f/u childcare: Kindercare

inamra

I know they're a pretty big chain, so I was wondering if anyone knows/heard anything about them before? I have no recs (except Yelp =P) so I was looking for more opinions of them, if anyone here has any? TIA!!

MrsZiz

A lady I work with takes her son to one and really likes it. Although they are pretty strict with what they want (like having kids under 1 take 2 naps at a certain time, etc), so there's very little flexibility with schedule but she doesn't seem to mind. 

Married2MrWright

We looked at two Kindercare facilities here in Tulsa...they were not for us. They felt depressing and like "baby jail," The infant area had 16 cribs lined up end to end. So sad for me. They do take kids from 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. which I am sure is great for working parents who have a commute. They charge $800/mo. and that includes on can of formula (*sigh*). You provide dipes and wipes (which I think most places require).

We toured both places and they were clean, had clear policies (for example in the infant/baby areas the workers wear Crocs that are only allowed in there...to minimized tracked in dirt/germs on the floors), they had an outdoor play area (we saw 3-4 year olds out there...again...to me, the kids seemed sad. Of course that could be more because of their home situation and not the daycare's fault, but we just didn't get a good, happy vibe at the place).

Anyway, I have coworkers that LOVE the place. It just wasn't for us.

MrsNJSwimmer

they have a pretty good reputation around here.  A lot of the moms I work with use various centers in my area.

lelekay

I think it depends a lot on the center.  I've heard both good things and bad things.  We did tour one, and it was just okay.  I didn't get great vibes from it (as I did from the place we're at now), but it didn't seem terrible, either.

inamra

Okay I just wanted to see if it was worth a shot to go tour them and it looks like it is, so I'll be checking them out next week and see how that goes. The only thing is that they require at least two days a week, but I think at this point, we're willing to pay for two days a week and only go once as long as we find a place we really like. Thanks for the input ladies!

MauiWedding08

I think it really depends on the center.  They are all corporate and try to run efficiently, but it really depends on the staff (and the parents of the other children).  My half sister has worked at a couple of different daycare centers and her advice to me was to get a feel for the ratio (most are defined by the state) but some of her experiences were pretty bad.  They would set the schedule, she would show up but if she was not needed yet (as in they had an ok ratio in the room) they would not let her clock in.  She would have to wait until the last few babies showed up.   I can say this isn't what our center does, because they are often overstaffed and they don't shuffle them around.  My sister never knew what room she would be in and her was not a floater or sub.  They hired her for 5 year old but constantly moved her to other rooms where the children did not know her.

She worked at 3 different centers of the same co. in our area (they moved her) and she really liked one of them and said the staff was all well trained, they didn't flub ratios and rarely moved her around - only in cases of someone out on personal leave (hmmm, wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that one was in the "nicer" part of town?).  The other 2 were pretty bad, and she would never recommend sending kids there.