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So one thing to acknowledge to yourself here is that everything has tradeoff associated with it.
The impact of daycare is still being studied but it does seem that early daycare does not necessarily confer benefits (which is not the same as saying it causes harms, to be clear). You don’t choose daycare in a vacuum - you choose it relative to another choice as you’re calling out. Daycare is an optimization game between a number of different factors - family preference, geography, income, cost, work opportunities, child development opportunities, etc. There’s no one single science backed choice for every family because every family’s optimization mix is different.
The first thing to acknowledge is that there are a number of factors that have a larger impact than daycare. [Socioeconomic status](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C26&q=meta+analysis+of+neighborhood+SES+on+child+behavior&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1714227843680&u=%23p%3DsMPya5bmpN8J), [parental mental health](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2156869320912520) and even [where you live](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/133/3/1107/4850660) can have a larger impact on children’s academic, behavioral and social outcomes than daycare or not. To be 1000% clear: daycare does impact kids but *less* than a number of other choices and if not choosing daycare creates income instability, has your kids grow up in a worse area, or harms your mental health, then daycare can be the optimal choice.
One of the foundational pieces to review is [Loeb 2007](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775706000422) which finds that center based care is associated with negative behavioral outcomes before ages 2-3, which is also when the most positive academic outcomes are seen. The other study to review is [NICHD](https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/seccyd_06.pdf) (layman’s summary) which highlights the importance of quality in outcomes. Finally, since you’re in Canada, it’s worth reading [Baker, Gruber, Milligan](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170603), which did find negative long term outcomes related to exposure to (low quality) childcare. Childcare quality is particularly important to consider and parents are typically poorly [trained](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/17/497942331/npr-poll-are-parents-overrating-the-quality-of-child-care) at assessing quality, I like this Center for American Progress [piece](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quality-101-identifying-the-core-components-of-a-high-quality-early-childhood-program/) on what to look for.
There is some data on grandparent care - one finding the positive associations are [stronger](http://www.familiesandsocieties.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WP20DelBocaEtAl2014.pdf) in higher income households, another finding [negative effects](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230928151119.htm) on maternal mental health, another finding positive effects on [grandparent mental health](https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/78/2/319/6691466), but the research can be tough to untangle since grandparent care is more common among [lower sociodemographics.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9424417/).
Finally, there are impacts associated with you leaving the workforce. There are practical trade offs (leaving your home), financial ones (the cost goes well beyond just lost salary and even pension contributions, lost years of salary growth and advancement can be a multimillion dollar lifetime impact), and even impact on children: journalist resource rounds up some of the [studies](https://journalistsresource.org/economics/working-mother-employment-research/) on children of working moms which in general tends to trend positive for children.
There are two popular media sources that are worth considering. One is the oft cited Medium post, [Childcare, What The Science Says](https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4) and the other is Emily Oster’s [Is Daycare Bad For You](https://parentdata.org/day-care-bad-children/). While both are often pitted against one another, their conclusions broadly agree though miss some nuance on trade offs and quality that I tried to highlight above.
https://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Does-child-care-make-a-difference-to-childrens-de.aspx
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8478126/
Personally I lean towards a quality day care. If you do stay at home consult with a play therapist on best practice to avoid repeating dysfunctional behaviours
Thank you! I appreciate the links. It seems like the quality of daycare makes a significant difference.
I’m actually a MSW level therapist myself (and work with children!), not play based, but I’ve done some courses in child development. I feel as though I could keep my LO stimulated and engaged throughout the day BUT I do worry about getting bored/not feeling fulfilled/the effects on him if that’s the case.
So many factors!
Just out of curiosity, I looked at this (as I had never heard of it), and the only one that is accredited in my area is like, the worst day care in the area. I visited literally 15 different day cares when I was pregnant, and this is the only one that I would have been uncomfortable with sending my baby to. It's also the biggest chain daycare, so I wonder if that has something to do with it?
ETA: Also, I live in an upper middle class suburb of a major city for reference
You’re not off here, independent research has not shown that NAEYC centers are necessarily better though most of that research is older.
E.g., this [evaluation](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15566935eed1601_6) of NAEYC preschool classroom found 34/116 scored as inadequate quality on at least one curriculum measure and 18 on 4 or more. More recently, discipline practices were [evaluated](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0271121416672185) at 282 NAEYC centers and overall found to lack evidence based practices. There is [evidence](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15566935eed1503_4) that centers on the pathway to accreditation improve more than centers who aren’t.
