14 Helpful Things to Know Before Your Baby Starts Daycare

I wasn’t completely clueless before my first child started daycare, but there were definitely some things I wish I’d known. I wasn’t the neurotic parent at daycare orientation who asked every single question, but I did ask a thing or two and the answers from other parents were better than the answers from the daycare staff (nothing against them—they’re great).

In this list, I’m going to tell you the simple answers to common parent concerns in a “you-might-want-to-know-this” format. Plus, you may find out some things you hadn’t even thought of, about starting your baby in daycare this year.

Label everything (but don’t go overboard)

Our daycare gave us a thought-out list of everything we should send in with our baby. The instruction was to “label everything” with a name sticker, so that things could be returned to us if they got lost, misplaced or sent home with another child.

I certainly would advise labeling everything, but focus on the things you’d really want back.

That white onesie with a stain? Feel free to skip labeling if you want to save a label (consider that you will be labeling things for years!). Baby socks? Forget about labeling each one, and label your baby’s shoes instead.

Get your daycare labels with only the family last name

Alright, second-time daycare starter pro tip here: buy your name labels with the family last name. I learned this the hard way because all my daughter’s bottles are labeled with her first and last name, in pink and purple, and now my son is going to be using the same ones. I have to relabel.

I got new name labels with ONLY both kids’ last name, in all caps, and with a simple “cloud” emoji (the labels we get all have some sort of fun icon on them).

Even better (my tip): get them in a gender-neutral color and with a gender-neutral emoji or design. That means skipping the unicorns and the pink, as well as the navy blue and the truck prints.

This tip of mine is so that if you have two kids in daycare in two years, and one is a boy and one is a girl (like my kids), you can use the same stickers for both of them. And, you can just click “Buy Again” when you are running low, without having to redesign.

You will lose stuff

We have famously lost what seems like 16 baby and toddler spoons at daycare, despite labeling them clearly with our family’s last name. We’ve asked the class group chat if anyone has found them, and have mentioned it to the teachers.

Our baby spoons have disappeared into the abyss of daycare, and they’re never comin’ back! My tip is to just go with the flow: your child’s stuff is going to get lost somewhere (and sometimes in another kid’s backpack, so do ask around persistently!).

Your kid’s belongings will inevitably get messed up

One of my biggest disappointments in our first year of daycare was that my one-year-old daughter’s favorite (if you could call it that) sweatshirt got mucked up with non-washable orange paint on a day the class did ‘art.’

It sounds whiny, but I rarely get ticked off about clothes getting messed up. This happened to be her (maybe it was my favorite) hooded sweatshirt that we used for layering, and now it had orange paint on both sleeves that didn’t come out in the wash with stain remover nor after multiple loads.

Anyway, lesson learned: assume that anything or everything might get mucked up at daycare. Avoid sending in any handmade items, expensive clothes, heirloom items just for cuteness or borrowed outfits that your sister needs back for her kid. Chances are, they may not come home in the same condition.

They will come home with random colors on their body

My daughter came home with something blue stuck in her hair, as well as something blue stuck under her nails that just wouldn’t come out. To this day, I do not know what it was, and I probably will never know. Sometimes a two-year-old doesn’t have the words to verbalize what happened five hours earlier in the day.

Your child will get sick or have a constant runny nose/cold

This is probably the worst part of daycare. Our daughter was sick every three weeks (no, it is not an exaggeration) her first six months of daycare. There was literally no break. There were fevers, viruses, runny noses, coughs and the works. Everything you’ve heard is right.

What I was also told though, is that it’s better the second year. And by spring of our toddler’s second year at daycare, things got better, illness-wise. It was just a REALLY long time to wait.

I think this is the hardest part about starting daycare—that your child will get sick, and it’s really sad, and really tough, and really sends a jolt into your life because you’ll have to take sick days from work and find ways to keep them happy/soothed during these times. And it just never ends (or seems like it).

Seriously, regardless of which daycare you choose, this will happen at every one (I’m told).

Get the daycare closure schedule ASAP

While I’m super Type A and extremely on top of “daycare closes early on this date,” and “daycare is closed these two days for X holiday,” I somehow still miss things like “early dismissal 3pm on Friday for X reason.”

If you can, keep that daycare closure schedule super handy, and enter the closure dates and early dismissal dates ASAP into your work calendar. You won’t want to be in the dark when you find out that there’s no daycare tomorrow and you have a business trip, big meetings you can’t miss or an important day at the office.

