r/workingmoms • u/somethyme42 • Jan 09 '25
Daycare Question Is all infant daycare this depressing?
Just started my 4.5 month old at our local KinderCare center on Monday, and I'm not feeling great about it. She seems to be doing fine and has started napping and eating well at daycare per the app updates, but every time I drop her off the infant room just seems so... depressing. There are 2 teachers to 11 infants and there are always 3-4 infants crying on the floor or in their crib when I get there. 1 teacher is usually feeding somebody while the other is trying to attend to a crying kids. I feel sick leaving my daughter on the floor there.
Our state's ratio is 2 to 11 and basically all the daycares I toured had these numbers, so I felt like it didn't matter that I went with the cheaper daycare over the more expensive Emilio Reggia place nearby. But now I feel kind of terrible about it.
I'm in medical school so my schedule is unpredictable and my husband works. Currently feeling like garbage because all my classmates who have kids are men with stay at home wives who don't have to worry about this. My mom was a SAHM and has no advice to offer. We're moving in 6 months for my medical residency so we'll be switching centers but I'm worried we made the wrong choice.
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u/ConfidenceMinute9179 Jan 09 '25
I used to work at a daycare in the infant room in FL. The ratios were 2 to 8 which definitely seems like the max. We cared for the babies like they were our own but there was definitely usually 1 baby crying at any given time. When crying is the only way to communicate and all babies are on different schedules, it’s just unavoidable. However I will say we had a pretty good spread of ages from 3mo to 12mo (with older babies generally crying less).
I think 11 is way too many. For a week once we had 13-14 and had a third teacher in the room for that but it was utter CHAOS. I would really urge you to consider an in home daycare if it’s available.
Another thing to keep in mind is that babies cry more around pickup and dropoff times. We had some babies that would cry the second their mom walked in but were fine for an hour before, lol. Maybe stop by around lunch one day when the lights are off (if they do that). I promise you it’s probably not like you see in the morning all day long- no one would work under those conditions!