Our little one is in a day care at mom’s work. We seem to be having some problems with what they say to the little one, and things they will just not do. Little Edwina just turned two so she does all the normal things two year olds do.
Yesterday she came home and said “No suck thumb.” Now I know that neither of us has ever told her she couldn’t suck her thumb, nor has anyone else in the family. She’s never been left with anyone except family and the day care center. This means either she’s made this up, or the day care has not been allowing her to suck her thumb. We have a problem with the day care telling her this as we allow it, and she does it mostly to fall asleep.
Another problem that we are having is that she’s showing interest in potty training, at least at home. She pees on the potty once or twice a day some days, and will ask for it. The day care has stated that she is to young and will not even try to start her. Though at 2.5 they will so other kids in her same room are using the potty.
We are having some other problems as well. She has a new teacher in her room that we were not told about. I’m not sure how much my wife knows about him, or even is she knows his name. She also comes home with the wrong diapers on a few times a week.
I’m sure there are other issues that I’m forgetting right now, but those are the two main ones. The thumb sucking I’m most upset about as at the age of two and the amount that she does causes no harm. Has anyone else’s day care done the same type of thing? Also feel free to share your day care stories.
That sounds like a problem. We have a great day care. They would never stop a kid from thumbsucking, especially if the parents said it was okay. Our daycare also will work with parents on potty training–coordinating it so that everyone is trying the same methods. 2.5 is definitely not too young.
As for the teacher thing, is it a regular or an afternoon person? The main teachers at our school are there from 7 in the morning to about 3, I think. If one of them is leaving, we hear about it right away. The afternoon people are really babysitters–we hear about them sometimes, but sometimes we just get a introduction to a newbie when we pick our kid up.
It sounds like your center isn’t great. I would be unhappy too. It may be time to look around for somewhere else. Once you’ve seen what you like and dislike about a place, it makes it easier to compare it with other centers. Our center is very cool about dealing with difficult personality types (my younger son is very stubborn), reluctant potty trainers, etc. We also have parent-teacher meetings twice a year to discuss things. I love my son’s preschool teacher–she’s fun and imaginative. The pre-K teacher is great too–my older son learned a lot with her.
You really should look around for someplace else–someplace that listens to you.
Day care is tough…there are a million different styles when it comes to raising children, which is essentially what the day care is doing, and you really have to find one that is in general agreement with the way you are raising your children. My major recommendation is not to use a workplace center because of its convenience. If it’s a good place, and their philosophies jibe with yours, then great. Otherwise, not worth it.
As far as the thumbsucking goes…have you or your wife talked to the caregivers about it? If not, how will they know that you allow it? I think it’s important to be very specific in regards to what you find acceptable and what you don’t, in terms of your child’s behavior. I would think that if it’s a behavior that is not hurting anyone else, that the center should be flexible about what they allow or teach your child.
On the other hand, there are some areas where you have to go with the flow and agree that they may do some things differently than you would, and pick your battles. The potty training thing is a good example. There is some evidence that they younger you start potty training, the more prolonged the process becomes. They may have observed this, and decided that their policy is not to start until the kid is a certain age, so they don’t have to spend a year working on it. The sort of “ugly truth” about daycare is that they have to kind of balance the needs of the many against the needs of the one. I don’t mean this in a bad way, necessarily…it’s merely a fact of life if your kid is not going to be home with you or your wife all the time.
Regarding the new employee…if this is a large daycare, I can’t expect that they would clear it with every parent before they hire someone. What your wife probably should do is ask about him, and maybe introduce herself to him. My daughter is in preschool, and sometimes I see a volunteer or part-timer who I’ve never seen before. As long as one of her regular teachers is around, I don’t worry about it. If I see the person regularly, I will introduce myself, so they know me and I know them.
I guess my overall advice to you is to get very involved with your day care…ask questions and be clear about what your expectations are. I wouldn’t recommend changing daycares necessarily…stability of caregivers is probably the most important thing at this age…but if you really can’t get on the same page, you might want to consider it.
I say this as the mom of two kids who went to daycare.
If you are going to let someone else take care of your children eight hours a day, they get to set up some rules. Potty training a bunch of small children is difficult - they have a system, let them use it. Don’t like their system, find a different daycare. They have a rule about thumb sucking - which given the challenges of watching a room full of toddlers - probably isn’t a bad rule (who knows where that thumb just was!) I guarentee you that if you were trying to break the thumb sucking habit at home and some other kid at daycare was not being corrected, you’d have the opposite issue - your kid would be saying “But Brianna gets to!”
