nursery for babies

[clarinetplayer]

to tell my sister that she will miss out on many of the most important milestones in her baby's life if she sends her aged six months to nursery 5 days a week from 8am until 6pm. This is longer than a school day. My sister got very offended when I suggested that being looked after as part of a cohort of 8 babies by three carers was not ideal for her seven month old daughter. She doesn't need to work full time but loves her job and is worried that if she goes pt she'll miss out on promotion. Is it unreasonable to think that now she's a mum she should put her daughter's needs first?

Plus, if your sister then finds out that her choice is no longer the best one, she can always change her mind and try to reduce her hours. On the other hand, if she doesn't go back to work now, she might not have the choice to do that for quite a while. It is always easier to go back to a job you know, and then try to negotiate better hours if you decide that's better for your situation.

legallyblond - a SAHM is not automatically "best" for the baby Amen to that. And to the point that this is such a new phenomenon that it does my head in when people try and make out that it's a natural state of affairs.

I find babies dull. If children stayed as babies forever then there is no way I would have had children. I'm sure however my DC feel just as loved and cherished as yours do IHJL

I find babies pretty dull too, LB. But that's not my babies' problem, and my job is to be there for them even when I personally find it dull. Why? Because it's better for them.

Think we're going to have to agree to disagree then IHJL because if I'm miserable I'm not going to be a very good carer. And I think keeping a roof over our heads is as important

IHJL - you're talking absolute rubbish. A child being cared for outside the home does not believe that they are not loved and parents are not storing up problems for the future. You really do need to be a bit more accepting that other people childcare choices are equally as valid as your own.

I found both my babies to be quite interesting and engaging creatures...not dull I think dull is quite a harsh assessment of your child, although I did crave adult contact at times..

oh that's nice, I wonder how your DC will feel when you tell them how dull there were as a baby ?

I think the problem is, everyone knows that a parent/family or one single person (could be a nanny) looking after 1 child is best. It might not be right for you, but it's right for your baby.

This is why the back to worksmums are so furiously defending their position. And it's so boring, at least have the decency to admit it & get over it.

OP you are most certainly NOT BU. I think you are great for speaking your mind - respect.

I put my first DC into an 'institution' as someone described it earlier. A vile place...stinking of nappies, crap food, crying babies, snotty noses. Women literally throwing their howling babies in & rushing to the sanctuary of their offices. Yuk.

YABU

Have you offered to take care of your niece for her?

Perhaps you should.

If your sister was abusing or neglecting her baby you would have to intervene. Putting your baby in nursery doesn't count as either abuse or neglect.

Yes - it's a bit of a crappy life for baby compared to being at home, but that's just tough really.

Iheart, don't see how you are better for your babies if you find them dull. It's boring to be a martyr, for no reason.

Otherwise years from now you will be bitter you sacrificed your life for dcs whilst those reprobate WOHM mothers' dcs grow up to become well-adjusted adults and achieve the same, heck even more, than yours.

Fine to SAHM if you want to but don't kid yourself your product is necessarily going to be superior to WOHMs'.

I think it's a very difficult topic.

On the one hand I accept that its simplistic to say that SAHM care is always better than nursery care, or to make sweeping generalisations.

On the other hand I think it's unlikely that all childcare choices are equally "valid" and the "whatever you decide is best for your child, is best for them" argument. I think it likely that some choices will objectively be better for the child than others; it isn't all just relative.

That leads me on to the logical conclusion that, hard as it may be to contemplate, some parents must be making choices that are objectively worse for their babies than other parents.

Of course not everyone actually has a "choice" - for financial reasons, usually, choice is constrained.

I do think it is important to be able to debate it sensibly and, if there are types of arrangement that are objectively proven to be worse for children, we should know about it, rather than descend into a kind of woolly relativism and say that every choice is equally valid and equally good for children.

lovingthesun what totally unsubstantiated sweeping statements you make to support your position. And unsustainable too. So presumably you believe that in an ideal world there should be a gap of five years between children so that the care can be one to one. What happens if you have twins? Are they less cared for?

I don't have to defend my position by trying to undermine your choices, obviously you do feel the need to do just that for some reason.

"some SAHMs do not provide a good environment for their children"

True - children of inadequate, highly stressed or unloving parents are better off in good quality childcare.

However, most mums don't fall into this category. Thank goodness!

"Fine to SAHM if you want to but don't kid yourself your product is necessarily going to be superior to WOHMs'.

