Answer:
I would seek a private home where your baby gets one on one care or a nanny who came into my home. Having been in charge of programming for Day Care centers I know how fast they turn over employees and I also know, that despite the cameras, that babies get ignored and can, sadly, be abused.
Child-care workers are not there to love your baby. That is not what they get paid to do.
A baby needs a lot of love. You can’t just give them love after work; they need it all day long.
Child care center workers are there to give children basic care in a kind way.
You might want your baby to get a lot of one on one time however, that will not happen as the ratio of babies to care-givers is higher than that.
So, do not expect your baby to get picked up right away when it cries, changed as often as you would like, or to be fed immediately when he/she is hungry. Care-givers can only feed one baby at a time. Change one baby at a time and hold one baby at a time. Your baby will learn to wait and that can make infants feel insecure as having their needs met as soon as possible teaches them to trust that their needs will be met. When that happens a baby grows secure and is less fussy.
I had to leave the industry as I could not take seeing all these young babies crying as they waited for their turn. A three-year-old can wait; a two-month-old should not have to.
Some people brag that their babies do not cry very much after being in a child-care center thining which means they have a “good baby”. But, that is not what it means. It means that the baby has learned that crying to get held, to be changed, to be played with, or to get their diaper changed did not work so they simply stop crying as much.
You see this happen with babies in foster care as well.
Do not think that just because a daycare center has cameras that your baby is not being called rude names you cannot hear or is being pinched where you can not see it. I am not trying to scare you I am telling you what goes on that they will not admit to. Part of the reason turnover of child care center employees is so high is that even though they screen potential workers some who are not good care-givers do get hired.
A study done has shown that parents, who were in child-care centers themselves as children, are now choosing to not put their children in such care. They are choosing for the mother (or the father) to be a stay-at-home parent that cares for their own baby. I find that interesting.
If you can stay home with your baby as long as you can. That way you imprint on your baby; not rotating strangers.
If you can’t do that then work opposite your husband’s schedule so one of you is almost always home with the baby. Perhaps a family member can watch the baby when both of you are not available.
Or, work part-time and spend as little time away from your baby as you can.
Babies are not little adults. They are babies. Babies learn from those who care for them the most.
If that is not you, then your baby is going to learn from others and you cannot stop that from happening.
If you choose a child-care center you have to hope their turnover rate is not high. They will tell you it is not but that is because they do not want any negatives to be known.
I can’t tell you what I would look for in a center as I would not be looking for one. The ones I worked for were expensive and still, there were problems.
My own daughters stayed home with their babies after seeing childcare centers from the inside out. One is a Realtor now; a job that allows her to make her own schedule and put her baby with family when she does need to work outside the home.
One thing I tell parents is to make up a worksheet where they list all the expenses that come with the mother working and the baby being in daycare.
Those expenses are everything from gas in her car, maintenance of her car, clothes, lunch-time meals, fast food meals for dinner, day-care costs, etc.
I tell them to take that number and subtract it from what the mother brings home, after taxes and any other deductions.
They take a look at that number so they can decide if the mother working, outside the home, makes sense financially.
I have seen women working and putting their baby in daycare while only bringing fifty dollars or less of added income to the family after expenses connected to her working are deducted.
I then advise those women to find something to do, from home, that pays.
I have seen some very creative women who work from home, with their baby and end up making more than they did at their office jobs.