Why Our Child Was Not Put in Daycare

Amongst all the things that needed discussing between my boyfriend and I during pregnancy, one of the biggest was deciding childcare options for our daughter once I was off maternity leave and back to work. We knew we did not want to hire a babysitter or put her in daycare, which is what a lot, if not most, parents end up doing. I try to always keep an open mind, but after thinking it through, there are just so many reasons why I did not want to put my child in daycare, which is what I felt like sharing online today considering I have had so many people, especially pregnant women and new moms, asking me my viewpoint on this topic. Be sure to also check out my video version on YouTube here.

My biggest problem with having a non-family member watching my child is that most likely they are not going to treat your child with the best intentions. Any random person is not going to care too much about having a relationship or strong bond with your child and is probably just doing it for the money. As far as daycare goes, most daycare centers only have maybe two caretakers handling a large group of kids of all different ages. Which means while my baby is crying wanting to be fed and paid attention to, one of those caretakers is feeding another baby and the other one is breaking up a fight between two five year olds, leaving my child and a few others left alone. While some kids are taken care of, others aren’t, and there is little to zero one-on-one with your child, and I want someone very hands-on with my child. With a babysitter, they are in charge of watching your child only, but even then, how well are they really watching them? Years ago, a family friend of mine had a babysitter (who was a close friend of theirs) watch their three-year old daughter who was disabled and in a wheelchair. I will never forget that devastating phone call phone call saying the babysitter wasn’t watching her and their three year old baby died. The babysitter had taken her out in the backyard and rolled away from her in her wheelchair and drowned. The wheelchair weighed her down and she was found at the bottom of the pool. To this day I am scarred from that. How did the babysitter not know that she was rolling away from her? How did she not hear the splash to go save her? I know that may not be the case for everyone, but I feel like when money is involved, anyone is going to want to watch your child and they're going to only half-ass it.

Another issue I have, with daycare specifically, is the amount of germs spread. It’s almost impossible for your child to not get sick in daycare. I feel like daycare is a germ house. Children may be sent to daycare sick, and you don’t know how many kids are putting their hands in their mouths and touching other things and sneezing and coughing and picking their noses and not washing their hands. Then your child takes these germs home, gets sick, and then everyone else in the house gets sick. Some of the worst illnesses my brother and I got were from being in daycare. It’s hard to even remember a time when we weren’t sick. My brother was always catching weird colds and getting temperatures as high as 108°F. My brother caught a cold from daycare once, gave it to me when I was about six weeks old, I got RSV from it and almost died in the hospital. I would rather not put my child in a germful environment and keep her and the family as sick-free and healthy as possible.

With my family being vegan, and no one else around us is, we also worry if a daycare caretaker would feed our daughter anything we did not send with her with or anything we would have told them not to. When my brother was eight months old, the caretaker in daycare fed him a hamburger and another time a different caretaker had given him someone else’s breast milk. So it just leaves me thinking something like that would happen with my child. After all, we’re not there, so how would we know what goes on unless they tell us or we catch them when we come to pick our daughter up?

Besides all the horror stories and things I feel like can go wrong at daycare, there’s the financial aspect. It is so expensive to hire a babysitter or put a child in daycare. The going rate for caretakers these days is about $10 per hour, which is more than what I make an hour. So it makes no sense for me to give away all the money I’m making, plus having to take some money from my boyfriend’s paycheck, for someone in daycare to watch my child when I can just stay at home and take care of my own child. Either way, I’m making no money, and if we were to put our daughter in daycare we’d be losing money since we’d have to use both incomes to pay for it.

So that may be leaving you guys wondering: "who watches your child while you’re at work?" My boyfriend and I made our schedule to where we wouldn’t have the same days off from work. So that leaves us with four days out of the week (my two days off plus his two days off) for one of us to be home with her. The other three days of the week is when we might need someone to watch her. Some weeks we only need someone for one day of the week and we’ve had weeks before where we didn’t need anyone at all. Sometimes it works out that way because my boyfriend gets off from work usually at 12:30pm and sometimes I don’t have to go in until 2 or 3 pm, so he’s usually off before I even have to go in. When we do have someone watch our daughter though, it’s a close family member, usually my mom but sometimes my boyfriend’s sister. We also do not pay for them to watch her. I feel like you should not have to pay family to take care of family, and also, as I stated before, when money’s involved anyone is going to watch your child. It may sound selfish to some, especially since the babysitter/caretaker is doing you a favor, but by not including payment, it ensures that the person watching our daughter actually wants to, that they have the time for her, and that they want to spend time with her, creating a more loving, fun, and safer environment for our daughter.

