Out of those, there were a couple that she liked, but you don't get to just say "I like this one, let's go there"! There's quite a bit involved. Considerations like location (you want it to be on the way for one of us for work), cost (though they are all EXPENSIVE!), set up, the teachers there, some of their philosophies - those all matter. Maybe you go through the process then decide getting a nanny makes more sense than daycare! But, if you go the daycare route, what makes this the most difficult is how you get "in" to a daycare you like. Most of them have a wait list - and that waitlist is different based on what month you want. There were 2 that we decided we really liked - they met all of our criteria and, most importantly, we'd be comfortable having our little guy spend his weekdays there. Out of those two, one of them had a guaranteed slot starting April 1st. The other, there was no guarantee - it just depended what other families ahead of you on the pecking order did!
So we signed up with a place in Lincoln Park that is on Charlie's way to work. Then, on April 1st, Katie dropped Brady off for the first time and began her job search in earnest.
Daycare has been a really good place for Brady. They have a couple of activities for the kids each day, and their meals are "catered" from Whole Foods - so its healthy and diverse. When Charlie picks him up each day, he's shocked at some of the options they've had - often better than whatever he had for lunch! And we love that Brady gets to play with other kids. Even at 8 months, that interaction seems like a good thing. The teachers tell us that he loves music day which is every Tuesday because they have a special teacher come in with an instrument and he gets really excited for it.
There were certainly some things to get used to. It's scary to see your first kid go off into "the real world" after he's been home for the first 7 months.
(from Katie) Getting out the door the very first morning was pretty hectic and good thing I wasn't working yet so I had the liberty of not getting myself ready for work yet (that juggle would come a few months later). Once we got to the daycare, I felt like I was probably more nervous than Brady. I had wrote out an hour by hour schedule that I gave his teachers and tried to tell them every little thing I could about my little boy like how he is not always good at naps but if you rock him in just the right position then he will fall asleep. He had seen some of our friends babies and always seemed to like the socialization so I knew Brady would like that part of daycare, but the naps seemed like the hardest part to get use to for me and him. I was use to cuddling him and laying him in his crib and he was use to his quiet (well sort of quiet ...we did live with the El in our back yard at the time) room with just his crib. Now he had to get use to a room with 12 cribs lined up in a row. After I left the daycare, I didn't quite know what to do with myself, I tried to keep myself busy with job searching and cleaning the house and Griffey was an excellent support dog...he was very excited to go on a walk without his baby brother who slows him down on his walks. And picking him up in the evening never felt so good, when I entered his room, he totally recognized me and got really excited for me to pick him up.
Plus, whenever a kid goes to daycare for the first time, he's going to get sick. And that means a lot! And when a kid is sick, he needs to stay home until 24 hours after his fever goes down. Because of that and a few travel days, we're guessing that Brady made it to daycare for just over half of the days we paid for in that first month. In hindsight, it was good he started when he did and Katie was job-hunting as opposed to actually working - that made some of those first days easier.
