The Age-Old Question: Daycare or Nanny?

Originally published on Yahoo! Shine on August 10th, 2010.

Like most new moms out there, I wake up every morning with a smile and a sigh, because I could really use another hour of sleep, but my daughter’s “cooing” is just too adorable to ignore.

Our family has a pretty regular routine down:

• The baby wakes us up

• My husband and I argue about whose turn it is to get up, even though we both know it will be me

• I breastfeed and then bring the adorable bundle of joy to her father so they can have their bonding moment, which is – you guessed it – getting her diaper changed. (Who said life isn’t fair?)

We try to have breakfast as a family. But that usually doesn’t happen – instead, I receive some phone calls from our European offices, my daughter insists that she can eat by herself and throws rice cereal all over our brand-new sofa (thank God for IKEA), and my husband remembers he forgot to iron his shirt while texting one of his customers on his BlackBerry.

Usually a moment of calm and peace reappears when our nanny enters our apartment, but this time she is late, and when she finally arrives, she has some news to share: “I am going back to school full-time, and this will be my last week.”

We are absolutely thrilled for her, but where are we going to find a new nanny on such short notice? As I drive to work and try to recall all the places I posted an ad last time, I wonder whether it’s time to finally consider placing our daughter in daycare so she can be in a more social environment. She is only 9 months old and truly enjoys the personal attention she gets, but nannies are expensive and hard to find.

Luckily for me, one of the communities I manage here at Yahoo! is Yahoo! Answers, and they have already a good discussion about the topic here.

I also figured you experienced moms wouldn’t mind dropping me a few comments on the topic.