Your kids finally let go of your leg, dry their tears and you walk out the door of the childcare centre. What will they do, and what do they get out of child care? Susie O’Brien spent a day last week at a community-run centre in Coburg to find out…

It looks great, but most parents dropping off kids have that nagging guilt about whether the kids are really coping with day care. Are they happy? Do they actually want to be there?

The answers become apparent to me as the day unfolds.

In the babies’ room two staff members take care of 10 babies, and there’s a desperate need for an extra pair of hands…

By late morning the babies are starting to get tired and restless as they wait for lunch. Some of the younger children hold their hands out to be picked up when adults walk past. They are not desperate for attention, but you get the impression they’d welcome it…

Many of the children will be on the move all day, from 7am when they arrive to 6pm when they are picked up. A half hour rest just isn’t enough for many of them, staff tell me, but they don’t seem to be struggling yet…

By late afternoon, pick-ups of children have begun. In the babies’ room it’s clear that many kids are getting tired of the noise and motion…

Most of the staff have barely sat down all day, and are still frantically busy. I’m sure they’d welcome more one-on-one time with the kids…

I wonder what’s so important in the lives of some families that they put their babies in full-time care from the age of six weeks.

This centre only takes children from six months, but one staff member tells me this is still too young.

“As much as you look after them they still need their parents,” she said.

Source: The Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21701380-2862,00.html