I hope this answered everyone’s question as to why we chose to not put our child in daycare and that it had helpful deciding factors for you (if you’re in that stage where you need to decide who will watch your child when you go off to work) rather than just leaving you feeling like you read a biased mom’s blog post! Thank you though for reading and let me know in the comments your thoughts on this topic.

5 Ways I've Eliminated My Plastic Use

Reducing plastic use wherever possible is so important to our environment. Plastic not only uses so much energy during production, but afterwards makes its way to the nearest landfill and ends up later making its way to the oceans, which then pollutes the ocean and animal life has to suffer and pay the price. Plastic can take hundreds and sometimes thousands of years to degrade, so a plastic bottle you use today will stick around and outlive you, your child, your grandchild, your great-grandchild, and so on. The production of plastic is also such a big waste because most of the plastic we use is only used once before it is thrown away. Examples are plastic grocery bags, plastic water bottles, plastic soda bottles, plastic packaging for food, etc.

For a little while I had been thinking about reducing my plastic waste but didn’t really know where to start. So while I was on maternity leave and had some free time on my hands, I would watch documentaries on YouTube and do some reading up online about why reducing our plastic waste is so important and the ways to do it. This year I finally started taking action and over the past four months there have been many ways and areas in my life that I have not only reduced my plastic use (which I will talk about in another post), but have completely eliminated it (which is what today's post is about). So I now present the five ways I have eliminated my plastic use.

Reusable Shopping Bags

When thinking of all the areas in my life that I can reduce my plastic use, it had never occurred to me before just how much plastic I had actually been using in my day to day life. Plastic grocery bags was one of the biggest areas in my life contributing to plastic waste, so I knew that had to be the first step. I ordered this reusable shopping bag online at Vegan Supply CO and I love it! On it it says “Eat fruit, not animals”. I’m not only helping the environment by not using a plastic bag, but I’m also spreading the vegan message while shopping for my groceries. As of now I only have one reusable shopping bag, so whenever I need to use more bags, I use paper bags and I will reuse those until they rip or get wet and fall apart from produce or frozen items.

Cloth Produce Bags

The next thing I had done to cut plastic out of my life was cloth produce bags. I ordered the Earthwise Reusable Produce Bags on Amazon and use them every time I buy produce or bulk items such as beans, oats, and nuts. They’re also a lot stronger and can hold more than those thin produce bags they have provided for you at the store that rip and tear easily. And when the cloth produce bags gets dirty or has stains, I’m able to wash and reuse them forever and ever.

Bring My Own Utensils

When I leave the house and go places, such as work, I always bring my own utensils. I don’t have a travel case for them. I just take a sterling silver fork or spoon, throw it in my bag, use it, take it home, and wash it. This way I am not wasting single-use plastic. That plastic fork I can get in the deli will only be used once and stick around for another thousand years. I’d rather avoid that.

Reusable Water Bottle

One thing I always carry with me is my Swell Insulated Stainless Steel Marble Bottle. I love having my own stylish water bottle that keeps my drinks cold wherever I go. I like to fill mine with water or homemade juice, which leads me to my next and last step.

Make My Own Juice

I used to buy those bottled juices, like Bolthouse, Naked, Odwalla, Suja, etc. that you’ll see in the produce section. They’re made with simple, natural ingredients and so good for you, but that’s just the point. The juices I buy anyway are made with 100% fruits and vegetables so why not just make my own juice at home and fill it with whatever fruits and vegetables I want. I can even make the same thing as what I buy from the store and I get to save money and a plastic bottle. I make a large batch of juice at home with my boyfriend, put it in a large pitcher, and drink it until its gone and time to make a new one. My favorite juice contains carrots, celery, apples, pineapple, oranges, kale, and spinach in it.

