There are many heart-in-throat experiences when it comes to parenting, but the one that’s really high on the teeth-grinding list has to be choosing a daycare.
Many of us have meandered through endless daycares as we make our choice, firing a near million questions as we sceptically eye-ball the centre, the facilities and its carers.
Our baby might not have mastered rolling or know the difference between cat and dog, but we want to know the centre’s curriculum, its values, a nutritional breakdown of each meal and how many times the French teacher comes per week.
We are on high alert and justifiably so. When the daycare door swings shut, with our cherub-faced baby on one side and us on the other, all we have is trust. Trust that the centre and its carers will give our child the best possible care.
As a parent to a 16-month-old and a seasoned daycare attendee since he was eight-months-old, I thought I had the whole interrogation process down.

Luckily for us both, he completely relished in daycare and at his first centre, he’d sometimes cry when I picked him up. He was loving life with his buddies, the outdoor slide was magnificent and I’ll never make cheesy scrolls as good as the in-house cook.
But last week, my son started at a new centre. We moved over the Christmas period to an area that doesn’t have that many options. And while the new digs weren’t like his $140-a-day slick Sydney CBD centre, I felt I had asked all the questions and they’d been reasonably answered.