So, you finally found the perfect daycare center. The teachers are great and your child wakes up every morning happy to go see them! Congratulations, you\u2019ve come a long way!<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s one last big question: how much child care is OK? Is full-time daycare a good idea? Should I really be leaving him there all day?<\/p>\n
Excellent question!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The science is not so helpful when it comes to making a definitive conclusion (see our previous post \u201cIs Daycare Bad for Kids<\/a>?\u201d.) There are studies saying that full time child care has negative consequences and some studies saying that children make better developmental progress from being around other children in a daycare or preschool environment.<\/p>\n How to make sense of it all, especially if full-time daycare<\/a>\u00a0is the only real option (e.g. if both you and your spouse work)? Here are three simple ways to approach the issue:<\/p>\n 1. Make sure the care is good.<\/strong><\/p>\n This one is a no-brainer! All bets are off if the home daycare or child care center is not a good fit for your child. Even part-time care will be too much if she doesn\u2019t like it. Wondering what is a good daycare? Check out our post on how to know what high quality child care looks like<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2. If you don\u2019t work, experiment to find the right schedule.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you don\u2019t work or work part-time, try introducing daycare gradually, a few hours at a time. Your child will most definitely benefit from interacting with other children. If it\u2019s high-quality care and it works for you and your child, there is no reason with you shouldn\u2019t increase the schedule to full-time.<\/p>\n 3. If you work, try<\/em> to be flexible.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you work, it may not be possible to take such a flexible approach to find the right amount of child care. You are not alone. In fact, work-life balance might be the socioeconomic \u201chot button\u201d of this century. White House statistics from 2014<\/a> suggest that 60% of all families have both parents employed (one parent in the case of a single-parent family). That\u2019s up a full 20% from 1965.<\/p>\n So what can you do? Try your best. You can try to negotiate a more flexible schedule, for example, while your child is getting used to a new preschool. Hopefully the adjustment phase will only be a week or two. Ultimately, though, this call is a tough one to make.<\/p>\n Can you share your <\/em>experience with asking your boss for more flexibility? Any other tips for striking a work-life balance? <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, you finally found the perfect daycare center. The teachers are great and your child wakes up every morning happy to go see them! Congratulations, you\u2019ve come a long way! But there\u2019s one last big question: how much child care is OK? Is full-time daycare a good idea? Should I really be leaving him there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[261,260,51],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\t\n