(As a Mom, break the thumb sucking now - it will only get worse and harder to break. She will not just outgrow it and every day is reinforcing the habit).
The potty training thing - my daycare didn’t “potty train” - they made the potty available to two year olds who wanted to use it. So kids who said “I have to go” got to go, and when they went dependably, moved to underwear. But potty training a kid by putting them on every hour for five minutes, letting them run around in underwear and have accidents is a big job when you have one kid. With six or seven kids per adult, its an unrealistic expectation that they will use any method other than the peer pressure method.
Honestly? I’d sit down and have a talk with them. If my daycare told my 18 1/2 month old son that he wasn’t allowed to have his binky during naps, we’d have an issue. I have requested that unless his teeth are bothering him, he only gets it during naps, but I’m his mother and those are the kind of limits that should be up to me and his dad.
As far as the potty training, I personally think your daycare is dead-wrong. My son is kind of young, but he asks to go to the potty now, and has consistently peed on the potty at least once a day for the past four days (he went three times on Saturday). My daycare lets him sit on the potty if he asks (usually if he sees another kid going). So far, he hasn’t peed at daycare, but that’s okay - we just want him to have the opportunity if he asks. And they have no problem letting him - they’re trying to encourage it just like we do at home.
There’s a good window of opportunity between 18 months and around 2 years or a little older for potty-training IF they are showing interest, and it definitely sounds like she is. I wasn’t even going to attempt PTing until he was around 2 1/2, but he’s the one who started asking to use the potty and he is basically training himself. (I still don’t think he’ll be trained anytime soon, but hey, it’s still getting him used to it.)
Is there a director? If so, I would sit down with him/her and let them know of your concerns. We had one issue with a new teacher in the infant rooom before he moved up, and it wasn’t that I didn’t like her - she seemed very sweet - but when I dropped my son off one morning, it was a quiet morning and there was a new person in the infant room. Had it not been for one of his regular teachers arriving pretty quickly, I was very hesitant to leave him (although she was wearing a smock, we have a security system just to get in, and she knew my son’s name).
The only other thing I can think is maybe that another parent has asked the teachers to try to curb thumb-sucking in another child, and she overheard that? They do pick up everything.
I’m more or less with Ceejaytee on this one. Stability of care IS important, but making one change early on isn’t going to do that much harm. (And could do some good, if you get Edwina into a better facility.)
The thumbsucking thing would bug me too, and frankly even if it’s a large care center, if there’s a new employee in the charge of my child’s care, I would expect to at least be introduced to this person. It is a fairly big deal at my kids’ preschool/daycare when a new teacher shows up. We usually get little bios in the monthly newsletter when it happens - which is rare, by the way, as the place we use has low turnover - and an invitation to welcome the new person.
Personally, I’d probably start scouting out new places. It just sounds from the anecdotes you’ve provided that this place isn’t really that high-quality. I mean, not that it’s a horrible dungeon or will ruin your child or anything, but there are better places out there.
And for the record, I started my daughter (MiniWhatsit) in preschool at age 18 months, and they immediately started working on potty training with her. Not a huge push or anything, but they had a group “potty time” where everybody went into the little bathroom and had a go, and they were responsive to a child’s cues if they expressed the need to go, and so forth. Refusing to even attempt to work with a child on potty training until an arbitrary age cut-off seems odd and unhelpful to me.
Please don’t misunderstand me…I was not trying to imply that I agree with any of the daycare’s policies…I don’t know what they are or what their reasoning is. My point was that you need to find out what their policies are, and then decide if you can live with them or not. In some areas, there may be some compromise, and in others, maybe not. But if the parents haven’t even told the center their feelings about thumbsucking, then they need to start there.
ETA: Oh, and also that IF they decide to change, that they should probably make extra effort to be very very sure they have the right place, so that they and the child don’t have to go through this all over again.
This is how my daycare handles it. Everyone gets potty time at certain times of the day. If they want to try, fine, if not, that’s fine too. If a kid shows an interest earlier, than they accommodate that child. Some of the kids in my 3 year old’s class are potty trained completely (and many started in the 2 year old room), and some are still in diapers, and some, like my son, will pee in the potty, but only poop in diapers. They’ve never had difficulty even with 20 kids in the room.