Like I stated earlier, there are other things I do to REDUCE my plastic waste, which I will talk about in another post. These are just the five ways I have actually ELIMINATED plastic use from my life. Whether you’re reducing or eliminating plastic use, any step taken, no matter how big or small, will be beneficial to us, the animals, and our planet by saving energy and helping keep our land and oceans clean. What do you do to reduce your plastic waste? Let me know in the comments! Also be sure to check out my YouTube channel where you can also see the video version on this topic.

Baby Must Haves | 0-6 Months

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When my boyfriend and I were newly pregnant and shopping for baby supplies, we were very realistic and minimal in the things that we would need. We would shop around and we would come across bottle warmers for $40 when you can do the same thing at home for free and formula makers when you can just hand mix it yourself. Then there were the “essentials” that we didn’t want like a wipe warmer and pacifiers. Among all the baby items we saw that we found pointless, we did find some that we thought we would be in need of, and we were right.

Today I am going to share with you my own list of baby essentials and baby items I love. Every mom/dad/parent has their own view of what they would like for their child and what they think they should have, so this is not a go-to set guide for everyone. I’m just a mom sharing my own perspective and putting it out there for anyone who wishes to read. So let’s get started!

                                                                    Nail Filer 

One thing for sure is baby nails are a lot longer and sharper than you might think, so it is important to have a way of cutting them. I’ve had people recommend to me to bite them off. To me that is not sanitary when they put their hands near their face and in their mouth. And also the thought of chewing on my child sounds weird, so that was out. We bought baby nail clippers but with her fingers being so little we were clipping her skin and causing her to bleed, so we’re saving those clippers for later. Baby mittens covering her hands never stayed on her, so the only other route was a nail filer, which I think is the best and safest way to go.

Diaper Rash Cream

There are of course ways to prevent diaper rash, such as frequent diaper changes and keeping your baby dry down there. But sometimes accidents happen and it is nice to have diaper rash ointment of some sort on hand for when the time arises. My daughter has been sleeping through the night ever since she was six weeks old, so she goes 10-12 hours not being changed during the night. Luckily in her seven months of living, we’ve only had to deal with diaper rash on 3 accounts. We use Earth’s Best Organic Diaper Relief Ointment and it starts working at the first use and clears it up completely within a few days. You don’t have to get a big bottle of your diaper rash cream of choice, but like I said, it’s nice to just have some on hand so that way you don’t have to run to the store really quick when it does happen.

Baby Bath Tub

Many people say you don’t need a baby bath tub, but I found it really useful while giving my daughter a bath. I can lay her down while still keeping her a little upright, and I have the bathtub to support her so that way I can use both hands to wash her. I didn’t like the idea of just laying my child flat in a bathtub, so I just got a little $10-$15 bathtub. She’s seven months old and we still use it every bath time.

Nasal Aspirator

The first few weeks of her life, my daughter had the stuffiest nose and always had boogers. Why? I don’t know. She wouldn’t be sick, but it was nice to have a nasal aspirator to suck it out. We had to use a nasal aspirator almost every single day for the first two month of her life.

Flexible Thermometer

The most accurate way to take your baby’s temperature is rectally, so a flexible thermometer is more comfortable for your baby because it bends with them if they squirm around, rather than a regular, stiff one.

Gripe Water

Gripe water is something my boyfriend and I always used as a last resort, when we couldn’t find anything wrong among the list of: is she too hot or too cold, does she need a diaper change, is she sleepy and want to be put down for a nap, is she hungry, etc. We usually could find out what she was fussing or crying about, but if not, we turned to gripe water. With Mommy's Bliss Gripe Water, if she didn’t instantly calm down, it wouldn’t take her long to. One time she had a crying spell that lasted half the day and she wouldn’t go to sleep even if she was tired, she wasn’t eating, wouldn’t play, she would just be fussy. We gave her gripe water and she stopped crying while we gave it to her then about five minutes later she fell asleep then she was back to normal once she woke up. It’s just nice to have to save everyone’s sanity. It's good for colic, fussiness, stomach discomfort, and more.

