Mother' Perspectives of Infant Day Care - Research

Introduction

The qualitative semi-structured interviews analysed are from a study of new mothers' perspectives on using day care for their infants. The qualitative interviews have been thematically analysed using template analysis. The reason why this type of analysis was chosen is because it was identified as the most fitting due to it offering the possibility to conduct a rich and in depth analysis of the data set as well as to acquire qualitative knowledge by analysing reoccurring themes within each interview as well as between interviews (Braun et al., 2006). Amongst many themes, it is expected to find several themes such as financial reasoning of the return to work and mothers experiencing issues adjusting to their child attending day care.

Analysis

The four interviewees had children aged 5 months old, 10.5 months old, 11 months old and 18 months old. At the time when the interviews took place, the 18months old infant has been in day care from 3 months, the 5 months old infant has been in day care from 2.5 months, the 10.5 months old infant has been in day care from two weeks and the 11 months old infant was attending day care from the start. The analysis has begun by establishing codes, themes and finally interrelating themes directly from the raw data. Before starting the coding process, the qualitative data set was read several times and notes have been taken after each questionnaire was read several times. The codes have been recorded in Microsoft Word documents using colour coding a set of printed data. The codes were grouped in sub-themes, and ultimately, the sub-themes were grouped in themes (Braun et al., 2006). One of the interviews did not seem fitting within the study due to the child not having fully attended day care and therefore the mother may not be fully experiencing emotions and not fully having thoughts associated with their child attending day care.

Furthermore, one of the problems encountered while reading the responses was that one of the interviewees' response to the question "Can you remember back to how you felt the first week or so that your baby was in child care." was slightly confusing. The confusion was due to the first half of the response not precisely answering the question and thus leaving the individual analysing the response wondering if the interviewee has used some figure of speech not understood by the individual analysing it or whether the interviewee, Cindy may have not understood the question.

Yeah, I hated it. Even when he was here with me. I hated it. I really did. Because well you know you look at the floor, there's sand in the carpet and you vacuum it till your fingers are worn out but it's still dirty.

The themes identified across the data were: denial of feelings, guilt in parent, adult's separation anxiety, child's separation anxiety, adjusting (child), adjusting (mother), lack of emotional support, father's involvement, other relatives' involvement, day care staff involvement, not meeting requirements and meeting requirements. Furthermore, all themes are related to a certain extent, however, closely interrelating themes were: denial of feelings, guilt in parent, adult's separation anxiety and child's separation anxiety which were labelled under a new theme as emotional distress; adjusting (child) and adjusting (mother) which were labelled as adjustment; lack of emotional help, father's involvement, other relatives' involvement and day care staff involvement which were labelled support; meeting requirements and not meeting requirements which were labelled finding day care. Also, the coding was used as it follows: word repetition and avoiding to discuss for denial of feelings; self-blame, worrying and visiting during the day were used for parent guilt; worrying and crying for adult's separation anxiety; crying for child's separation anxiety; contempt/not crying for adjusting (child); positive outlook for adjusting (mother); father's absence and father's presence for father's involvement; other relatives for other relatives' involvement; day care staff for day care staff involvement; Inflexible Sleeping Times for not meeting requirements; and affection shown, earlier education, qualified staff, frequent inspections, interaction with other infants, clean facilities, bright, good playground, nice parents and flexible sleeping times for meeting requirements. (Table 1)

Findings

In this section the emotional distress theme and the adjustment theme will be described and discussed in more depth. In first instance, the emotional distress theme as well as its sub-themes are well and frequently presented across the data as well as within each interview. One sub-theme, namely denial of feelings is present in half of the interviews through either word repetition or avoiding to discuss their feelings prior to the interview.

"I.: Have you tried to talk through your feelings about returning to work with anyone?

MAUREEN: No. No. Not really.

I.: You didn't think it necessary?

MAUREEN: I guess I felt so stupid because all I could do was cry"

"I. How do you feel about it now?

CINDY: Yeah no I don't mind now.

I.: So your emotions have changed since the first few weeks.

CINDY: Yeah definitely. Yeah I don't mind now. "

Furthermore, the interviewees have experienced guilt through self-blame, worrying and visiting their child when at day care.

"I feel really bad because I don't pick her up till half past four and she goes to bed at half past six so it's only really two hours a day and if I worked full time I would be a mess because I'd never get to see her...."

Also, the interviewees have expressed a separation anxiety experienced by the mothers as well as the children through crying and worrying. On the other hand, the child would cry as a result of separation anxiety.

"Ah I worried. I worried a lot because he was very young then about three or four months old. Um but then I used to go and visit him say after two because I had a break and I'd go and visit him in between and he wasn't even interested in."

"I just cried and I didn't sleep for about two nights and then I rang my employer and I said no I don't want the position ..."

"I have found though that when shifted from the country up here he didn't go for about eight weeks and he was ..used to cry all the time for the first week or two um then I started to take him back to going into crèche."

The adjustment theme, in contrast, presents the mother and the child as having had adjusted with the day care attendance by achieving a positive outlook on the situation and respectively by not crying and/ or being contempt.

"I'd go in and after I'd been there an hour and a half two hours to play with him and he was busily involved in something else and um wasn't grizzly enough to want me."

"Well I think I've got a really positive outlook for it now I really feel that it's a really good thing for him to be going to day care as an only child - he doesn't have any brothers and sisters to mix with - it teaches him sharing and not being the centre of attention. "

Conclusion

In conclusion, the template analysis has facilitated the acquirement of qualitative knowledge by analysing reoccurring themes within each interview as well as between interviews. There were several themes found: Emotional Distress, Adjustment, Support and Finding Day Care; and several subthemes such as denial of feelings, parent guilt, adult's separation anxiety, child's separation anxiety, adjusting (child), adjusting (mother), lack of emotional support, father's involvement, other relatives' involvement, day care staff's involvement, not meeting requirements and meeting requirements. It was predicted that financial requirements would have been one of the occurring themes in the data, however this was not found. Furthermore, it was anticipated that mothers would be experiencing issues adjusting to their child attending day care, which was a finding of the analysis.

Reference list

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. doi:10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

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