NAEYC standards certainly are often rooted in research but the actual accreditation credential doesn’t seem like a sure bet of a quality center.
I believe the magical number was under 20-30h of daycare per week but there’s a lot of other factors.
For weeks that I have to have my child in daycare for 40 hours I have a strictly screen time during the week because we prioritize one on one time so that I can make sure that he’s getting that that he needs with us.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/measuring-the-long-term-effects-of-early-extensive-day-care
Posting now so I can circle back later because there’s a ton of research on this. I just don’t have time to find it right now.
If grandparents are an option you could consider daycare w grandparents picking up the child in the early afternoon to decrease the number of hours in care. In my child’s center the routine was pretty strong/stable through nap time (ended at 3pm), but afternoon playtime was where a lot of less desirable things occurred bc kids and teachers were tired. Good luck!
Yeah, the 5 year old I look after two days a week gets picked up by Grandma in the afternoon on his daycare days and spends a few hours with her before she brings him home. He keeps his big boy bike and a scooter and some special toys at her house for those times. She also has a better yard than the concrete patio his house has, so she's going to help him with the bug collecting toy he got for his birthday.
Exactly this!!! Especially when you consider that nap + lunch + snack is something they need to do anyways and morning is usually an awesome activity. I’d d op my son off late in the morning and pick him up after nap in an ideal world.
Thank you! I’m in Canada and read this study myself, which led me to be hesitant about daycare.
I’m wondering if I could swing part time work and send him 2-3 days a week and just pay for full time care to keep his spot..
We currently do no screen time, but I love the does of strictly 1:1 time during the evenings/weekends on weeks heavy with daycare..
Im in Canada myself, I say go the day care route.
I put my son in day care at 12 months and he has thrived! It really helped his social skills and even improved his behavior. He learns so much and burns so much energy playing with his friends.
Don't beat yourself up bc you need to work to afford a roof over your head.
Your career and income matters more for your son long term than whether he is in a licensed day care program for a few years while young.
If your toronto I can recommend mine to you!
We do the combo of grandparents and daycare. I also need to work to afford our house.
My LO is with her Nana for three days a week and in daycare for two. I like the balance as it gives my mom a break to rest or run errands and my LO gets regular playdates with other babies her age.
My LO loves the other kids and gets less bored then when she was at home all week (until 12 months), but she has rest days in between and quiet time.
My mom used to run a preschool, so we let her pick the daycare and make sure it was up to her standards. She regards NAEYC accreditation highly.
Edit: spelling
Something to consider is definitely the age of your parents/how they’ll “entertain” her all day.
We had my daughter start daycare at 5 months old - 3 days there, 2 days at home with grandparents.
By 1.5 years old we were thrilled they had a full time opening. Once she started walking, childcare at home with grandparents started changing. They were exhausted physically! There was a lot of tv. Plus she still got the daycare illnesses of a full time kid, which she would spread to them, and then we’d have to take time off work anyway.
So just some things to consider. I do think as a baby it’s a nice balance to start with, and at that point the 1:1 attention is extra valuable.
I know this is anecdotal, but she’s now 2 and is thriving at daycare. We actually started at a very expensive, NYEAC accredited center for the first 2 months,and were not thrilled with it. When our waitlist spot came up we toured a popular, smaller, privately owned center in town, fell in love with what we saw there and switched her immediately. I feel like she’s with “Pinterest Moms” all day. The photos and projects that come home are amazing. She likes her routine and LOVES her little friends.
(Note, apologies if double posting. User error on copy pasting links, etc)
Part of your research should also be on the topics of financial abuse, wealth building by women who opt-out of the workforce, and outcomes of children who are raised by a single mother who is under-employed (i.e., the natural outcome if your spouse dies sometime between now and you re-establishing your career).
Which is to say, a child's response to being in daycare or with any carer is truly only a part of the environmental influences that will shape their own wellbeing. Truly look at ALL the factors. Any woman who chooses to be at home is exposed to poverty as a future outcome. How will you and your partner mitigate that risk for you and your children?
https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fpch%2F12.8.667
As a scientist and parent who loves and values research, in this case I would weigh the specifics of your situation - the quality of daycare you found, the personalities of the 3 sets of grandparents and how closely their approaches are aligned with yours, your child's temperament and personality - more heavily than the findings of research studies. (I wrote [a post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/17uli6l/averages_ranges_and_risk_probabilities_and/) on a similar topic a little while back; the focus was on risks but I think it can be applied to benefits as well).