Quite - many of the children of the upper classes in this country, who've been bullied, buggered and thoroughly neglected at boarding school have gone on to become captains of industry. Just goes to show you don't have to be loving to children to ensure their professional and social success - just pour enough money into their education.

Bump I agree what is best for you as a mother is not always best for your child as an individual..its not easy..

lovingthesun

My mother (who worked outside the home) regularly tells me how boring she finds babies and small children - and no she doesn't necessarily exclude her own from this.

I don't feel remotely offended (I can completely see how the drudgery of looking after a small child can get boring) and we have a fab relationship. It just worked better for us as a family if she out-sourced some of the more drudgey aspects of childcare.

IsThatPorridge

You're right that children with siblings have to share their SAHM just as children at nursery share their keyworker.

But I do think it is a leap from that to saying that there is therefore no difference between the two, in terms of the childrens' experience.

At the end of the day, I just don't think you can get away from the fact that a keyworker at a nursery, while she may provide just as good physical care and activities as a mother (or even better, perhaps), and be very warm, at the end of the day she does not LOVE the children in the way that [the vast majority of] mothers do.

"some of the more drudgey aspects of childcare"

I think we'd ALL like to 'outsource' the drudgery that goes with being a SAHM, namely the endless round of washing, picking up clothes, bathing, cleaning, cooking and food shopping. But people whose children are in childcare still have to do all this stuff, unless they also employ a cleaner, housekeeper. What they are actually 'outsourcing' is talking to, cuddling and playing with their children, and comforting them when they're sad - for the bulk of their children's waking hours. Honestly - if you think talking to and playing with a child is 'drudgery' then you've got to ask, why have one?

"at the end of the day she does not LOVE the children in the way that [the vast majority of] mothers do."

And at the end of the day, if she's working in a nursery there's also a good chance that she's going to be being paid a piddling amount for caring for your child - certainly not a living wage, may well be a teenager and may well be very poorly educated. If I wanted my child to spend most of their waking hours with an uneducated, underpaid and very young woman I would have gone ahead and started reproducing at 17, instead of risking my fertility by waiting until I'd finished my education and had several years of professional work under my belt.

Can I outsource my toddler for a few months please?

...and my DH?

Gosh, a lot of nursery bashing going on here. I work in a nursery and i am not a teenager or of very low intelligence. In fact, I am studying for a degree and have just been awarded student of the year. All of my day is spent directly with the children, ok, I don't earn loads, doesn't mean I am not worth paying more though I don't want to be a manager either.
FWIW, I never had to put my babies in a nursery as I was a SAHM but realise that some people have no choice. I have seen many mothers sobbing their hearts out as they leave their babies, my heart goes out to them. I have only ever known one baby that didn't settle in a nursery and was taken out by his mother. He used to sob all day, in the end we had to tell mum that it just wasn't for him. Nobody wants to look after babies that cry all day and are unhappy. Luckily, most babies love nursery.

My DS's key worker carried on buying him birthday presents after she'd left the job. Does that sound to you like someone who didn't particularly care about him?

I'm glad some of you find babies endlessly engaging. You were the people I avoided when I had to go to mother and baby activities

I'm going to give myself a biscuit on this thread now seeing as yet more of you bizarrely bitter SAHMs have piled in to tell me what an utterly shit mother I am and have made exactly the same lame arguments that the first wave did.

Christ - what vile people some of you are. I really don't understand why you feel the need to attack people for making parenting decisions that don't in any way affect you (oh - except for subbing all your tax credits).

Yuck. I'm ashamed of you

Oh FGS. All I mean is that I don't find babies generally fascinating, and that there are some less than exciting bits to being at home with a baby who doesn't 'do' much. I am not saying that I'm a martyr, or that I am bringing up my children to think they're dull.

God, whatever you say on MN ends up being misinterpreted and misrepresented.

Lovingthesun: I agree.

'Sadly, basically all of these instances arise within a certain social democratic (i.e. the more under-privilaged sections of our society) but the mother is ALWAYS a SAHM. And my mother always recommends that the child go to nursery to get some better developmental skills!;

very true I work in a underpriviledged nursery and this is how we get all our referred children for speech therapy.

'I have only ever known one baby that didn't settle in a nursery and was taken out by his mother. He used to sob all day, in the end we had to tell mum that it just wasn't for him. Nobody wants to look after babies that cry all day and are unhappy. Luckily, most babies love nurser'

exactly if you have a happy, sociable, confident child they thrive in nursery.