Sound and Light Soother

My daughter uses a sound and light soother every night. We have Wyatt the Whale Storytelling Soother and I liked him better than all the others I had looked at because it plays good music that sounds like real instruments, fills the room with stars in the dark, plays nature sounds, and tells stories. You can also download the app to load your own songs and add more stories. This was something we wanted her to have because I find music so soothing and have fallen asleep to music ever since I can remember. My boyfriend and I play soft music in our bedroom for when we go to sleep and we wanted her to do the same. It’s really relaxing.

Diaper Bag

I originally thought I could get by with a purse or backpack that I already had, but nearing the end of my pregnancy and thinking about all the things we’d actually be taking with us for her on an outing, I decided we would need to invest in a diaper bag. I got the Skip Hop Chelsea Diaper Bag in Black because it’s a decent size, has many compartments, and it’s really chic. They have cheaper ones, but I invested in a more expensive one and one that I really liked because it’s also something I want to contine using even after my daughter is older and doesn’t need me carrying her stuff around anymore. I can use it as a carry-on bag while traveling in the future. It will serve me good and I will definitely get a good use out of it.

Changing Pad

One thing I also liked about the diaper bag is that it came with a changing pad, something I was going to buy anyway, so it was nice that it came together. I wanted a changing pad so that way when I’m out at the grocery store or a restaurant, I don’t have to lay my baby straight down on the fold-down baby changing station. They just don’t seem sanitary to me because everyone lays their baby on it to change them. A changing pad also protects the baby changing station or carpet from poop or pee accidents while changing your baby.

Baby Book

You will not believe how many people I have come across that say that they hate baby books! This can go either way. Yes, it is a waste of money if you’re not going to fill it out and just let it sit on the bookshelf taking up space and collecting dust, but it is so worth it if you’re going to actually put the time and effort into it. To us, this was an essential because it is something we wish our parents had done for us. My boyfriend and I have filled out the majority of everything we can at this point, we just need a few pictures put in. We got the C.R. Gibson Wish Upon a Star Memory Book and we love filling it out and putting pictures in it. It goes up to your child’s first five years of their life, obviously the majority of it will be during pregnancy and the baby’s first year, but I think it is something our daughter will treasure her whole life.

Dreft Stain Remover

This. Is. ESSENTIAL! Whether from spit ups or food, poop or pee, stains on your baby’s cloths, bibs, and bedding will be inevitable, and you need a way to remove them. I have never had a stain remover that removes stains as well as Dreft does. It’s like nothing even happened. I use this on my own clothes.

                                                                                        Swing

We really love her swing. She really loves her swing too. At seven months, she’s starting to outgrow it, but it definitely served us well. The first three months of her life, she slept in it about every other night because it was the only place we could get her to sleep, so the Fisher-Price Deluxe Cradle 'nSwing was our life saver during the first few months. We would also use it when we needed a safe place to put her in while we were making food, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, or getting groceries out of the car.

Pack N’ Play

I love her pack n’ play because we have used it on a regular basis as it comes in handy. My daughter slept in her pack n’ play the first few months of her life, apart from the swing, until we put her in her own crib. We now keep our Graco Pack 'n Play Playard at my grandmother’s house where my mom babysits her and she uses it there as a crib and is able to keep her in there if she needs to set her down for a minute to make food or go to the bathroom. When we go swimming, we are able to take it outside with us and she is in a safe spot while we’re laying out in the sun. We also take it travelling with us and use it as a crib while we’re in hotels. It’s good for so many different things and is lightweight and easy to pack up and put back together.

Waterproof Mattress Cover

These come in handy when your child has accidents in the night. Since my daughter has had a lot of them with her sleeping through the night, the mattress cover has kept the mattress itself clean and stain free. We just have to wash the cover, which is easier than trying to get stains out of the mattress.

Burp Cloths

Sometimes when you burp your baby, spit up will happen. No matter how big or small, I like burp cloths because the majority, if not all, spit up will be caught on the cloth rather than my outfit. And if it does get on anything else, like the couch, I have something right there I can wipe it off with.

So that’s it for my baby essentials list! I didn’t put the obvious, like a crib, clothes, and food, but these are some "non-essential" essentials that I found to make life easier for me and my baby. I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know if you used any of these things or what you found to be essentials for your baby!