How to Find a Good Balance

How much TV is your tot watching?
Babies should watch as little TV as possible. New studies show that there is a huge difference in the amount of television that toddlers in child-care centers watch compared to stay at home kids. Children staying home watch almost 3 times more television than kids going to day care.
How to find a good balance? Stay at home moms are proud to be full time with their kids and not send them to day care, while stressing for not having any time for themselves.
Moms that work full time are fulfilled by their careers and probably feeling guilty for leaving their kids at home. I believe that ideally, if finances and schedules would allow, the perfect balance is right in the middle.
In a perfect world I think that newborn babies should definitely stay with mom as much as possible. When a little older I believe it is beneficial for everyone involved to spend some time in a good day care that supports the development and education of your child. As a result when spending time with mom, both will enjoy it more and have quality time dedicated to each other.
It’s inevitable that a mom staying at home will need moments to do certain tasks that need her concentration and will turn on the TV or put on a DVD to entertain their kids. If this happens once in a blue moon is not a big deal of course, but that same amount of time could be spent interacting with other people and other children, helping their social and cognitive development, even the best TV program cannot substitute that.
I’ve been in both sides, when my daughter was born I still had my wholesale business going, my jewelry store open, so I had to leave my daughter to work full time (full time is an understatement), I would say full time and a half. When my son was born I closed my business and completely dedicated my time to my kids and my kids only. Now that Elias is 7 1/2 months I am back to working part time, my daughter has been going part time to day care, she will begin pre-school now in September and my son is with me most of the time still but I get some help here and there so I get things done.
I believe that interacting with different people, with different age, personality and lessons to offer can only benefit our kids. We are always behind moving all the strings making sure that he is in good hands, happy and well taken care off.
If kids could choose, if spending full time with an overwhelmed, cranky, stressed mom, I am sure they would prefer a part time happy, loving, caring mom. The best gift we can offer our kids is that they learn how to be happy, successful and survive out there in the world without us being is our true job, not only protect them but prepare them. The earlier we take little steps towards that, the better.