he will occasionally need some patting but he will wind down on his own and fall asleep if i stick to the rough sleep times on his routine. I turned up to get him and rather than being put down for a sleep at 12.30, they had fed him solids at 1pm (an hour late) and then he had fallen asleep in his bouncer at 1.20pm for 20 minutes.So barely any sleep.

I have asked the girls how he has been settling to sleep there and they are still generally rocking him to sleep even though ive written on his rotuine sheet that he is not to be rocked to sleep if possible and the way that he will settle (in cot, with comforter, sometimes needing a pat).

He gets whingey when overtired and my guess is they are feeding him to shut him up, hence why the routine is off...rather than them taking a bit of extra time to get him to sleep or resettle after only 30 mins, they are feeding him up to shut him up.I turned up once and he was having his second bottle in 2 hours and he promptly threw it up everywhere, obviously because he wasnt hungry, he was sooky because he was tired and its like they dont know how to deal with that.

Am i expecting too much?I know they have 8-10 babies to look after and i dont expect that he gets copious amounts of attention and that they spend hours settling him. But this has happened a couple of times and last week it was on a quiet day with only 4 kids there, and i dont understand why they cant stick to the rough routine?Im also concerned about the bottles not being made up properly.

Not sure of best way to approach these issues, i feel like when i say things to the carers and the room leader it goes in one ear and out the other. I dont want to get them offside either. How do you address these types of issues?

[Natttmumm]

I found LCD tobe like this for under 2s. They seem to just get through the day doing their own thing. DD1 used to fall asleep in the high chair.
I would write an email to the director setting it all out. The sound sloppy.
I moved mine to family daycare until preschool age.

[laridae]

I'm surprised they are mixing the formula with water at all - most daycares require the bottles already made up and they put them in the fridge. You could do that, and you would know they are made up correctly then.


Not sticking to the routine - well, sometimes they just can't, they can try to get close, but you need to relax your expectations a little - they have lots of kids, all with different routines, and a limited amount of carers to do it. And things can be very different at a daycare centre, what works at home just sometimes doesn't work at daycare.

eg my DD woruld not sleep at daycare, at home I fed her to sleep, or sometimes she would self settle. At daycare, they first had to put her in a pram & rock it to get her to sleep, and eventually she would sleep in a wrapped in a cot. We didn't wrap at home at all.

I'd be leaving it a while, it will settle down to a routine eventually. It may not be the exact one you use at home, but it'll work. They are still learning about him.

[SlinkyMalinki]

I think you definitely have to have a word about not mixing the formula correctly. Can you make it up yourself first, to ensure it's given correctly?

I think staff in the babies room *try* to accommodate individual schedules, but I don't think in the day care environment, you can expect them to keep things going to the hour as you do at home.

[KRT]

If it were me, I would ask why there was formula left, and why they were settling him the way they were. I find that I get the best results when I ask their opinion of how things are going, and for suggestions on what they think might work better to get more sleep/better eating/more settled baby. If they weren't responsive to my questions, I would be far more concerned than if they just didn't do what I wanted.

However, I don't worry too much about differences in routine between daycare and home. DS has been in daycare 1 or 2 days a week since 4.5 months, and he has very different routines in each - but is happy with each. He sleeps pretty badly at daycare, and is often patted to sleep - while he gets much more sleep at home and invariably self-settles. I try not to doubt them too much, since I'm not in the room and can't see how DS is managing. I know there are days when our routine goes right out the window because of other things going on.

[Rainbow Brite]

Is FDC an option for you? 1 carer to 5 kids makes it a lot easier and your DS would get the attention he needs? It would be very hard to stick to a routine at a childcare centre with so many other children to attend too.

As a pp said, the centre does sound a little sloppy so I would have a chat to the director.

This post has been edited by Madam Plum: 20/01/2013, 09:12 AM

[bandbub]

it does sound a bit sloppy, i think given your sons young age you should look into family daycare

[liveworkplay]

I have been using daycare for 6 years. I must say that, although none of my kids had a strict routine ie they must be fed at x time and sleep y minutes later, daycare has generally gone with what the kids did. The formula thing needs to be addressed but, depending on how flexible the room routine is, you might have to give a little on the rest. I would certainly bring up that you feel he is being left overtired and see if he can be put to bed earlier.

From experience, babies/kids cope very well with different routines at daycare then at home. For example, long after I sat and patted my kids to sleep daycare was still doing it. However, they didn't require me to at home just because they did at daycare. A bit like my third having bottles of formula at daycare but fully breastfeeding at home.

In saying all that, we have been lucky that our centre does accommodate different routines for the under 2's all except for solids as food is prepared at a set time so there is only slight flexibility with that.

Daycare is never going to be an exact substitute for home so you, as the parent, need to work out what the really important point are eg bottles prepared correctly, putting to bed when tired and let the little things slide eg food at different time, different bedtime routine.

ETA: just a bit on the differences between daycare and home routines. DD1 was a catnapper. 45 minutes was the longest she had ever slept despite the hours of resettling I was (forced) to try. At daycare she slept for a good 2 hours each nap. When she moved up a room and they slept on pallets on the floor in the main room I was concered she would not sleep at all. She was usually the first to curl up and have a nap with the caos happily occurring around her. DD3 does not nap at home at all unless she falls asleep in the car. At daycare she takes herself off to the little sleeping nook (she is the youngest in the preschool room) and goes to sleep on her own, without a milk drink that she just has to have when tired at home.

This post has been edited by liveworkplay: 20/01/2013, 09:19 AM

[halcyodays]

I would be very worried about bottles being prepared incorrectly- this is worth bringing up with the director and insisting on it being done properly.
If they have been slack with the bottles, you may be right, they may not be doing what is best for your baby in terms of routine, but getting slack with it.
If there is a good explanation for the bottle issue, and they work quickly to rectify the problem, it may just be that your bubs is unsettled at daycare and they are doing the best that they can.

I also prefer FDC if possible for an under 2.

Where abouts are you located?

[namie]

I'd send the bottles already made up so you can be sure it's done right. I used to take milk for DS1 and put it straight in the fridge with all the other bottles.

I was lucky that both my boys routines were similar to the daycare routine with two sleeps a day and lunch in the middle but there is flexibility. The carers should be recognising when he is tired and getting him to sleep earlier if needed.

You'll find with time that he'll learn to recognise the different routines whether home or at daycare and he might even adapt his home one to suit the daycare one.