If you’ve made your wishes known to your daycare and they refuse to follow along, it’s probably time to find another place. If you haven’t sat down with them yet to discuss it, you definitely should do that first.
You can’t be sure that it’s the daycare that’s telling her not to suck her thumb. Another kid might be telling her that only babies suck their thumbs, or some such thing. A kid is told that by her parents, so when she sees other kids doing it, she tells them that they aren’t “big kids”. I can see that happening.
I think the thing that would bother me most is the potty training issue; this is actually a challenge we face with our daycare as well, although they refuse to start potty training before age 2 instead of 2.5. I see their point and our son is 22 months and has started to potty train himself a bit, so the issue isn’t a big one since he’ll be moving to the 2-year-old room soon and his training will be reinforced. But still, it seems like it’s one of those self-care milestones that you really don’t want to delay if possible (of course, you don’t want to force it, either).
It would also bother me if I hadn’t had an opportunity to meet a new teacher. I like to know who’s taking care of my kid and I also want to know who to go to if I have questions or concerns.
The thumb sucking doesn’t bother me, probably because our little boy has never been a thumb sucker, so I’m not familiar with him comforting himself that way. Though I can certainly see the use it in, especially if it’s the difference between a good night’s sleep (or a much-needed nap) for everyone and no sleep for anyone.
Also, it may be a cultural thing - most of my husband’s family, who are Indian, strongly discourage finger and thumb sucking when their kids are babies. I asked my husband about it and he commented that everyone he knew in India with little ones strongly discouraged hands in the mouth as well. That doesn’t mean they should do the same to yours, but if it’s something that’s ingrained, that could be why.
As of right now I’m willing to say that there will be no change of Day Care for us. It is very convenient , and for the most part not that bad. There are mostly minor things, and things that I either don’t understand, or completely boggle my mind. I believe that the new teacher is supposed to be full time. What was strange about it was that my wife, who does 95% of the day care stuff, was never told anyone new would be there. Now extra help I can see not saying, but for someone who’s supposed to be new and a primary care giver I would think an email should go out in the least.
We are not sure yet about the thumb sucking. I know that she really doesn’t do it much, she doesn’t just stand around all day sucking her thumb. My wife also asked the same question on another board and was given a similar answer that maybe one of the other parents doesn’t want their child sucking their thumb so a blanket rule is set. She’s sick today so we haven’t talked to them as she only said something over the weekend.
As for the potty training, she’s in a room with kids from 2 to 3. Only at 2.5 do they start letting them use the potty. I can see not making her use it, but she asks to use it and I don’t want her upset because they tell her no. I would think that if she asks, like the older kids, they would take her, but only if she asks.
That would piss me off, especially if she’s in a mixed group. I’d ask why 2.5 since it appears that all the same facilities are available to all the kids - that seems like a really arbitrary rule.
Plus, how do they know which kids are what age if there are a lot of them? Do they keep a board that lets them know? The reason they don’t potty train in my son’s daycare under 2 years is that there simply aren’t the appropriate facilities downstairs - the sink’s too high, they don’t have a potty seat (not that they’re hard to install - the sink is the bigger problem), etc. However, I don’t know if I’d be able to tolerate having the facilities available but saying “sorry - can’t use 'em” based on an arbitrary age.
For me it wouldn’t be so much about whether my son’s feelings are hurt (I do care about those obviously), but about inhibiting his ability to take care of himself when he’s clearly ready to.
We also have a very good, close by daycare to our home and the people there are very good with our son, so I can see what you mean about convenienice - it’d have to be a huge issue to make us switch, though the potty training thing would probably be my threshold.
Thanks - this thread has reminded me I need to ask my kid’s daycare what their policy on potty training is. She’s not quite 18 months yet, I just want to be informed.
As for the thumb sucking, I know the teachers tease her a little about it (“oo - better get your security thumb”) but they’ve made no effort to break her of the habit. We haven’t either - I was a thumb sucker til 4 or so, and I don’t think it harmed me :). She does it when tired or upset - it’s certainly not an all the time thing. I wouldn’t be happy if the daycare starting trying to break her of the habit without telling me - that’s for sure.