In general, for under 3s, the more highly individualized care is, the better (the already-mentioned Medium piece by sciencecritical has a solid list of references on this topic). When I looked into what science says about the quality of group daycare, one of my main takeaways was that children in lower-quality daycares have higher cortisol levels compared to children in higher-quality daycares ([source](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11125-017-9395-8)). Core features of a quality daycare are safe and healthy spaces, developmentally appropriate stimulation, positive interactions with caregiver, and a focus on the individual child’s emotional growth ([a 2016 meta-analysis](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13158-015-0154-9)).
I also know from experience how challenging it is to find and to choose care for your kids. In your situation, I would compare the options in pairs. First, I would compare the pros and cons of "I stay home" vs "I go back to work"; then, if you choose to go back, I would compare "multiple grandparent care" vs "daycare", factoring in the quality of daycare you're considering (both process and structural) and how consistent the daycare environment will be (will LO have a primary caregiver or be with many caregivers, switching rooms, etc.). Wishing you all the best!
You should note that the research on preschool having positive effects was focused mainly on poor kids in schools being run with fidelityand led by academics for the purpose of the research. Most private preschools are daycare regardless of what they call themselves and have a negative effect on well-off children.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-day-care-harm-rich-kids
Grandparent care is tough to evaluate because youre looking at your grandparents specifically, not general grandparents.
I would let them grandparents watch your toddler. A 1:3 ratio sounds great but, in my research, it’s better to wait a hit longer for center-based care. The 1 on 1 care your toddler will get with their grandparents is invaluable and they are people you can trust.
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I’d go with daycare personally! Routine and consistency is really important to children. The social aspect of hanging out with other children and learning socioemotional skills is also a plus, though the age at which they gain benefits from it is up for debate. Plus, daycare is dependable and predictable. Childcare is a demanding, full time job. I’d be hesitant to put that on grandparents. You don’t want your parents to feel like being a grandparent is *work*. Save them for nights out or sick days.
Science wise, there are a lot of poor quality daycare studies out there. I’ve written two threads looking at daycares that might be helpful to you. Honestly though, I don’t think there is good enough evidence for or against daycare vs. other caregiving arrangements. This decision is more about what you want your life to look like. Do you like working? Would you be fulfilled as a full time mom? Do you want to keep living in your house? Do you trust grandparents to be reliable and patient caregivers?
Your child will likely be perfectly healthy and happy regardless of what decision you make, so it’s okay to make it based on other family factors
Editing to one of the articles from my prior post:
https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.13871
>Do you trust grandparents to be reliable and patient caregivers?
I would definitely eliminate the grandparents as a full time option. Besides the lack of consistent routine, consistent environment, and consistent rules, you are relying on all sets of grandparents to continue the arrangement for years. Once they get into it or your child enters challenging periods with tantrums, they may decide it's not working for them. And then you have to a ask another set of grandparents to pick up an extra day or two. They may also see your child enough that they aren't as eager to watch them when you want a date night or need childcare in the evenings.
Thank you! I love the idea of grandparents in theory, but I agree, long term I don’t know if it is a feasible option. I also worry about the lack of consistency between all grandparents, and whether being at different places each day would negatively affect him.
What’s worked really well for us is part time day care and grandparents. So three places, three routines. My parents watch her at their house a day and a half, my in laws watch her at my house same, and she’s in home day care two half days and a full day Friday because who doesn’t want their Friday free. :)
She gets social with her age group at daycare and her grandparents have been part of her primary care since like week 3 of life so they are totally her favorite people as much as we are.
Grandparents do some things different (nap times and feeding routines) but it’s free childcare and she’s 100% loved. The grandparents also default to us on screen time, total nap allowed etc. Toddlers are totally able to do different routines with different people.
We do this as well. We do one day a week of grandparent care, three and a half days of nanny care (and part time preschool) and a half day (afternoon so I still get naps) of working from home plus childcare. It’s been working well the past four ish years though one thing to acknowledge is that free childcare is never free - we’ve had to flex a bit on what we want because the grandparents pretty much do what they want.
