36w5d - Daycare Decisions!

Hubby-poo and I have narrowed it down to 2 places. One is a regular day care that is across the street from work, and one Montessori school which is about 15 minutes away from work but only 10 minutes from home (it does add a few miles per day of commuting, and about 5-10 each way).

Price-wise, they are nearly identical. The Montessori is actually cheaper when you only consider tuition. But it does have a higher application fee (quite significantly, actually) and a few other fees which I am not sure are annual or one-time. And the extra mileage adds up. But the grand total between the two is really noise.

The standard day care closes at 5:30. If you are late, it’s like an extra dollar per minute. Yes, it’s across the street, but we are on one major office campus and it is on another, and there is a whole security process, so I don’t know what that means in terms of when we would need to leave. The Montessori closes at 6, and if we are running late we are to call. No added fees or anything crazy like that.

Montessori has a 3:1 baby:teacher ratio. Standard has 4:1.

It seems like the Montessori school would be a better move from an educational standpoint in the sense that our daughter would start learning things. She would get to wander into the toddler room as soon as she was able to wander into it. There are music classes. She would learn Spanish. She would get to start a garden. If she stays through kindergarten, she will learn fairly advanced math (multiplication and division). But it will all be taught in the Montessori style, which is very much specified to the individual needs of the child. I don’t want to have a kid who can’t adapt to the real world because, let’s face it, the real world does not cater to individual needs. I don’t want to set her up for failure in the end, or create a person who makes excuses and blames teachers the rest of her life. One thing that Montessori does teach is independence, so they will do cooking / baking on their own, learn how to wash their hands as well as dishes and windows, clean up after themselves, etc.

The standard day care also had things they taught, just not to the same extent. They also did gardening. They also have the nicest outdoor play area that we have seen so far. There is a covered part and an open part, so they can play outside even when it’s raining out (Montessori had one, too, but it was more of a covered patio). It seemed like there was a whole lot more playing, which is appropriate for children. But it still seemed like there was plenty of reading, learning, etc.

So we’re torn. Rightfully. We are planning to apply to both schools and get on their waiting lists. They may wind up making the decision for us. If we get accepted to both, we will re-tour both (with her in tow) and see which makes more sense at that time.

And later this week – pediatrician interviews. Yes, we are WAY behind the 8-ball on this one. But to be fair, there are so many pediatricians in the area that we will find one we like who is taking patients. And we can always change if we don’t like whoever we select.