The benefits & challenges of 18M+ childcare?

Question

Hello lovely ladies 👋🏻
I had a bad feeling about the daycare I’d signed up my 13.5 month old for, so now she’s back on the waiting lists...
She probably won’t start anywhere until she’s around 20 months old, due to high demand in our area...
I wanted to know some of the benefits and challenges of settling an older baby into daycare? From mums who did this with their toddlers AFTER 18 months. 
Specifically, how the daycare transition went. Not the benefits of keeping baby at home for longer etc...
Thanks ladies 🌸🌼

Answer

Kids in the country we are in right now start preschool(it’s more appropriately described as daycare or nursery school, at least from an American perspective) from 15 months on.  Many of the kids begin between 18-24 months.  There are a lot of Montessori schools here.  I have observed a few of the schools. I have gathered from parents that ask me if our son is attending a preschool, is that it isn’t so common here to keep kids home instead.  They tell me that it’s for socializing, learning everything they need before kindergarten. establishing a routine, it’s for free time for the parent/s, playtime for the kid, etc.  For me, raised in US, I understand the concept of daycare(but that’s not typically schooling, that’s more like babysitting) because parents are working.  But schooling for years of “preparation” for kindergarten seems unnecessary to me.  It might just be a personal preference and some kids might benefit from it but I don’t see the point.  Also just the language barrier may be causing some of the stubbornness on my part because I just see it as a babysitter situation.  Most here don’t agree with me and look at me like an alien when they find out I spend every minute with me son.  But I don’t know any parents in US that have there kids in programs like they are here.  Either way, I wouldn’t consider it during this pandemic.  I know that doesn’t give you specifics for a child starting at 18m+ but rather just to say that’s the norm here in general.

The benefits & challenges of 18M+ childcare?

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