The Baby Expert: A or B

The wife is at her wit’s end dealing with the baby. She’s proposed that we send our child to a daycare or nursery for half the day to help get her accustomed to not having Mommy or Daddy around. I tend to agree with this. If we don’t nip this in the butt now, it’ll only become that much harder to separate Caitlyn from us as she gets older. And by that time, the wife will probably have lost all her hair.

In an ideal world, the daycare/nursery of our choosing would meet all of our requirements. But we live in a far from ideal world. There has to be a bit of give and take. You have to decide what you can and can’t tolerate in a place, and then make a decision based off of it.

There are two places that we are considering. Here are the pros and cons of both.

Option A:

Pros

It’s literally right around the corner from our house. It’s convenient, and for a worrier like me wife, very ideal for her to pop by at any time to check up on the baby.

They recently relocated to a new building, so the facility is brand new and everything inside is clean.

Currently, there are only 3 other babies enrolled there, so class size would be small. The teacher would have an easier time managing the babies and keeping an eye on them.

Cons

The wife isn’t exactly keen on the area that we currently live in right now and fears the quality of teachers here are not up to par. She worries they won’t take good care of our baby.

There hasn’t been much feedback or reviews online about this place, so who knows if they are good or not.

Option B:

Pros

It’s well-established with a lot of positive reviews online. The wife feels a bit more safe about sending our baby to a place like this.

It’s in a better part of the city.

Cons

It’s about a 30 minute ride away. Wouldn’t be convenient for the wife who would have to take a taxi there and back since she doesn’t have a car. She’d run herself ragged shuttling back and forth. And what if there’s an emergency and she needs to get there quickly?

When we went there for open house, I found a lot of the equipment to be run down, dirty, or broken.

More expensive.

Larger class size. Will our baby really get the attention that she needs? Plus, with more kids, that means there's a greater chance of getting sick.

There’s a waiting list. Who knows how long it would be before we got in.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m all for Option A while the wife is all for Option B. My main deciding factor is that it’s convenient. I’m not really concerned whether or not the teachers are world-class educators because our baby is not primarily going there to learn. She’s going there so she can get used to being away from Mommy. As long as the teachers keep can an eye on her and keep her safe, that’s all I could ask for.

Somehow, the wife feels that if we do try out Option A, we’re going to be stuck there and has really balked at testing it out. Obviously, if the place isn’t a good match, we can always try the place of her choosing. I highly doubt a nursery would hold our daughter hostage and say that we can't leave. The sooner we start sending her to a nursery, the quicker and easier it will be for her to get used to not always having to cling to Mommy.

What would you pick? A or B?