Daycare Dilemma

It is 3am and I am up obsessing about daycare.  We have finally gotten serious about looking for daycare for Cashew and it is frustrating and driving me a little insane.  Our ideal is 3 days a week at a home-based daycare for the spring and summer, with the plan to re-evaluate in the fall based in part on what the situation is with Nicholas' kindergarten options. 

The problem is that finding home daycare options is ridiculously tricky if you don't have a large network of people to use as references.  Most don't have much of an internet presence and there is no way other than visiting to sort out by quality because there are so few reviews.  I can find lists of everyone who is licensed in our town, but the idea of cold calling literally dozens of people makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry.

We do have one good recommendation, but she only does full time.  But full time there is cheaper than 3 days a week at a center.  So now I'm debating whether we just go full time.  But I don't want to go full time.  Part of the idea of 3 days a week was to save money, but it was also because I just wanted us to each have that one day a week with her.  And if we're paying for full time and have the option of full time, the chances of us just keeping her at home are slim to non-existent.  Because while I prioritize time with the kids over work in the abstract, when it comes to daily decisions, the pressure of work deadlines always ends up trumping in the short term.  That was the beauty of only having part-time childcare--I would create a structure that restricted my decisions to actually conform with my priorities.  Yes, it would be difficult to get the work done with a day at home, but let's be honest, I'm going to be working late into the night most nights and feeling hopelessly behind no matter how many hours of childcare I have, so I might as well also actually spend some time with my kids, right?

And so these options are playing through my head on an endless loop as I try to sleep, making it impossible to actually fall asleep.  I just feel trapped.

And in my internet reading as I sit here trying to distract myself enough that I can go back to sleep, I stumbled upon an article that was reviewing some of the studies on the effects of daycare and this was the last paragraph:
"In addition to collecting data on child care use and income and the like, researchers with the NICHD also asked mothers—both those who used day care and those who did not—questions about how they felt about day care. Should a mom stay home with their kids, they asked, or should she feel comfortable using group care and going back to work? When moms said it was better for mothers to stay home with their kids, and these mothers did stay home with their kids, their children fared very well. When moms felt that it is OK to work and put kids in child care, and these moms did work and put their kids in child care, their kids did great too. In other words, “when the mother’s choice was congruent with what she wanted and believed, children did well,” Burchinal says. What’s best for you, then, may well be what’s best for your kids, too." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/the-day-care-dilemma_n_3823594.html?utm_hp_ref=parents&ir=Parents)

This suggests that making sure to spend the one day at home with her for the first 6 months or so should be a priority for me, which makes sense because otherwise I will be wracked with guilt, especially since I had planned to spend that time at home and would be going back on it.  But do I have the self-discipline to do that if we're paying for full-time childcare?  Maybe writing it here will hold me accountable.

Nicholas has been happy in daycare and I've learned enough about myself over the last 4 years to know that I am a better mom with him in daycare (even if staying at home was a feasible financial option, which it isn't).  So I am not obsessing about whether to do daycare at all.  The question is whether there is a way to have it both ways.  I have many colleagues who do one day a week of childcare and this seems like a good compromise.  And when Nicholas started daycare he did part-time for the spring and summer as well, and it was a good balance for us.

Writing always brings me more clarity, and as I write this out it becomes increasingly clear to me that I need to pick a day to be home, even if it doesn't save us any money.  If we're paying for full-time, then that gives me flexibility on those weeks where everything collides.  And what Joe decides to do with his day then would be completely up to him.  If we manage to find a part-time option that actually is cheaper, then that is still ideal, but if nothing emerges in the next couple weeks, I am now leaning towards committing to the one good full-time option we have, which is the best financial option, and just relying on my will-power to force myself to make choices that actually align with my priorities.