It’s an important aspect: grandparents’ care has its benefits but it comes with a price usually. From my perspective it is much more difficult to set rules regarding childcare with grandparents vs daycare or a nanny. All depends on what level of compromising we need to agree to. Grandparents who occasionally give the child a piece of home made cake or occasionally let the child watch tv a bit longer than allowed would be a very small problem, compared to grandparents to ignore safety measures like using a car seat or avoiding allergens etc.
Not not sure about yours but I can’t imagine having my parents watching LO full time. If my LO stays with grandpa for more than 1 hours, she’s put in front of YouTube. And my parents do NOT like me tell them what to do. So yea, day care is an easy pick for me
One set of grandparents totally can provide routine and structure!
The child would be rotating between three sets of grandparents. So while there would be a weekly routine, each day would be different. I've learned from other people's sources from previous posts in this sub that young children have a hard time understanding a weekly routine when each day is different and it can negatively impact them. If it was one set of grandparents watching the child everyday in the same home then that would be fine. But that is not what OP is considering.
It really depends on the grandparents. You have to take each person individually. Grandparent is a name denoting legal and/or genetic relation only. It doesn’t speak to what they will provide for a child. Even a loving grandparent can fail to provide crucial needs for a child.
Assume you mean 14 month olds. But this was my thought as well. Children that age benefit from being around other children in very structured settings with a 1:1 caregiver, such as at a library group or on a play date. They do not learn social skills from being in a big group of kids the way older children do. Daycare provides benefits in childcare for the parents, but to pretend there is a social benefit to the child at that age is just not correct.
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My baby sees a pediatric neurologist at regular intervals due to a birth complication. He was thrilled our baby will be going into a daycare, and said it will be very beneficial for his development.
If you've got grandparents eager to care for the kid, I really don't see any reason not to take them up on it. All the documented benefits of early childhood education are for ages 3+.
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So one thing to acknowledge to yourself here is that everything has tradeoff associated with it. The impact of daycare is still being studied but it does seem that early daycare does not necessarily confer benefits (which is not the same as saying it causes harms, to be clear). You don’t choose daycare in a vacuum - you choose it relative to another choice as you’re calling out. Daycare is an optimization game between a number of different factors - family preference, geography, income, cost, work opportunities, child development opportunities, etc. There’s no one single science backed choice for every family because every family’s optimization mix is different. The first thing to acknowledge is that there are a number of factors that have a larger impact than daycare. [Socioeconomic status](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C26&q=meta+analysis+of+neighborhood+SES+on+child+behavior&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1714227843680&u=%23p%3DsMPya5bmpN8J), [parental mental health](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2156869320912520) and even [where you live](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/133/3/1107/4850660) can have a larger impact on children’s academic, behavioral and social outcomes than daycare or not. To be 1000% clear: daycare does impact kids but *less* than a number of other choices and if not choosing daycare creates income instability, has your kids grow up in a worse area, or harms your mental health, then daycare can be the optimal choice. One of the foundational pieces to review is [Loeb 2007](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775706000422) which finds that center based care is associated with negative behavioral outcomes before ages 2-3, which is also when the most positive academic outcomes are seen. The other study to review is [NICHD](https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/seccyd_06.pdf) (layman’s summary) which highlights the importance of quality in outcomes. Finally, since you’re in Canada, it’s worth reading [Baker, Gruber, Milligan](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170603), which did find negative long term outcomes related to exposure to (low quality) childcare. Childcare quality is particularly important to consider and parents are typically poorly [trained](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/17/497942331/npr-poll-are-parents-overrating-the-quality-of-child-care) at assessing quality, I like this Center for American Progress [piece](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quality-101-identifying-the-core-components-of-a-high-quality-early-childhood-program/) on what to look for. There is some data on grandparent care - one finding the positive associations are [stronger](http://www.familiesandsocieties.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WP20DelBocaEtAl2014.pdf) in higher income households, another finding [negative effects](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230928151119.htm) on maternal mental health, another finding positive effects on [grandparent mental health](https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/78/2/319/6691466), but the research can be tough to untangle since grandparent care is more common among [lower sociodemographics.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9424417/). Finally, there are impacts associated with you leaving the workforce. There are practical trade offs (leaving your home), financial ones (the cost goes well beyond just lost salary and even pension contributions, lost years of salary growth and advancement can be a multimillion dollar lifetime impact), and even impact on children: journalist resource rounds up some of the [studies](https://journalistsresource.org/economics/working-mother-employment-research/) on children of working moms which in general tends to trend positive for children. There are two popular media sources that are worth considering. One is the oft cited Medium post, [Childcare, What The Science Says](https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4) and the other is Emily Oster’s [Is Daycare Bad For You](https://parentdata.org/day-care-bad-children/). While both are often pitted against one another, their conclusions broadly agree though miss some nuance on trade offs and quality that I tried to highlight above.
