Choosing the Right Caregiver

Choosing a person and place to care for your child when you are at work is one of the most difficult decisions to make as a parent. There are so many things to ask yourself and your caregiver before making the decision. The biggest question of all the questions you will ask is ‘Can this person love your child as their own?’ I believe this is the key ingredient to finding the right person. This applies to nannies, daycares, and Montessori care.

There are many other questions to ask regarding hours, pay, experience, references, education, etc. The answers to these questions can be good, but still not enough to make you feel comfortable if the answer to the biggest question is no. How do you know if someone is capable of loving your child as much as you do? Is it even possible? I can’t tell you if anyone else could possibly love your child as much as you do. A mother’s love is unlike anything else in the world, that’s no secret! I can tell you that there are people who have the ability to love someone else’s child unconditionally and with a passion. There are people who will treat your child with respect and be understanding of their struggles and frustrations. Finding someone who truly desires to aid in the healthy growth of your child and love them unconditionally is not easy.

How do we find these people? How do we know they will be compassionate and kind? Without cameras to record and report how your child’s day goes, it would seem there is no way to know. My best advice would be to spend as much time as possible with the person who will be caring for your child. Find out what their passions are, what their goals are, how they handle difficult situations, how they react to difficult children, and ask any other questions that would reveal their true nature and personality.

Feeling comfortable with your decision to work while your child is in someone else’s care is crucial to being a happy parent. Children sense when we are anxious or frustrated, especially if it involves people they are with a lot. So don’t be afraid to try people out before committing. Be picky, dig deep, you have the right. Think about how much research we do before buying a house or car. Isn’t childcare far more important? After choosing your caregiver, stay close. Keep in regular touch with her and remain updated with how your child and your caregiver are doing.

Being a working mom is becoming the norm and with that comes a huge demand for childcare. This of course brings people into the field who don’t necessarily want to be a full time childcare provider. Many children are put into these people’s hands. Chances are that these children will be relatively safe and given social interaction with other kids, but that might be all they get. I often wonder what the future of this generation will look like because of this.

Your child wants and will thrive best with a full time mother figure. Finding someone who can best replace you while you are away is the most ideal situation for your young child. Find someone who will cuddle, hold, and give affection to your child whenever needed, someone who will respond to your child’s needs in a positive way. Leave your child with someone who can answer ‘yes’ to the big question, “Can you love my child as your own?’

My Little Eden

I am only weeks away from one of the most bittersweet changes in my life. I am almost ready to start accepting infants and toddlers into my home daycare where I will be offering very personal and unique care. The bitter end of this change is that I will have to leave the beautiful little girl I have been taking care of since she was only six weeks old. She has a very special place in my heart and nothing about this transition will be easy. Thankfully, I am very close to her parents and they love her more than anything, so I certainly don't have to be worried about her. Regardless, my heart hurts just thinking about it.

On a brighter note, I am thrilled to finally be achieving one of my greatest goals! Years ago, when I thought that having my own children would be the only way to fill the gaping hole in my life, I came to discover that children of my own may not be physically possible. With this realization I learned how to love a child as my own. I began to experience deeper connections with the children I cared for, which made for incredibly rewarding relationships. I learned how to understand the language of an infant; but most of all I learned how important it is to listen to and respect children, of ALL ages. A seed was planted.

With these discoveries, I began to experiment and search for ways of helping children find their place in this world. For infants I use infant massage and gentle yoga moves to help them become strong and feel more connected and secure. Baby sign language is also an amazing way to reduce the frustration that little ones experience through their language barriers! I can't wait to continue seeing all the benefits that this produces in the children I will have in my daycare. For toddlers, I found ways to help them express their emotions in healthy ways as opposed to screaming and hitting. My discoveries continued to unfold over the years as I came to know and love more and more children.

This daycare was founded upon the idea of what I would want for my own children. I think about what I would look for in a caregiver and what I would want my child to experience while I was away. I would hope that the caregiver would love my child unconditionally, respect him, respond to his cries and coos, provide him with the best nutrition available, sing to him, take him for walks, and keep me completely informed of everything he goes through on a daily basis. To some parents this all seems impossible to find! Not anymore.

