Maternity Leave Ending Soon - Daycare Stressing You Out? Here Is What I Did.

As my 2nd maternity leave draws to an end, I can honestly say I'm am okay with returning to work. I like my job. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be a stay/work at home Mom for the next few years, until my children are n school full-time and a little bit older. But, Im not andI can't.I would have loved if either my Mother or my Mother In Law could watch the kids for the next few years, but again.. that is just not possible. The other reason that I am not stressed about returning to work is that I am beyond happy and comfortable with the child care that I have for both my children. Getting to that point wasn't easy. Here is how I did it.

As a first time Mom, I didn't know that in order to secure a place in daycare for your child in Toronto, you would pretty much have to be scoping them out and placing yourself on a wait list even before you actually give birth. Daycare is a hot commodities and you have be on the ball, especially for the more popular ones. Its not a bad idea to start early, that way you can see as many as you want and really take your time checking them out. But for many of you reading this blog, you don't have that much time left.

I was about half way through my maternity leave when it hit me, I was going back to work and I had no one to look after my son. I didn't know where to begin nor what to expect. So, I started my search with the City of Toronto website (http://www.toronto.ca/children/childcare.htm). On this site, I was able to obtain a list of all daycares in the city. Once I did that, I started calling and making appointments to seem them.

Note: If you don't live in Toronto, you should check with your city to see if they offer such a service that lists out all the child care facilities in your city, town, etc.

I won't lie to you. I saw some that were fabulous, but with a 2 year wait list and no guarantees. Then there were others that I saw and I left them crying because of the standard of care or lack of I should say. Babies sitting in corners bawling their heads off and daycare staff not phased at all, sitting down at a table chatting amongst themselves. I am not lying to you. I was now a month away from returning to work and I was petrified of what I was going to do with him and who was going to look after him.

We thought about getting a nanny, but a live in one was not an option since we were living in a 1 + bedroom apartment that was barely big enough for us, let alone someone else. I live out nanny at the time would cost about 2000$ a month. That is pretty pricey when there is only one child that needs to be looked after.

My option were limited at this time.

I started to consider Montessori Schools as well. I didn't get too much into my research of them when friends of our suggested a home daycare that they knew of. They had 2 sets of family friends who sent their kids there and the care was fantastic.

I loved it. I loved the providers the moment that I saw them and it was perfect. There was only a handful of children there, home cooked healthy meals (better than the alphagetti out of a can, I saw the babies being served at one of the daycares I saw). Most importantly, they were loved.

I can honestly tell you that I have never regretted my choice and that my son has never come home complaining about the providers or his care. He is very happy there. I have been off work for almost a year and for 3/4 of the year he continued to go there. He likes it there. He has his friends and his routine. I didn't want to change that on him, so I kept him in daycare full time for half the year and then part time until this past Decemeber. He is now home with me full time until March. I wanted to keep him home the last bit of my maternity leave in order to spend some good qaulity time with him and his sister. Im not planning on having any more kids, I won't have a chance to be home and spend this time with him. He is 3 now and in the fall he will be starting kindergarten and still going to the home based daycare for the 2nd part of the day. My daughter will be joining him in March when I return to work again.

So, just remember there are plenty of options. Daycare, Montessori, home-based daycares. Again for those of you in the GTA. Wee Watch is a great program that helps parents like us find home based daycares for children. They are also help you set up your own home daycare business.

Here are some great articles and resources (these are just some that I like, there are plenty more for you to find on the web):

http://www.casadimir.org/montessoriphilosophy.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori
http://www.weewatch.com/
http://www.toronto.ca/children/childcare.htm

Just be persistent and don't let the odd few unfavourable places get you down. You will find care that you are happy with.