I haven’t read all of the responses yet. I will once I post this so I don’t forget what I wanted to post so if I repeat anything someone else has already pointed out I apologize.
I own a daycare in Texas. The first thing you should do is search google for department of family and regulatory services. Each state has its own website. On there you will find the minimum standards and regulations all daycares in that state have to follow in order to be licensed. This lists all of the rules we have to follow. You will also find a parents guide to daycare and can search your daycare to see what infractions they have had. There is very good information here that can help you. Unfortunately, all of the files are in .pdf form. You can also get contact numbers for DFPS if you want to ask a licensing agent questions.
In my daycare we’ve never had a child who sucked her thumb. If we did and the parents allowed it we wouldn’t go against that. We would, however, have to discourage other children from doing it if they picked up the habit and their parents didn’t like it. A child care center should always work in conjunction with the parents. This is your child and should be raised how you deem fit. We are only here to help.
As for the wrong diapers, sometimes mistakes happen. However, if it’s this frequent then something needs to change. In my center we write the children’s names on all of their diapers/pull-ups. That way when we change the children we know we are getting the right ones. A lot of our clients use the exact same brand of diapers/pull-ups and look identical so it would be easy to confuse them. Talk to the director about this problem and suggest they label the diapers. If the director refuses then you know there is a problem. Alternately, you could write your child’s name on each one yourself.
We don’t potty train children until we discuss it with the parents. Over the years we’ve learned that in order for the child to be successful we all have to work together. Two years old is not too young to start potty training. It all depends on the child. Some are ready at that age, some aren’t. What we do is try it for a week or two. If the child seems distressed or not interested then we stop and try again in a month. Each step is discussed with the parents and we give daily progress reports.
My center is small so we have had the same staff since we opened 8 years ago. We do have volunteers from the local university every summer and we do introduce those people to each parent. Usually it’s an informal introduction giving the person’s name, a little background, and reason for volunteering when a child is dropped off/picked up.
If you talk to the director about your concerns and she/he seems at all offended or has an attitude it’s time to find a new daycare.
As another mom, I disagree. You can bank on the fact that she will not be sucking her thumb when she graduates from high school. In my experience, soon enough they are busy with other things and forget about it unless they are tired, sick, etc. , in which case a little extra comfort doesn’t kill anyone. I’ve seen cases in which the parent proudly announced that they had successfully gotten the child to stop sucking her thumb, only to add, “Now, if only I could get her out of biting her nails…” My mom told a story about a gentleman on a train who took it upon himself to tell my older sister, who was about 2 at the time, to stop sucking her thumb. Mom said “It’s her thumb and she can suck on it if she wants to,” and stared pointedly at the huge cigar he was chomping on.
My son never sucked his thumb, but his daycare had somewhat strict rules they tried to get all of the children to stick to in an attempt to develop sanitary habits: hand washing at appropriate times, covering coughs with your arm and never your hand, and washing hands if they went in the mouth. I think it makes sense, having a child suck on fingers and then pick up a shared toy is a great way to spread germs and should probably be discouraged.
I don’t see the harm in the daycare discouraging your child from sucking her thumb. It’s not such a great habit. But, the person who said it might be another child who is telling her that might be correct. When my son was small he used a binky a LOT. When he moved up to the next room at his daycare when he was 2, an almost three year old stared at him like he was the biggest freak in the sideshow for using a binky. I felt bad for my son, but happy too because it made him stop using the binky at daycare. And, at that age, he didn’t feel like crap about it; I just said the other boy was surprised to see him using it since he was so big.
A few years later one of the daycare teachers told him he couldn’t marry his friend Michael because God only wants men and women to marry, not two men(meanwhile, these two “men” were 4 1/2). It was a Baptist daycare. I called the director to complain. It got me nowhere.
The biggest worry for me would be that your wife hadn’t been introduced to the new teacher. As for the others…you’ve chosen to outsource a lot of the day-to-day scutwork of child rearing. If you’re going to do that, it seems like you have to relinquish some control over those day-to-day details, especially since you’re not willing to switch centers. If your kid is safe, happy and properly stimulated, that counts for a lot.
As a mom who’s always worked full-time and believes that there is something normal and sound about little children being cared for communally - in other words, NOT a SAHM who looks down at daycare - I agree with what burundi says.