My Little Eden is a home away from home where children can feel at home and grow in a peaceful environment full of love, security, and happiness. To top off its benefits, I am making all the baby food from organic products and serving only organic foods to toddlers as well. This is what I would want for my child, so this is what I will give.

Wish me luck as I begin my search for children!

A Reliable and Untrustworthy Sitter

We’ve all done it a time or two, put our child in front of the television so we could get something done without a little one running between our legs or asking continuous questions while we are on the phone. It can be a reliable babysitter when you are about to pull your hair out. Reliable indeed, just one click away, but is it as trustworthy?

Have I done it? Have I stuck two toddlers in front of Noggin’s “Preschool on TV” so that I can feed the babies a bottle and some cereal? Sure have. Why? Turns out that I only have two legs that can fit approximately two and a half children on them if I’m feeling particularly flexible. A few years back my life was a whirlwind blur of managing a 2 month old, 5 month old, and two 2 year olds. How I managed to have them all on a routine that they came to rely upon is beyond me. I like to believe that I grew extra arms during that time of my life! Truth is, it was the happiest time of my life. Nothing was more rewarding than having those beautiful moments throughout the day when I could play a game with the toddlers while one baby was on my hip and the other in a jump-n-go, all happy and laughing. Still, I am human, and we caregivers can take advantage of anything that supplies us with a few extra minutes of peace.

Television is one of these peace-givers. I knew little about the effects that it had on children, especially under the age of three. All I knew is that it seemed harmless if it was educational and for short periods of time. When the children started begging for one more show after every show and being completely mesmerized by the commercials, I began to wonder what was really going through their minds when they were entranced by the television. The research I found was astonishing and scary at the same time. I’m sure you have heard it before, the warnings that link television to ADD and learning problems in school, it makes sense.

Think about it. Each show plays for up to 20 minutes and then commercials take over. Usually the commercials move at a pace that is even difficult for me to keep up with. A developing child’s mind is taking in an enormous amount of information at a ridiculously rapid pace when staring at the screen. The colors, sounds, language, and ideas come at them without so much as a two second pause. Let’s be honest with ourselves, it is a rare parent or caregiver indeed who actually sits with their toddler the whole time the TV is on in the hopes that if they explain to their child what they are viewing, then their minds can better process it. If this is the path you choose, then the Television is hardly a break for you, if anything it is just more work.

So, how do we get a break? Do we give into the babysitter that causes possible learning and social disorders? Here is my opinion on the matter now that I understand how important a child’s first three years of life are. Yes, the first three years are incredibly demanding and will drain you completely, but what a child’s mind is exposed to is crucial when they understand so little about life. If you need 30 minutes to get ready in the morning, why not put your little one in a pack n’ play with some books and puzzles? I think children that depend completely on people or electronics to provide them with constant entertainment and interaction are at risk of becoming intolerable people. Sounds harsh, but I have witnessed many children become exactly that, intolerable.

My generation built forts, read books, played make-believe in many different ways, and entertained themselves for hours on end with simple art supplies. A child who says they are bored probably didn’t learn at a young age how to think on their own. I am sure a lot of children still do all the fun and imaginative things I listed above, but how much of their day and mind is filled with time spent in front of something that they can’t touch or interact with? I am not going to pretend like it is easy to encourage children to find ways to entertain themselves; especially when they know that something or someone else can do it for them. But I am going to make the statement that it is necessary to start putting more trust in a pack n’ play for your baby or toddler than in the television.

Honestly, I am not going to tell a parent that they are being a bad parent because they let their small child watch TV. I don’t care if it is 30 minutes or 3 hours. I don’t care if it has commercials or not. I don’t care if it’s somehow teaching your child something. It is their child and therefore their responsibility. I don’t know what it’s like to be them, therefore I will not judge them. However, as a nanny, I cannot allow a child’s time to be spent in front of the television when I have nothing better to do except provide the children in my care with the best possible learning experiences based off of what current research and years of experience has taught me. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, but so are happy, intelligent, well-mannered children!

Just think about it.