Daycare to socialize, playgroups and all types of kindergartens are definitely the places you should not skip looking up, or at the very least partly enrolling your baby to one of them. The separation between the parent and the baby is inevitable. It comes along in life whether the baby is less than a year old, or an active toddler of two or three years old who will be aware of the parent’s absence. Especially for young parents, considering infant daycare is especially challenging. Extreme concern in the face of leaving your most precious little person in the hands of a stranger is common, and you should not feel bad about it. But considering daycare to socialize your precious is beneficial. Surrounded by their peers, children are always tend to socialize and communicate more. You may also want to look at the benefits of teaching nursery rhymes to your child to see how they develop easily.
While doing the first information haul on the closest daycare units in your neighborhood, you may ask for others’ experiences, check reviews and try to analyze the managers of the units, and learn which daycare infant activities they offer. But none of these researches will give you a clearance on the question on how you will leave your child without your supervision, for so many hours. However, you will just arrive at the point where it will have to be done or you will receive a call from your company about your maternity leave: it has just finished, so there is not much of a choice. As a parent you will convince yourself that your baby will have the best possible care, best caretakers, that they will get some new skills and furthermore, many chances to socialize with their peers! And this train of thought is absolutely correct. Just that, at least in some ways your experience too will be special and unique. This could be frightening and you could feel alienated, but every parent and child experiences this process in their own ways, however similar it might look to that of others’.
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Is It Really Better for Your Baby to Start Daycare?
A very clear and straight answer is “yes!”.
Taking many details in consideration, pointing to the negative sides as well, the answer has stayed unchanged for years. Daycare as a term, however, is in closer proximity to the western cultures where it has been present for much longer than in some Asian or Middle-Eastern countries. Some cultures highly look for support from elder family members to attend to the baby’s every need while the parents are busy at work. But many surveys have proved that even the best attention that comes from grandparents to your little ones can not always match the professional service and a well-organized daily routine for infants in daycare.
Many parents, at some point, will probably feel regret if they have to place their child in the hands of others extremely early. You might wonder what age is daycare appropriate for your infant. If the condition allows, it is recommended for at least one of the parents to stay close to their newborn during the first six months. Most daycare services in the USA keep the rule of accepting babies that are at least two months old to their daycare, although in some cases evensix weeks old babiescan be left at the daycare for half a day. Even if it does not make full sense that daycares are always good for the kids, some parents stay obliged to take this step simply not to lose their job, so that they can afford to pay credits, mortgage and other living expenses. Smaller babies may not show signs of anxiety or any clear distress after they stay away from the parent, but babies who reach eight months and older start to feel the parent’s absence and they look around and search for them.
For parents who don’t have full time jobs, even if it’s advised from a pediatrician or even a speech therapist, enrolling the child to some kind of daycare might come off as a bit illogical. Afterall, they have the time to spare and they could be just taking care of the little one themselves. But those parents too, should keep in mind that professionals at infant daycare services possess intricate knowledge on how to provide the ideal care that will help your baby develop in the best way possible.
When Is the Best Time to Start Daycare?
Kids often start to feel excluded or at least a bit neglected by their parents after they reach around one and a half years old. It gets exhausting for parents to follow each step of an intuitive child who never gets tired. Those kids also feel the need for interaction with their peers, and in cases of single children, especially of families that live in flats alone, this kind of environment becomes dull for the kid.
At the same pace as grown-ups and children, infants also need some sort of change, some new colors, some new vibes. These can be easily found at the infant daycare. As a parent you may ask yourself what the outcome of your infant attending the daycare will be, will they get any smarter, will the daycare provide good ground for continuation of their education and so on. Then you will be astonished when you get to know that some bigger change doesn’t happen overnight and realize that most probably the best thing related to the whole daycare concept is, when they grow up, your child does not cry when you drop them off in the morning. They will have already started to manage on their own as a person. Even if they still had a supervisor around, the reliance level was not the same as it would be with the parents.
What Are the Most Common Disadvantages of Daycare?
With the services mentioned above, there are few disadvantages worth mentioning as well. One of the first things on the list of disadvantages is the possibility of illness. All children, no matter their age, usually after spending the first one or two weeks in a daycare facility face viral or bacterial infections. Babies’ immune systems are not as strong as an adult’s, and they are not completely ready to face all outdoor factors. At the infant daycare, they become exposed to slightly increased numbers of bacilli and parasites present on toys and floors. It takes weeks for the little ones to adjust to this new, let’s say, ecosystem and this period of disease may be turbulent for both sides: both the daycare and the parents. Sometimes, if the groups separated in the infant daycare are relatively more crowded, there is less chance for individual attention. No one’s needs are placed at the first place as it would be at home. At home, you may also present mind developing toys for your children of 3 or any other age, and keep them interested.
Daycare and Socialization
The central point of placing the baby to the infant daycare is the matter of socialization and cognitive skills development. You might wonder: is daycare necessary for socialization?
At some point, it was found that the babies who were born prior to Covid-19 and have skipped much of social interaction quests during the early stages of their lives have shown tendencies to be more shy, scared and reserved in their childhood. After a long time spent without exposure to anyone else besides the parents, it was hard for them to adjust even to their grandparents.
Common visits of family friends were also unexpectedly distressing. It is obvious that even the littlest, youngest human beings live in constant need to form some sort of connection. And the parents, since they pose as a comfort zone in most cases, do not pose social challenges for these little ones to improve. At the daycare, babies learn to share, be patient, wait for their turn and most importantly: they start developing a sense of empathy. All of these are acquired thanks to challenges. It might sound cruel to willingly subject them to hardships, but you should remember that a good infant daycare offers controlled environments with the help of professionals. Depending on the cost and the numbers of babies enrolled in the centers, all the infant daycares usually provide similar services that revolve around; inclusion, encouraging positive behavior, active play, singing songs and reading story books, urging babies to have positive and consensual physical contact with other group members, and asking them questions. For the kids of age 0-3, daycares offer the best groundwork to stay in touch with other humans outside the family circle. At an infant daycare, babies learn to share, to be more individual, to sort out role models of good behavior and through all this, they learn to socialize.
In Which Ways Does Socialization Happen for Babies at the Daycare Units?
Socialization for the babies in the simplest possible ways – through group play, sitting close to one another, having meal time together and comprehending small things together in their shared little environment. Even playing is not the same at home as it is in the daycare. Building long lines, rails or blocks together gives children a chance to participate in activity with others and to feel useful. Feeling useful and included means socialization took its place, and through the socialization many other positive feelings come on surface as well.