Over two years ago we had to pull Mr W(2y9mos) out of his daycare when he was 4 mos old.
We found a nanny and a great one at that in less than a week - She was a retired pharmacist and her husband was a surgeon. And though Mr W has moved on to Pre-K, Mrs E is still a major part of his life. They have a special bond. She is major reason he is bilingual. She comes by once a week and he is learning to read in her language.
I'd go with the MIL to buy you more time to look at alternatives.
We'd really love to but, unfortunately, having her come is completely out of our control. We will found out soon whether or not it's possible but at the moment we really can't say one way or another.
Knowing where we're moving to it's very unlikely that we'll be able to find an educated nanny. It's still a developing country so many people are just not educated at that level. That's not saying we couldn't find someone wonderful but it might mean that DD could run them raged (as she already does with our young, fairly well-educated babysitter right now!!).
We did not specifically state Mr W's abilities, or our needs, but asked questions to test whether the staff were rigid thinkers or open and flexible and really looked at the kids. We figured we could reason with the latter.
What kind of questions did you ask??? That would be really helpful!
Within two days of Mr W attending, they knew he was very advanced and asked is if we knew. Today I caught the director watching Mr W reading.
She told me they have added a new set of elementary classes and have two five year olds in with the Grades 1-3 and it was working out fine. I know what she was thinking - moving Mr W up. I've seen the classrooms for these new classes. ( I think Mr W would be fine in there come Spring once he matures a bit more.)
You need fertile ground to plant the seed. The more fertile the better. Find that fertile ground by looking for it!!
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You need to visit the school.
As for "gifted," I'd go visit the classrooms your child would be in as well as the classrooms one and two steps beyond. And watch the kids. For us, it was an eye opener. The kids Mr W's age looked drugged in comparison.
And when we took Mr W and let him visit each classroom, it was fun to watch the staff's reactions. When Mr W was 18 mos old, we were getting the guided tour of the school and he was in the 4-5 year olds' class putting a 40 piece puzzle
The school we're looking at doesn't have separate classrooms by age (that's actually a big preference for us since DD's done very well in a similar daycare situation this summer). It stops after kids get to 4 as do almost all schools here. Now if we went the preschool route we could get a preschool that is attached to a school but those are more segregated by age and don't tend to bump kids up to the next level (from my understanding at least).
Visiting would definitely help... but again, it's the problem of schools filling up while we're not there. We arrive right at the beginning of the semester so it's right when everyone will be starting preschool too.