And now… for the really good stuff.

Your baby’s teachers will report on their milestones

Once you go back to work and your baby is in daycare, you may miss a few of their milestones (it’s true. Sad… and true).

This includes talking, walking, grasping, babbling, crawling and more. The teachers will try to catch it all on camera or video, and they do their best, but at the end of the day, you don’t want them recording EVERYTHING because they have to care for your child, too!

Our daycare is nice in that we get a parent-teacher conference (it sounds funny, but it is helpful!) to be able to talk about our child’s developmental progress in a 1:1 format. We also get to ask about progress toward goals like using baby sign language or motor skills.

The teachers really care about your child

It may seem hard to conceptualize, but daycare teachers (if they are passionate about their jobs, and I sure hope they are) really care and love your baby while your baby is at daycare.

It always floored me to see them caring for our baby and getting to know her, and knowing her preferences, her tendencies and more. It helped solidify for us that she was in a caring environment all day long without us.

In retrospect, this was one of the biggest concerns for me, with figuring out when to send our baby to daycare because she seemed so little (9 months). But in the end, I suggest thinking continually about the fact that the teachers are childcare professionals, trained in caring for babies, and usually they are experts! On top of that, they have room in their hearts to be with your child all day and do what is best for them.

Daycare staff will teach you a thing or two

I will never forget this one: I would tie our baby’s hair up with a tiny rubber band, and I didn’t want to make it too tight because I didn’t want to hurt her.

Well, one day her arms got long enough such that she pulled it out, and put it in her MOUTH. This all happened at daycare. Luckily, one of her teachers saw, and pulled out the tiny rubber band from her tiny mouth before she ever got around to choking or suffocating.

I’m telling you, I was SO grateful to the daycare staff for basically saving her life. From that day on, I learned that I had to tie our daughter’s ponytails super tight if I wanted to keep her safe. The staff confirmed to me that I needed to do a better job!

Your baby will be so entertained all day long

After nine months of being our baby’s (our first child) primary caregiver, I was pretty worn out. It was challenging to find activities, come up with the energy to get out of the house and wonder if I was teaching her new things with the resources I could find.

Enter daycare: the daily schedule includes things like music, story time, outdoor time and activities. And all the activities are developmentally- and age-appropriate. This is continually so impressive to me, even though I know it’s just part of the regular expectation. I am grateful for it. It’s one of the main deciding factors for us when we think about weighing the pros and cons of choosing daycare rather than a nanny.

There’s an opportunity to meet other parents

This, for me, was one of the BEST things about starting daycare. Sure, I had had the wonderful benefit of meeting new mom friends as I tried to stay sane during maternity leave.

As summer ended, though, most of us parted ways (kind of like high school ends and everyone goes off to college) and all started our babies at different daycares in the area.

All in all, one of the reasons we chose our daycare was because I knew that I wanted the community for parents that it came with. And let me tell you, I chose right. I am lucky that there are ways to meet other parents and hang out with our baby/toddler at school-wide events. If not for these, life with a baby would be a bit more dull!

I will say, though, that in the first year, I did not “hit it off” immediately with any other parents in our class and become immediate BFFs. I’d say that’s not the expectation, although it could happen to you, and I’ve heard of daycare classes where all the moms are friends and go out for drinks monthly, etc.

In the second year, I hit it off on a more friendly level with some parents, especially as we had more in common with toddler interests or gearing up to have a new baby—a second child, and navigating that together.

But aside from those instances, I chose to attend most social events put on for parents, like happy hours, or events for the holidays, and continue socializing in daycare, which became a social outlet for us.

Getting daycare photos will be the BEST part of your day

Anytime I get a notification that our child’s teacher has posted photos or videos, I can’t wait to take a look.

I thought that after an entire year of daycare, that the novelty would wear off, but for sure we are all still excited to see brand new photos of what our babies or toddlers are doing during the day.

It could be outdoor time, an art project, or listening to a story. I truly don’t care: I’m just happy to see that my child is engaging in fun activities and that she’s in a happy place all day while we are at work.

You can always change daycares

If you are not jazzed with the policies at the daycare where you’ve started your child, or if you are having an issue with staff, schedules or other concerns, you can always switch.

I know families that have switched away from our daycare, as well as families that have switched into our daycare because they’ve heard good things from the grapevine.

Nothing is forever, and daycare certainly is not forever, because in time, your baby will be in preschool. <3

Good luck starting daycare! You got this.