Originally Posted by Unregistered:
Pfft......really? You know them best? The majority of children in daycare spend at least 40 WAKING hours a week in the care of the provider. If you do the math that is more awake time than with any other caretaker - parents included. Most kids are lucky to spend 4 waking hours a weekday with their parents. Add in the time they spend with grandparents or teenage babysitters on the weekends and yes, it is unequivocably a fact that most kids in daycare actually have a DAYCARE PROVIDER who knows them best.
Sorry, but just because you gave birth to someone does NOT mean you know them best. Besides, daycare providers KNOW children. The average daycare provider, if having provided care for only five years, with five children in care (on average) has over 65,000 WAKING hours of experience caring for children. Find me ANY parent who can claim that who has a toddler. And parents think they "know their child the best". No, isn't so. Parents just don't want to hear the cold, hard truth........getting your child to bed at night isn't about lack of fatigue - it's about LACK OF PARENTING.
Now, be a parent and do what you need to do to get your child to bed and stop making your dcprovider the scapegoat for your inadequacies as a parent.
Ha! So true! I only had a provider TWO days per week for 3 hours per day when I went to work. She had (at the time) 27 years experience. I was a second time mom to my first boy and my first VERY VERY sick child. He went to daycare that morning fine, played,and suddenly became very fussy, unlike himself, not wanting to nap, nothing. He was 3 months old so we KNEW that this is not normal. She calls me and I was there within the 1/2 hour and my son was blue and burning up. She said "He needs an ER now, I think it could be RSV, I was about to call an ambulance, but he is crying" So 2 minutes down the road I take him to the ER, and she hit the nail RIGHT on the head! My son was hospitalized with RSV!
This woman, while she wasn't around MY Child every single day, she knew enough about children, illnesses, etc and had enough experience that me, the newer mom didn't have, and she saved my son's life.
I would NEVER dis-count anything a good provider tells me about my children with an attitude of I know my kid best and shoop on them! Never.