My Gut Response to the Study Released About Daycare and Behavioral Problems in Children

As a licensed childcare provider for nine years, I can tell you first hand that the number one influence in a child's life is the child's parents. The behavior problems I have come to me that way. How would you behave if you were a small child and knew you were at childcare so your mom didn't have to mess with you? Remember, any attention, even negative attention, is still attention to a child.

Some parents expect childcare and schools to raise their children while they chase careers and cars. Then there is the flip side. The children who are here because the state pays their tuition to encourage the parents to get a job and take care of their families themselves. I have three children like that right now.

Everyday they come to daycare. Every day mom stays at home, goes running around with her friends, or heaven only knows what(I do because the woman is nuts enough to tell me). She doesn't look for work, hasn't for two years. She's not an exception to the rule. I deal with it all the time. People have children and then don't want to be responsible for them so I am a state paid surrogate parent to children who are still influenced more strongly by their home life than any effort I make to try to be a positive influence on their futures.

Yes, there is bad daycare. But I want the world to wake up and realize there are two sides to every story. I want people to realize that most of us do our very best for children who come from bad situations. Just because someone is a parent does not mean they are a saint and daycare is evil. I see plenty of parents who's children are better off with someone else during the day. Are these the children that researchers are blaming childcare for their behavioral problems?

I have seven children in my daycare right now. Of those seven, four of them have parents who bring them to me on the taxpayers' dime and go home, go to the movies, go tan, or worse...........get high.

Never ceases to amaze me when a parent brings their kids to me while they are on vacation because they just can't get anything done with their kids around. I've had affluent parents go boating for the day, to the beach, etc and bring their kids to daycare. I've had parents who just can't go to the store or do the laundry and handle their children. I kid you not. Lets start putting some of this blame back where it belongs. I give them guidance and structure but am the bad guy in the children's eyes because there are no rules or guidance at home.

I can't save every child that comes through my door, but I try. And as a mom, my kids were never, ever an inconvenience like a lot of the people I deal with. I can do my laundry with my kids around. I can buy groceries. And I spend a lot of time in tears of hurt and frustration at the situations these children are in, the selfishness of some parents, and my inability to make things better.

O.K. This is getting out of hand.................

The drain pipe freezes in this house because the heat is run overhead and not under the house any more. Don't ask.

I thought the drain was starting to break open. When I woke up this morning there was no water left in the sink. I filled a big pot up with water and put it on the stove to warm it up, thinking if I dumped that down the drain, it might get rid of whatever frozen matter was left that was keeping it to a slow drain. Dumped the water in the sink, and it came gushing out from under the cabinet and out onto the floor. After running for every towel in the house I could find and sopping the stuff up I look under the cabinet. The drain pipe came off the sink. I guess the expansion of the pipe from it freezing from the -8 my weather bug shows right now was just enough that the hot water I poured down it knocked the pipe off.

I guess I'll get some Teflon tape from the hardware store and try to put it back on myself before I call my dad's house for help. Bet the stupid thing still won't drain. Anyone want to loan me their husband for about an hour? This is one of the few times I wish I had one around.

No rest for the wicked, heh?

frustratedly yours,

Busy Mom

This Drafty Old House

It's minus one here right now. One of the things I can count on when it gets this cold is a clogged up kitchen sink. I don't have frozen pipes. The crazy sink drain freezes. I can't use the sink. I can't use the dishwasher. All I can do is wait it out. I've been digging in my closet to see if I have a space heater. I wanted to set one near the pipes and see if I could hurry the process. I can't find those heaters anywhere! How does something that big hide? One of the very few times I miss having a man around is when something goes wrong and I need help fixing it. I can't wash dishes in the bathroom, because ever since the plumber fixed(actually disconnected) the leaking ice maker line, I haven't had hot water to the tub or sink. Thank goodness the kids are both old enough to use the stand-up shower.

I love old houses. They have character and history. You can feel the life in them. The structure holds energy from past residents. But they are drafty, quirky, and cold. This one is no exception. I think I'm nuts because my dream is to own one of the huge, two story Victorians on Washington Street. One with big rambling rooms, little nooks an cubbies everywhere, and big wrap-around porches. I want a second story porch outside the master bedroom. And a room to use as a library with one of those ladders. A room for my art studio. A room as a game room for the kids. Don't want much, do I? And when I get my gas bill for heating my 1500 square foot bungalow type old house, I'll rethink my dream. But I'm an eccentric, so it won't change my mind one little bit.

Everyone send thawing thoughts to my kitchen sink, O.K?

Safe Sleeping Practices

A post on another blog I was surfing, http://ourfamilyporch.blogspot.com/, brought to mind the training I had to take as a licensed childcare provider on SIDS prevention. In her post she reminded me about placing infants on their back to sleep as recommended by pediatricians. Most moms will tell you, it's hard to get a baby to sleep on their back. As a childcare provider, I have to place the child on her back, and if baby rolls, I have to roll her back until she is old enough to roll both ways on her own.

When my daughter, who is 14 was born, it was side to sleep and the nurses in the hospital rolled up recieving blankets and wedged them by her tummy and back on each side to keep her in that position. It was theory then that if a baby was on her back and spit up, she could choke and stop breathing. Things change, don't they?

Here are a few other tips from my Safe Sleeping Class. Don't put anything in the crib with the baby. Stuffed animals and heavy quilts are a suffocation hazzard. If your baby needs a blanket, they recommend using wearable blankets. These have no sleeves or hoods, and zip across the bottom. You should be able to find them at any store that carries baby stuff. The facilitator gave a few away as door prizes.

Never use bumper pads. Not only are they a suffocation hazzard, but a choking hazzard as well. Babies can easily get under them and get tangled. Don't use the foam wedges designed to keep an infant sleeping on their side or back. If the baby manages to move, their face could get wedged into the foam causing suffocation.

Don't use the chords that attach a pacifier to the baby's clothing while they are sleeping, or attach the pacifier to her clothing in any other way, such as a ribbon and safety pin. (Hey, in my business, I've seen it all.) Strangulation and choking hazzard.

Infants should not sleep on couches, in bed with others, or in a water bed. Again, suffocation hazzards and......I have a family in my childcare right now that both parents are police officers. The father took a call when his daughter was an infant to the scene of an infant death. The cause: the young mother had the baby in bed with her and rolled over on her while she was sleeping causing the infant to suffocate. It really hit home for him, since he had a new baby of his own at the time. I know that's a difficult subject for those who practice attachment parenting, but it happens and the tears in this man's eyes when he tells the story of responding to that scene are proof.

Always make sure the bed you are using is safe, not on the recall list and that the slats are a safe distance apart so that baby's head can't fit between them. The mattess should be firm. Soft mattresses pose a suffocation hazzard.

A few misc. facts from the class: SIDS is more common in babies of moms that smoke, are very young, babies with low birth weight, and male infants.

Disclaimer: I am by no means a pediatrician or safe sleep expert. Be sure to ask your doctor for guidelines and do the research on SIDS. Being a well informed parent is the best thing you can do for your child.

I've been very lax with my posts here in the past month. The holidays got the best of me, I guess. That and adding a very stressful family to my daycare and terminating them(their child was stealing from me--even took my cell phone!), my dryer dying a painful death right before Christmas, the mad rush to buy my kids presents the Wednesday before Christmas(the only paycheck I could buy with and keep the lights on), and lots of other single mom misc, issues.

Christmas parties, ball games, practices. Ugh! Then during the week between the two holidays, I had the holiday blues, and well, you know how that is. Hopefully I'll do better now.