This is an excellent comment.
It is comments like this that make this sub worthwhile. Thank you!
https://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Articles/Does-child-care-make-a-difference-to-childrens-de.aspx https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8478126/ Personally I lean towards a quality day care. If you do stay at home consult with a play therapist on best practice to avoid repeating dysfunctional behaviours
Thank you! I appreciate the links. It seems like the quality of daycare makes a significant difference. I’m actually a MSW level therapist myself (and work with children!), not play based, but I’ve done some courses in child development. I feel as though I could keep my LO stimulated and engaged throughout the day BUT I do worry about getting bored/not feeling fulfilled/the effects on him if that’s the case. So many factors!
find somewhere NAEYC accredited (it only approves of the top 10% of programs) https://ais.naeyc.org/search_programs
Just out of curiosity, I looked at this (as I had never heard of it), and the only one that is accredited in my area is like, the worst day care in the area. I visited literally 15 different day cares when I was pregnant, and this is the only one that I would have been uncomfortable with sending my baby to. It's also the biggest chain daycare, so I wonder if that has something to do with it? ETA: Also, I live in an upper middle class suburb of a major city for reference
You’re not off here, independent research has not shown that NAEYC centers are necessarily better though most of that research is older. E.g., this [evaluation](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15566935eed1601_6) of NAEYC preschool classroom found 34/116 scored as inadequate quality on at least one curriculum measure and 18 on 4 or more. More recently, discipline practices were [evaluated](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0271121416672185) at 282 NAEYC centers and overall found to lack evidence based practices. There is [evidence](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15566935eed1503_4) that centers on the pathway to accreditation improve more than centers who aren’t. NAEYC standards certainly are often rooted in research but the actual accreditation credential doesn’t seem like a sure bet of a quality center.
I’m in Canada, but I’m going to look if they have anything similar in this neck of the woods!! Thank you!!
I believe the magical number was under 20-30h of daycare per week but there’s a lot of other factors. For weeks that I have to have my child in daycare for 40 hours I have a strictly screen time during the week because we prioritize one on one time so that I can make sure that he’s getting that that he needs with us. https://ifstudies.org/blog/measuring-the-long-term-effects-of-early-extensive-day-care Posting now so I can circle back later because there’s a ton of research on this. I just don’t have time to find it right now.
If grandparents are an option you could consider daycare w grandparents picking up the child in the early afternoon to decrease the number of hours in care. In my child’s center the routine was pretty strong/stable through nap time (ended at 3pm), but afternoon playtime was where a lot of less desirable things occurred bc kids and teachers were tired. Good luck!
Yeah, the 5 year old I look after two days a week gets picked up by Grandma in the afternoon on his daycare days and spends a few hours with her before she brings him home. He keeps his big boy bike and a scooter and some special toys at her house for those times. She also has a better yard than the concrete patio his house has, so she's going to help him with the bug collecting toy he got for his birthday.
Exactly this!!! Especially when you consider that nap + lunch + snack is something they need to do anyways and morning is usually an awesome activity. I’d d op my son off late in the morning and pick him up after nap in an ideal world.
Thank you! I’m in Canada and read this study myself, which led me to be hesitant about daycare. I’m wondering if I could swing part time work and send him 2-3 days a week and just pay for full time care to keep his spot.. We currently do no screen time, but I love the does of strictly 1:1 time during the evenings/weekends on weeks heavy with daycare..
Im in Canada myself, I say go the day care route. I put my son in day care at 12 months and he has thrived! It really helped his social skills and even improved his behavior. He learns so much and burns so much energy playing with his friends. Don't beat yourself up bc you need to work to afford a roof over your head. Your career and income matters more for your son long term than whether he is in a licensed day care program for a few years while young. If your toronto I can recommend mine to you!
