Daycare questions

StayingFocused

Going to tour a daycare Thursday and need advice on must ask questions.  Thank you!  FTM 24w

Kballew10

I'm a FTM too, but my sister is a elementary school teacher, so I bugged her for advice.  Her advice was to ask about employee retention.  You don't want a place that has constant turnover, it will be harder for your child to adjust if it's a constantly changing environment.  She also mentioned looking at the average age of the child-care providers.  You want to make sure that they have enough experience to know how to handle a variety of situations and different temperaments.  Her last bit of advice was to go with your gut.  If something seems off during the tour, ask.  If you don't feel comfortable touring, you won't feel comfortable leaving your child there.

Emztron500

I would ask:

- What do the kids eat, and do I need to provide lunch/snacks? (I know it's not an issue the first 6 months but it'll come up quickly)
- Under what circumstances do you send children home?
- What do you do if a child won't stop crying, doesn't want to nap, refuses a bottle, etc? I had to switch my toddler's care due to her pulling her hair out from stress while being left to cry alone in a playpen every day at nap time. When I switched her to a caretaker who would pick her up and have "quiet time" with her with no pressure to sleep, she started going down for naps effortlessly within a few weeks with no crying. So this was a big one for me.
- Make sure they're down with any parenting practices you do that might be outside the norm, like cloth diapering or special diets
- How many children will your child be grouped with, and how many caretakers will that group have?
- What does a typical daily schedule look like?
- What kind of activities do the children do? Do they get lots of free play and outside time?

alohasoprano

I would ask about background checks and drug testing along the suggestions above 

MillerMama13

Really good advise by pp.
To add to that:

Find out what exactly they provide and what you're expected to provide. (I.e. Our daycare provided formula but only the generic brand, we provide diapers, they provide wipes but again it was generic). If you're sending breast milk ensure they have proper storage and a bottle warmer. 

Find out about corporate discounts. Some of the providers near me offer a discount because of where I work. 

Find out what days they're closed (holidays and such) so you can ensure you line up alternate care on those days. 

Vacation days? Our daycare gives us 10 vacation days to use per year. Which means we can keep her out for a week or whatever for when we go out of town or have family in town that will watch her instead of sending her to daycare and not have to pay (we also don't lose our spot). Once you use up all vacation days you can keep her out but you will still have to pay for the time in order to keep your spot. 

Flutterby00

Like the PP said, but didn't go into as much detail - find out about the caregivers.  Specifically ask if they provide free or discounted childcare to their employees.  I found that the daycare facilities that DO NOT offer this as a benefit will have MUCH higher turner than a daycare that gives that added benefit.  

Ask about how their staff communicates plans to each other.  i.e you have a conversation with one worker about a specific request, how does that info trickle to the rest of the people who come in contact with your child?

If you are interested in cloth diapering, ask if they do that - not all facilities do.

Ask about how they handle breast milk.  Ask how their employees receive training around proper use/storage of breast milk (i.e. what do they do with a bottle that was not finished, or a bag that was not fully used?  Store in the fridge?  dump?  re-freeze?)  

Having the daycare provide meals once they are old enough was really important to me as I didn't want to be packing lunches every day.

Ask about how they communicate to parents about their daily activities/diapers/food intake etc. Daily report cards?

Ask about breastfeeding visits if that interests you.  Ours has 2 rocking chairs in the infant room for mothers who want to come visit.  

Ask if you can come observe prior to the first day.  Also a free trial time for before you officially start.  I went and sat with my baby for a couple hours and breastfed and observed what went on.  I did a trial run where they gave me 4 free hours while I was on maternity leave to try them out.   These things, and my daily visits were what made me the most comfortable with my facility.  

lm45678

Everyone has already said so much that I don't have much to add.

The ratio of adults to babies is important.

Breastmilk- if you plan to breastfeed. Can you come nurse baby if you want? Will they heat breastmilk for you and give it to baby? Etc.

wbwells

Might've already been said- totally didn't read the other responses- ask about infant food policies.  If baby is formula fed do you have to pre-mix and measure every bottle.  For BF babies- what do they do with milk that isn't consumed at the end of each feed.  If baby is there for 4 bottles do you have to bring in 4 bottles pre-measured/mixed/labelled?  Or can you bring in one big container and they measure out into smaller feeds so it's only 1 bottle a day you're having to wash.
Same with baby food- Can you send it in it's original container? (Find out if they allow glass.  Most don't in the infant room).  Do you have to transfer food into a tupperware container (a lot of places do this for whatever reason.  I never understood that policy even when I taught preschool).
How often to they check sleeping infants.  (should be every 5 minutes if they're 5 star rated).
Retention rate.
Weather policy- how often do they close, when do they tell you they close.
Do they allow teachers to babysit your children outside of school?  I also know a few preschools who don't allow teachers to be private babysitters even on nights and weekends.
Ask teachers hours- they might have 2 teachers in the room, but if school is open 12 hours a day there are 'floaters' in the room at times as well.  Will 1 full time teacher always be there so it might be a floater and a fulltime in the morning, then 2 full times until the evening when teacher 1 gets off and another floater is there?
Whats their sick policy.  Both for bringing child to school if they are sick/have been sick and if they get sick at school.  (Again- 5 star rating schools would be fever of 100.0 calls the parents, 101 goes home.  Vomit has to happen 2 times in 1 hour before they're supposed to call the parents unless vomiting is accompanied with a fever).
What do the infant teachers wear- some require scrubs and the teachers change when they get to school and before they leave so they know they aren't around animals/smoke.
Do their teachers smoke?  That would be an absolute deal breaker for me for an infant room.
Shoes on or off in the infant room.  Shoes should be off, but not all schools seem to find this important.

I know there's a lot more to schools than just the infant room, but I've found that the infant room policies set the tone for the rest of the school.  Sorry if I've overwhelmed you or repeated- I'm just trying to think of all the infant rooms I've seen/worked in/had friends babies in and the things that impressed me and things that really bothered me and would prevent me from sending my child to school there. 

cdnvb4

There have been many wonderful suggestions already. The only thing I would add is to check on their holiday calendar. Our first daycare with our son listed itself as a preschool (even though they were infant-official preschool). We loved everything about them except their holiday schedule. Because they considered themselves a preschool, they took two weeks at Christmas, a full week Spring break, every typical school holiday, and 2-3 teacher planning days every year (even for infants and toddlers who had no curriculum!). That was a nightmare for my work schedule.

NLewis1

I would also ask about early learning curriculum (do they above any and when do they start). We take our son to the YWCA and they start the early learning in the 1 yer old room which basically means they do crafts that involve learning like handprint butterflies with "B is for Butterfly" on it. And they do some Montessori type stuff with playing with texture and stuff like that. We will take the baby to my very good friend who is a nanny until she is 1 or so and then she will go to the Y as well (even though I do love the infant room at the Y and the ladies that are in there - it's just going to be more cost effective to use my friend who is cutting is a break since her husband and my husband are best friends and her and I are really close). I love the early learning at his daycare and I really think he's doing so well developmentally because of it