Switching Centers - Second Guessing Decision

Our son just turned 1 and has been at his current licensed center since he was 6 months old. There have been a lot of changes since then and we decided to switch him. We actually already switched him once - his first center he was only there for 1 week and we promptly removed him for safety reasons. I'm starting to question myself if I'm expecting to much or if I'm being crazy here.

When we started at the current center, it was called a different name and was independently owned and operated. It then got purchased by another company and merged into their regional chain, which didn't bother me much because the director and all the teachers stayed the same and on top of that, the new company built a brand new center that opened shortly after. Then here comes the bad, the old director left, new director came, lasted about 2 weeks, then left, then we were in no director land for a while, and finally the current director joined. Things have been bad since, and 3 of the teachers we really liked also left since the current director joined. Communication has been awful - but that can be improved, but its been months without much change.

In addition, their enrollment numbers are so low, they don't have a toddler room, or a 2s or 3s room, right now its just our son (who is very mobile and walking) and two non-crawlers in the infant room. From there, the rest of the center is in the "preK room" but they have kids as young as 3 in there with kids as old as 5-6. So there's really just two rooms.

We did a trial day at another center and he went into the toddler room and he did great. I loved seeing him actually have kids his age to be around and each room (infant, toddlers, 2s, 3s, early prek and prek) were all PACKED. So he'll have a logical progression of age appropriate care.

I guess I'm second guessing because he always comes home happy, he is happy when he gets dropped off. I don't want to rock his world if we don't need to, but I can't help but feel like most people don't keep moving around and I'm second guessing myself. I worry that he's in the infant room with 2 non mobiles and essentially playing alone all day.

[Cat Herder]

It is a toss-up, IMHO.

12-month-olds don't really play with other children. They practice parallel play. The ratio of care he is getting now (1 to 3) would be the envy of the majority of parents with toddlers in centers. Many 12-month-olds spend their days trying to keep 15-month-olds off of them, at best, and two-year-olds off of them, at worst.

If you are concerned about what caused the previous staff to leave, that may be something worth investigating.

Thanks and that makes sense. He's definitively on the social side - so even if he's not playing I think he just like watching or being around them. During the trial day I popped in and watched from the camera in the lobby and he was just running around with similar ages kids and climbing up and down on the climbing gym. Same when I picked him up - so as you said, its a toss up and probably why I am second guessing myself.

[Mariposa]

Late to the post---but kids are very resilient and like a lot of surroundings.

They tend to hate drop off, but don't let that fool you! They tend to also hate being picked up, they're having so much fun.

They will like so many places, so on one hand, it would be good to ride it out with a provider that is going through rough patches if the child is physically safe---but what if they don't get out of the rough patch?

Centers will ALWAYS go through staff, very rare will you find the same staff I think. And it takes awhile for someone to find their footing--new teachers, new directors.