Childcare is good for child development and avoids parental burn out. Missing your kid is better than wishing they were somewhere else. Parents still have plenty of time to be with their kids, and they can put more effort into that time.
We started at the end of my kid’s second year, so that’s about right. It was great for his social development at that point, since he wasn’t in an infant room or anything.
It's still pretty challenging for a parent to say "you have a child for 3 years at home", from the career perspective.
If both parents are working, they will definitely need a caretaker in some form, and the best would still be that they worked less time and actually spent more with them (incredibly helpful to know the child well)
I got laid off just as my kid was born, so took a few years off, but when it was time to start looking for a job, it just happened to be time to start with day care as well. I admit, it was hard, I'm not mentally prepared to do child care as a full time job, I got really bored sometimes and everything was about routine. Also, I got the feeling that he wanted to start playing with friends and have more diversity in what he did during the day, it works out.
Totally agree. I'm probably forgetting part of it, since with the second one, things are way different, they play together and the younger learns to play by himself way faster, thanks to his "teacher" (the sibling)
Kinda, you get a lot of benefits when the children are awake, but they always nap out of sync, so you never, ever get alone time with your partner for a couple of years until they both go to school, which is painful.
When the older hits 4 years old, there are a lot of games you can start playing with them but the younger one might drastically limit that (for example, they destroy board games, while the 4 years one is very into them!)
On the upside, they melt my heart when I see them playing together
