Why Choose Day Care for Twins?

This story begins a few months before our twins were even born.  Actually, we probably hadn’t named them by this point.  You might ask why would anyone start searching for a daycare before their children are even born?  Fair question.  But first of all, allow me to address why parents might choose a day care centre for daily care giving after both have returned to work. 

            We did consider the option of a nanny.  In fact, we had a nanny part-time, three mornings a week during the last few months of the maternity leave.  But since both my wife and I are teachers, we feel that social stimulation for children is vital and the best place to get this is at a full service day care.  Twins do have each other, but they cannot get enough stimulation just from one another.  This is not a healthy situation in my opinion.  It is true that parents, nannies, and grandparents can take babies and toddlers to community and library programs for some stimulation.  But there are only so many of these.   My wife attended quite a few, and as those with twins or multiples know, it isn’t always easy.  Sometimes, she had help from the nanny or a grandparent, but she even enjoyed a stroller fitness class with her two babies in a her large double stroller!

We realized that the cost of two infants and toddlers in day care would be greater than sponsoring (in Canada) a live-in nanny but we were willing to do this if we could find the right day care centre.  I had worked in day cares during my university years and knew what to look for as far as quality was concerned.  I will share this information with you later in this article.  Of course, many people opt for home day cares, but one of the things to consider with those is that the range of children can be quite varied, and, as an example, many home day cares in Ontario can only accept five children.  Check your state or provincial government to find out what the ratios for each type of care and age group are in your community.  We were pretty sure that we had a great day care nearby, because so many people we knew were recommending it highly—but that meant getting on the list over a year ahead, pre-birth, in order to secure two of ten spots in the infant care room.  And so we did.