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additional vaccines and even vitamins to help strengthen your child's immune system when there are no other options except for daycare.

One of the best ways to introduce your child to a daycare or home-sitter environment is to start by making short visits to the facility or home. Do so over the course of perhaps a few weeks to a month or two. This visitation will help the child adjust to the new environment. Ease the child into staying with the new caretaker while you walk out of the room only a few feet while the child is playing or the caretaker is reading or playing with the child. During another visit, take time to walk around the block a time or two while the child acquaints himself or herself to the now not so new environment. Continue doing this until the child is comfortable spending time with the new caretaker.

This method eases the child into going to another home or facility where someone other than his or her mother or father is caring for the child. It lessens the separation anxiety far too many children endure when left standing at the door screaming through tears frightened out of their wits because the safety net they have as a parent is gone. Separation anxiety can manifest into major problems later in life. Your child needs to know that as a parent, you will not leave them with someone you do not trust or they cannot trust. The slow introduction gives the child time to adapt to the new environment with as little stress as possible; the stress being less on the parents and on the child.

Continue to work on budgeting expenses so if an opportunity does present itself, the parents can bring the child home to be with one of the parents during the day. There are no substitutes for one's parent as the primary caretaker; however many parents have no alternatives except child daycare services but if through a budget one learns it is possible to have at least one parent home while the other works, it becomes a win-win solution for everyone including the baby. The child can save money otherwise spent on daycare that can now go on other things for the home including other bills.

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