Any family where both parents have careers to attend to sometimes find themselves at a loss as to how so many people have full families, and still find time to work. Some of these families are fortunate enough to have parents, or grandparents who are willing to watch their children during the day while the parents are fulfilling their professional obligations, but for many families and young couple this simply isn’t an option, and a day care, or professional nanny service is required to meet this need. What we have here is a set of new parents who find themselves in this position, and although they have discovered two likely candidates for caregivers, they also have another concern that most families deal with; a budget.
According to our assignment, day care 1 has everything a couple could want, whereas day care 2 meets the state standard, but is lacking in some of the more extracurricular areas. From our text we know that this state in a child’s life is very important, and that their development is progressing at rapid rates, but just how important are these extra items day care 1 has, compared to the minimum items provided by day care 2? They are both safe areas for children, the concern for the child’s safety isn’t an issue, but the parents really prefer the first day care over the second. So would money be best spent if they just saved it for some other family need? Would the extra items at day care 1 really make that big of a difference?
According to our text you may be surprised by the answer, it seems babies do more than just sleep all day, and even when they are just lying around, they are learning more than one might expect. There has been some debate about when an infant begins to recognize shapes and forms, but with no doubt we know that very young infants detect contours of visual stimuli, (like hair, or the chin), but not long after they begin to notice the internal patterns as well. Older infants