I wish I had known just how amazing the childcare industry was before my daughter was born. Like most families we spoke with, my wife and I agonised a lot over decisions around childcare. While I don’t think we were particularly over-protective, the idea of leaving our little girl with strangers (or anyone) other than us before she was six months old was pretty frightening. Even knowing that my wife had to return to work, there was still much handwringing wondering about how our daughter would cope. But it had to happen, so the best we could do was try to put those fears aside for the moment- as there was plenty more to stress about and other questions to answer first. How many days of childcare would we start with? Which centre did we like the best and would anywhere even have room? I had heard a mixture of stories about the demand for childcare and the difficulties of actually getting accepted, with one parent recommending that we try to have it sorted before Hannah was born. We didn’t do that, but we did start looking around and putting in applications months ahead of time.
I’m not sure how effective that was, as none of the centres could guarantee a place that far ahead anyway, so we were told we would be contacted about six weeks before our intended start date if there was an availability. A month or two of nervous waiting went by. My worries about Hannah coping in childcare itself had been ameliorated after visiting a number of centres and being surprised and impressed with what I had seen. Now these worries were almost entirely replaced by worries of whether we could secure a place somewhere and what we would have to do if there were no availabilities. I needn’t have worried. A number of the centres we applied to came back to us with availability so our next big question was which centre to choose. As you can probably guess, we once again over-analysed this decision massively before finally enrolling at a centre called Goodstart, Blackman’s Bay. Cue a return to six weeks of worrying about whether our daughter was old enough to start and how was she going to cope? In the final weeks leading up her start we went in for a number of transition visits, which were encouraging. The staff there were wonderful and our little girl adapted to being away from her parents quicker than we did! But would she sleep in an unfamiliar room? Would she be distressed if she woke up and we weren’t there? Our worries continued up until her first full day. Unnecessarily. The two key educators in Learning Space 1 were Erin and Jenny and they were truly amazing. Hannah bonded with them immediately and loved her time at the centre from the start. It took a little while for her to learn to sleep in a different and noisier environment, but nothing like what I had worried about. I was both surprised and impressed with how the staff could be both so nurturing and professional at the same time. More importantly though, Hannah was enjoying her time there. Photos and stories about their activities on Storypark showed a happy baby engaged in a range of interesting activities. The effects of interaction with other young children also became quickly apparent in the development of her confidence and curiosity towards other children. For a few wonderful months we stopped worrying about childcare at all. I would drop Hannah off on the way to work, Erin would give her a hug and there was rarely even a noise of protest as I left. But then it was time for another tough decision. The logistics of getting to work on time after a childcare drop off in Blackman’s Bay were proving to be more challenging than we had hoped and at the end of the year a place became available at Goodstart, West Hobart- another centre that we had really liked, but one that opened earlier and was closer to work. With Hannah thriving where she was, we didn’t really want to move her, but we weren’t sure how long the current situation could work for, especially as we increased her days of childcare. We talked round in circles for weeks. We reasoned that, as well as she was doing at the time, at some point, we would need to move her so it may as well be now. But we were far from comfortable with the decision. In accordance with a recurring theme of this story, we worried far more than we should have. On her first day, Hannah met her new key educator, Amanda, and was immediately happy there. By now, we were up to three days care a week and apart from a short protest, she never cried when I dropped her off and was always happily playing when I came to pick her up. Picking her up actually became one the highlights of my day. I would wait near the door and watch her play for a while, until she would notice me and crawl over with a big smile. As Hannah approaches her first birthday, I’m finally learning not to worry so much about how she will cope with changes at childcare. Last month it was recommended that my little girl start transitioning out of Learning Space 1 and into the next room with bigger kids. Part of me couldn’t help but worry that she would miss the people who had made her feel so comfortable in Learning Space 1, but I also know my daughter is probably braver than me and the wonderful professionals at her childcare centre will ensure she is well cared for, happy and engaged. I know all children are different, but I honestly couldn’t speak more highly of the experiences we have had with all the staff of both childcare centres and with Hannah’s experience overall. And importantly, most of the parents I have spoken to about the subject have said the same thing, irrespective of who they have used for childcare. To any new parents out there agonising over whether your child will cope without you at childcare, you can relax a little. They will most likely be in good hands and have a wonderful time.
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Dad thoughtsI haven’t had much chance to write much over the last couple of weeks. This has largely been to do with the birth of my daughter, which has had a profound impact on my life. As a corollary of this, a fair amount of my thoughts and observations may shift to the new topic of parenthood. I’m not planning on stealing from Sonia Kruger’s playbook and use the phrase, “as a parent,’ to make claims with no factual basis, but parenthood is a complex and fascinating area so I will be making a few comments about my experience of it. Archives
October 2020
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