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I'll be going back to work in January and will need full-time or close to full-time care for my son, who will be 4 months old. My husband & I are thinking about having a babysitter at home for the first year and then switching to family day care, but we don't feel like we have enough info to really make a good decision, particularly about any benefits there may be to being around other kids at that age. I'd appreciate any advice or thoughts people might have on this issue. Thanks!

1. Home with Baby Mornings were fine, and the baby was happy being in the house and with whatever I could come up with for him to do -- swinging, singing (especially songs with gestures), dancing, reading, making faces, playing with toys, playing with a Gymini, playing on an exersaucer, The Bouncy Chair (not a jumper, the vibrating bouncing reclining thing Fisher-Price sells to soothe babies), and breastfeeding every couple of hours. By the time he was 8 weeks old, I was taking him (at first in a Snugli, later in a stroller, then a jog stroller, and sometimes a backpack) for a daily walk of a few miles R/T on any one of a number of paths in the ridgetop complex of parks. The exercise was good for me, and I had discovered that he sleeps MUCH better at night if he has at least an hour's worth of exposure to fresh air. Gradually his own routine, his natural timing of eating and napping, emerged. And also, he became restive in the afternoons, would react very positively when we went out after he awoke from the morning/noon nap, and basically indicated in a variety of ways that he wanted to see some new people, not only Mom all day. The walks on the trails, by the way, were NOT fulfilling his need for social interaction with other-than-mom people, but they did have the positive effect of exposing him to DOGGIES -- he _loves_ dogs :-)

2. Baby Bored? Kindermusik helped... a bit... So in the afternoons we would run errands, go to the tot lots and play, get Mommy a coffee at Peet's, and hit the ridges for a walk. That was good as far as it went. Eventually, all of this seemed to be a bit too familiar to him, and I started him in Kindermusik at about 6.5 months. He loved it! The only drawback was that it was only one day a week. He would look forward to that day, to seeing the other babies, to the play and music and a number of people doing the same things, and he would love to hear the CD when we were riding in the car. At playgrounds, he lean toward other children, from sessile (?!) babies to those old enough to stand, and try to touch them, to explore and make contact. He's a beautiful boy, and has a sweet personality, so this was not a problem, but it struck me that basically, he was lonely, especially for children near his own age.

3. Effects of isolation(?) on mood and development rate... self-weaning... In the rainy season if we couldn't go out, he would be fussy (the angry-tone rather than sad-tone cry) at trifles he'd usually have ignored. He also seemed to me to be very slow in developing the crawling skill. He has a large head, so I wasn't too surprised initially; the pediatrician told me large-headed babies don't have strong enough neck muscles for head-up crawling and they will usually take longer to get to that stage. He also had a cold, which slowed him down a bit, and during the cold he had weaned himself (at about 8 months), since the bottles I use (Playtex Avance) are MUCH easier to get milk from than breasts (at least mine) if you have a stuffy nose for two weeks. But I worried a bit when he still couldn't get more than a couple of wiggles' worth of crawling in at 8 months and a week. He seemed to be unwilling to take any hints about getting his bent knees under him (an "endearing" stubborn streak -- he will refuse to pay any attention to anything you show him, but then if you go do something else across the room, he will eventually try your suggestion and then at the next opportunity will show you this wonderful new method he came up with).

4. Daycare in Someone Else's Home I began to look into daycare, stumbled into a very nice one (max of four children, stepped in ages above and below my son's age) right off, and during the visit to it, my son was watching the little boy, a month older than himself, crawl around as though jet-propelled. By the end of the visit (30 min on a Friday afternoon), my son was crawling five feet at a time (!), and he became totally fluent in the new "crawling thing" over the next two days (a weekend he spent with us in the usual way). They also, because they have babies all the time, can justify the expense of toys and soft climbing structures, a pool of balls, etc.

We decided to go for the daycare, half-days. His improvement in coordination and mobility continued, and he was delighted to BE there -- excited about arrving each day -- but happy to see me when I'd pick him up at 1 pm. Finally, when he was 11 months old, he started objecting to half-days; he was having too much fun to want to leave. Coincidentally, the daycare provider informed me that they really needed a full-time baby in that slot, so that we would have to start full-time the following month (which they really hoped we would do, as they like our son and he gets along very well with the other children) or find another situation. We discussed it and went for the full-time involvement.

5. Visitation Rights: A Very Good Idea The idea was that if I got a bigger job than the P/T evening one I'd been doing (leaving dada with baby for male bonding and play), we could afford it, and he was happiest and learning the most by being with the other children and exposed to a different environment. He's 13 months now, and I still have pangs of missing him in the afternoons! But I will soon be working very close to his daycare, and they are very open to visits by parents at any time during normal business hours (it's in the contract). I also think that this policy is some kind of licensing requirement now -- it's a good idea, as it avoids setting up conditions which historically have accompanied abuse cases (especially physical privacy, and lengthy separation from the parent). Bananas also recommends asking about access to your child during daycare -- restrictions on this should make alarm bells go off for you, unless there is a very obvious good reason for a specific restriction. The parents of the youngest child in my son's daycare spend every lunch hour with him, and the mother of the oldest boy drops in randomly during the day. My husband and I were thinking the once I am working P/T nearby, we could start regular lunch visits, and that I could even take him for an hour in the park if his naptime wasn't meshing well with the other children's.

6. Naps, Timing, and the Importance of Being Outside This is the latest thing -- my son (not yet talking) seems to want to sleep on his own schedule and simply won't nap if it's not the "right" time, with which I utterly sympathize. I do understand that the daycare provider has to try to coordinate FOUR sleep schedules in order to actually get any group outdoor time for the children, but this is one area in which it's not really feasible to be regimented -- he'll just stay awake until exhaustion drops him -- we are trying to come up with a good way of resolving this afternoon-nap timing mismatch). I would recommend for this reason that if you go with a small daycare provider, you find a place that already has all of its physical improvements completed -- our provider was making noises about clearing out the back yard for a play area when we signed on, five months ago, and this hasn't even started, although winter is now approaching. So their only option for real outdoor time is to do it en masse in the outing-stroller (cute cart for four), which requires synchronized napping.

7. The Joy of Fingerpaints He has started being interested in crayons and drawing little wavery lines in different colors, and he loves fingerpaints -- even on the paper, although better still on his face, and in his mouth, apparently -- good thing they're non-toxic. Does anyone (who's read this far!! :-)) have any recommendations on what to mix into them to make them un-tasty to toddlers but not dangerous to eyesight?

Good luck with your son's solution. I hope our experience helps you in your weighing of options. It felt like a long time from the front end, but the last two years (pregnancy too) have gone by in a WHOOSH!!! I can still feel the breeze. That's one reason I favor part-time daycare; I want more moments of my son's babyhood to be with me, and to stay in my memory. I understand why some mothers become baby addicts! Thanks for "listening" :-)

When he first started, there was a transition period. But once he was oriented, he learned to love certain kids and we have a couple of kids we get together with on a routine basis for play time. This way he develops friendships that will hopefully last a lifetime. He also looks forward to our "going to school" routine. He even gets frustrated with me when I don't move fast enough to get out of the house in the morning.

I recommend a day care situation where your baby can interact with other kids.