How One Couple Tackles Child Care During a Pandemic

First off, how would you like us to introduce you 😁?

Adam, Leslie and Claire.

What were you using for child care before COVID and why did you pick that solution? What were the pros/cons? 

Our original plan was to put Claire in daycare when I went back to work after my maternity leave was over (12 weeks after she was born). Where I live the waitlist for good daycares can be months, often up to a year, long. We signed up for the waitlist for the daycare we really wanted in September 2019, and they told us we'd likely get in by August 2020 (when the new school year would start). In the meantime, we were planning to use our second choice daycare, which had availability in late March/early April 2020, which was right around when I was scheduled to go back to work.  

Claire decided to come six weeks early, so my maternity leave ended much earlier than we had originally planned for. This meant we didn't have any daycare spots, which was really stressful for a hot minute. Luckily, I found a nanny share on a Facebook group, and I was planning to use that until her daycare started. 

We loved our nanny! She was great with Claire, and Claire was able to play with another little kid slightly older than her while still getting a decent amount of attention. That being said, having a nanny instead of daycare was very expensive and not really convenient -- she did care in her home, which was 40 minutes from my house and 15 minutes from work, and she was twice the cost. But, she was great with our baby, and honestly it was really the only care option we had at the time.

How have you handled/managed/gotten creative with child care during COVID?  

Child care has been really freaking HARD right now. Both Adam and I have full-time jobs outside the home. He works in sales for a commercial energy efficiency company and always has appointments (mostly virtual, but some in person). I work in communications for the local government, and with COVID, we've obviously been really busy with relief programs, sharing community resources, etc.

That being said, if I wasn't allowed to regularly work in the office because of COVID, I didn't want to send my preemie baby out in the world, either. We stopped our nanny share in mid-March when I was told to work from home (three weeks after I came back from maternity leave). Generally, Adam and I try to trade off baby-duty during the day, but since most of his calls are external sales, a lot of that falls on me. 

Claire has become a regular on my Zoom meetings, and my team is all really understanding (and come on -- who doesn't love chunky babies and their giggles!). Sometimes I have to turn off the camera because I have to pump or because Claire has a blowout all over me and we have to do a mid-call diaper change (yes, that's happened more than once, and yes, they all laugh at me), but we make it work. My boss has been amazing and she lets me work flexible hours, so I can sign on early or work late (or both!) depending on how much Claire lets me get done during the day. As long as the work gets done, she doesn't really care when.  

On occasion, my mother-in-law, who lives about an hour and a half away, will come for a couple days to help if both Adam and I are really just slammed with back to back meetings. It's not really convenient, but we are SO appreciative of her help, and are really lucky to have family (somewhat) close by. Plus, she literally didn't leave her street (even for groceries!) for two months before she watched Claire. If there's anyone I trust about their social distancing, it's her :)  

Our daycare closed and then reopened a few months later, but we still aren't comfortable with their current protocols. We'll know mid-August about our #1 choice daycare and if we're off the waitlist. If we are, we have to either accept the spot (and start paying for it, even if we're not going to send her in) or hope we get a spot in January 2021, when they do another round of openings. 

It's a hard, uncomfortable choice to have to make. What we're doing now isn't sustainable, and we are unbelievably exhausted (especially me!). I feel like a crappy parent, a crappy partner, and a crappy employee because I'm torn in so many different directions. But COVID is still very much a real thing and very much a real threat, and I'm nervous for what it could do to my family. There just isn't a good option right now. 

How are you planning for child care post-COVID?

Hopefully, we're in our #1 daycare choice! We wanted to place her there for a reason, and so many of those kids stay from the time they are babies through preschool and until they go to kindergarten. It's 10 minutes from our house, and even though it's expensive (about the cost of our monthly mortgage!), it's worth it to us for the quality education and experience she'd get there.