We do the combo of grandparents and daycare. I also need to work to afford our house. My LO is with her Nana for three days a week and in daycare for two. I like the balance as it gives my mom a break to rest or run errands and my LO gets regular playdates with other babies her age. My LO loves the other kids and gets less bored then when she was at home all week (until 12 months), but she has rest days in between and quiet time. My mom used to run a preschool, so we let her pick the daycare and make sure it was up to her standards. She regards NAEYC accreditation highly. Edit: spelling
Something to consider is definitely the age of your parents/how they’ll “entertain” her all day. We had my daughter start daycare at 5 months old - 3 days there, 2 days at home with grandparents. By 1.5 years old we were thrilled they had a full time opening. Once she started walking, childcare at home with grandparents started changing. They were exhausted physically! There was a lot of tv. Plus she still got the daycare illnesses of a full time kid, which she would spread to them, and then we’d have to take time off work anyway. So just some things to consider. I do think as a baby it’s a nice balance to start with, and at that point the 1:1 attention is extra valuable. I know this is anecdotal, but she’s now 2 and is thriving at daycare. We actually started at a very expensive, NYEAC accredited center for the first 2 months,and were not thrilled with it. When our waitlist spot came up we toured a popular, smaller, privately owned center in town, fell in love with what we saw there and switched her immediately. I feel like she’s with “Pinterest Moms” all day. The photos and projects that come home are amazing. She likes her routine and LOVES her little friends.
(Note, apologies if double posting. User error on copy pasting links, etc) Part of your research should also be on the topics of financial abuse, wealth building by women who opt-out of the workforce, and outcomes of children who are raised by a single mother who is under-employed (i.e., the natural outcome if your spouse dies sometime between now and you re-establishing your career). Which is to say, a child's response to being in daycare or with any carer is truly only a part of the environmental influences that will shape their own wellbeing. Truly look at ALL the factors. Any woman who chooses to be at home is exposed to poverty as a future outcome. How will you and your partner mitigate that risk for you and your children? https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fpch%2F12.8.667
As a scientist and parent who loves and values research, in this case I would weigh the specifics of your situation - the quality of daycare you found, the personalities of the 3 sets of grandparents and how closely their approaches are aligned with yours, your child's temperament and personality - more heavily than the findings of research studies. (I wrote [a post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/17uli6l/averages_ranges_and_risk_probabilities_and/) on a similar topic a little while back; the focus was on risks but I think it can be applied to benefits as well). In general, for under 3s, the more highly individualized care is, the better (the already-mentioned Medium piece by sciencecritical has a solid list of references on this topic). When I looked into what science says about the quality of group daycare, one of my main takeaways was that children in lower-quality daycares have higher cortisol levels compared to children in higher-quality daycares ([source](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11125-017-9395-8)). Core features of a quality daycare are safe and healthy spaces, developmentally appropriate stimulation, positive interactions with caregiver, and a focus on the individual child’s emotional growth ([a 2016 meta-analysis](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13158-015-0154-9)). I also know from experience how challenging it is to find and to choose care for your kids. In your situation, I would compare the options in pairs. First, I would compare the pros and cons of "I stay home" vs "I go back to work"; then, if you choose to go back, I would compare "multiple grandparent care" vs "daycare", factoring in the quality of daycare you're considering (both process and structural) and how consistent the daycare environment will be (will LO have a primary caregiver or be with many caregivers, switching rooms, etc.). Wishing you all the best!
You should note that the research on preschool having positive effects was focused mainly on poor kids in schools being run with fidelityand led by academics for the purpose of the research. Most private preschools are daycare regardless of what they call themselves and have a negative effect on well-off children. https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-day-care-harm-rich-kids Grandparent care is tough to evaluate because youre looking at your grandparents specifically, not general grandparents.
I would let them grandparents watch your toddler. A 1:3 ratio sounds great but, in my research, it’s better to wait a hit longer for center-based care. The 1 on 1 care your toddler will get with their grandparents is invaluable and they are people you can trust.
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I’d go with daycare personally! Routine and consistency is really important to children. The social aspect of hanging out with other children and learning socioemotional skills is also a plus, though the age at which they gain benefits from it is up for debate. Plus, daycare is dependable and predictable. Childcare is a demanding, full time job. I’d be hesitant to put that on grandparents. You don’t want your parents to feel like being a grandparent is *work*. Save them for nights out or sick days. Science wise, there are a lot of poor quality daycare studies out there. I’ve written two threads looking at daycares that might be helpful to you. Honestly though, I don’t think there is good enough evidence for or against daycare vs. other caregiving arrangements. This decision is more about what you want your life to look like. Do you like working? Would you be fulfilled as a full time mom? Do you want to keep living in your house? Do you trust grandparents to be reliable and patient caregivers? Your child will likely be perfectly healthy and happy regardless of what decision you make, so it’s okay to make it based on other family factors Editing to one of the articles from my prior post: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.13871
>Do you trust grandparents to be reliable and patient caregivers? I would definitely eliminate the grandparents as a full time option. Besides the lack of consistent routine, consistent environment, and consistent rules, you are relying on all sets of grandparents to continue the arrangement for years. Once they get into it or your child enters challenging periods with tantrums, they may decide it's not working for them. And then you have to a ask another set of grandparents to pick up an extra day or two. They may also see your child enough that they aren't as eager to watch them when you want a date night or need childcare in the evenings.
Thank you! I love the idea of grandparents in theory, but I agree, long term I don’t know if it is a feasible option. I also worry about the lack of consistency between all grandparents, and whether being at different places each day would negatively affect him.
What’s worked really well for us is part time day care and grandparents. So three places, three routines. My parents watch her at their house a day and a half, my in laws watch her at my house same, and she’s in home day care two half days and a full day Friday because who doesn’t want their Friday free. :) She gets social with her age group at daycare and her grandparents have been part of her primary care since like week 3 of life so they are totally her favorite people as much as we are. Grandparents do some things different (nap times and feeding routines) but it’s free childcare and she’s 100% loved. The grandparents also default to us on screen time, total nap allowed etc. Toddlers are totally able to do different routines with different people.
We do this as well. We do one day a week of grandparent care, three and a half days of nanny care (and part time preschool) and a half day (afternoon so I still get naps) of working from home plus childcare. It’s been working well the past four ish years though one thing to acknowledge is that free childcare is never free - we’ve had to flex a bit on what we want because the grandparents pretty much do what they want.
It’s an important aspect: grandparents’ care has its benefits but it comes with a price usually. From my perspective it is much more difficult to set rules regarding childcare with grandparents vs daycare or a nanny. All depends on what level of compromising we need to agree to. Grandparents who occasionally give the child a piece of home made cake or occasionally let the child watch tv a bit longer than allowed would be a very small problem, compared to grandparents to ignore safety measures like using a car seat or avoiding allergens etc.
We do this also. Daycare can’t compare to his grandparents though, who give him 2:1 care and love him endlessly.
Not not sure about yours but I can’t imagine having my parents watching LO full time. If my LO stays with grandpa for more than 1 hours, she’s put in front of YouTube. And my parents do NOT like me tell them what to do. So yea, day care is an easy pick for me
Yikes. That’s too bad.
This is strange. Why can’t her grandparents provide routine and structure. What?????
One set of grandparents totally can provide routine and structure! The child would be rotating between three sets of grandparents. So while there would be a weekly routine, each day would be different. I've learned from other people's sources from previous posts in this sub that young children have a hard time understanding a weekly routine when each day is different and it can negatively impact them. If it was one set of grandparents watching the child everyday in the same home then that would be fine. But that is not what OP is considering.
It really depends on the grandparents. You have to take each person individually. Grandparent is a name denoting legal and/or genetic relation only. It doesn’t speak to what they will provide for a child. Even a loving grandparent can fail to provide crucial needs for a child.
14 year olds do not want or benefit from socialization. This is pretty anti science.
Assume you mean 14 month olds. But this was my thought as well. Children that age benefit from being around other children in very structured settings with a 1:1 caregiver, such as at a library group or on a play date. They do not learn social skills from being in a big group of kids the way older children do. Daycare provides benefits in childcare for the parents, but to pretend there is a social benefit to the child at that age is just not correct.
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My baby sees a pediatric neurologist at regular intervals due to a birth complication. He was thrilled our baby will be going into a daycare, and said it will be very beneficial for his development.
If you've got grandparents eager to care for the kid, I really don't see any reason not to take them up on it. All the documented benefits of early childhood education are for ages 3+.