July 2020 Moms
stlbuckeye132
member
Childcare Questions and Advice
stlbuckeye132
member
A few of us thought it might be good to have a dedicated place to ask questions and give advice on childcare. Whether you plan to use a daycare center, in-home childcare, nanny, family member, stay home yourself, whatever... share your questions/concerns/advice here!
Re: Childcare Questions and Advice
Daycare Interview/Tour
General Childcare
What’s your general philosophy on childcare?
How many children attend the daycare? What is your child to caregiver ratio?
What do you serve for meals and snacks? Or do parents need to provide food? (If your child has allergies, be sure to ask about how they handle that.) If babies are taking bottles, ask how they handle frozen or pumped breast milk or formula preparation.
What activities do you do with the children? What is a typical day like?
How do you handle discipline or behavioral problems? For instance, how do you handle biting, hitting, or bullying situations?
Family-specific questions: if you use cloth diapers, be sure to ask about that, or if you have an unusual schedule that requires some flexibility, bring that up as well.
Daycare Policies
Can parents drop by whenever they’d like or swing by to breastfeed? What are your visitation policies in general? Who else is allowed to visit during care?
What happens if we’re late to pick-up or need to miss a day due to vacation or illness?
What’s your sick-child policy? What are your policies regarding immunizations?
What is the potty-training procedure? (Some daycares will start potty training your child once they reach a certain age.)
Do you transport children in a vehicle? Where would you go? Ask to see the vehicle or bus, and inspect the seating arrangements.
How, and how often, do you sanitize the toys and materials used by the children?
What are the tuition and fees? Is there a waitlist? Are there any types of discounts available (paying in advance, second sibling discount, etc.)?
Employees
What degrees or certifications does your staff have? What training do they have? Do you conduct background checks on all your employees?
How long has the current staff been here? Do you experience high employee turnover?
Do you have a nurse on staff for medical care? Do you administer medicine and/or emergency allergy treatments?
Safety and Communication
How do you keep parents up to date on their kid’s daily activities or behavior? Do you offer a daily report?
What security measures do you take for your facility?
Are you licensed? Are you accredited? By whom?
Do you have references I can contact?
I agree with @blaf322 that turnover is going to be high for the reasons stated. Not really worth asking the owner/director, but more of something to ask other parents who send their kids there to see if they find it disruptive or not. I also agree to ask about PD, although again some of that can be mandated by the state.
For medical treatment, it's very unlikely that the place will have a nurse on staff, unless it's a specialized setting. So it's good to ask what their policy is around administering medications. And again, some of this may be mandated by the state in terms of what they can and cannot administer. Some have a choice, some don't.
Same with immunizations - definitely good to check what is required by your state. It may be different for daycare vs. K-12. Some states are doing away with the religious exemption completely, while many still have it, and it may be seen as discrimination for a provider to turn away a family because they choose not to vaccinate based on religious beliefs (or medical reasons). That's the case in my state, although there will likely be legislation this year seeking to change it.
There's already been a lot of great advice given, and from my experience I based a lot of our decision on my gut feeling. If you don't have a great feeling about the center leaving it while pregnant, you certainly won't feel any better about it when you're leaving your baby there. For those prone to anxiety, feel free to look up the violations of the centers, but take it with a grain of salt. No place is going to have a perfect record, so pay attention to the type of violations they have. Having a missing phone number on record is very different than having a ratio that's higher than the state allows, etc. You get it. I just know I went down a rabbit hole with looking those up and quickly spiraled into "OMG NO PLACE IS SAFE."
One thing I haven't seen mentioned that I DEFINITELY asked when we toured a few other places with this pregnancy to see if we wanted to move/stay where we were... do they offer any sort of parents' night out? At our center, they offer a PNO on the first friday of every month where you can leave your kid at the school 6pm - 11pm for $30 and they feed him/her dinner and put him/her to bed. It has been the best way for MH and I get date nights because we aren't near family who can watch her while we go out. It has nothing to do with your child's everyday care, but it's definitely a nice perk for us!
Per @meanjellybean :
@b_1029 I totally remember being in your shoes! We toured several daycares when I was pregnant with DD and in each room they would ask if I had any questions and I'd be like "nope." Lol I just had no idea. And the tours usually do a good job of covering everything you want to know. For us, we toured three and they all seemed great, so we went more on feel and word of mouth from people whose judgment we trusted.
The first thing is whether you are looking for an in-home or a center. There's obviously pluses and minuses to both. In-home feels more like home obviously and a center feels more like a school.
Location - generally I feel like you want to pick somewhere closer to your home than work, in case you work from home occasionally, but this really depends on many factors like the nature of you and your partner's work and your hours, etc.
What if anything do they provide? Some places provide diapers, some provide meals as your child gets older, some just snacks. I honestly didn't think about this when we were looking and we love our daycare but it would be SO nice if they provided food lol.
How do they communicate with parents? A lot of bigger centers have an app and people like that.
For us, our daycare is a center but the administrators and teachers treat the kids and parents like family. You genuinely feel like they care about your child. When they are so little, and you are trusting a virtual stranger with their care, that's so important. We've had little things we've needed to address with them over the almost two years she's been there, but they always were receptive and wanted to do what was best.
Last thing is that places that provide child care are required to be licensed by some entity in your state or county. You can search your state's licensing website for their complaint and compliance history which is usually required to be public. Almost no provider is going to have a perfect record. Some complaints or compliance issues may not be that big of a deal - like they left the lid off a trash can or something. But if it's something serious, like lack of supervision or allegations of abuse or something, then don't be shy about asking the director/owner about it. They should be open to discussing all of that with you like they would any parent.
Per @coffeeandcookies84 :
@b_1029 it is such an overwhelming experience! When it came to choosing a daycare for DS, some of the things we had considered were:
Location - close to home vs close to office. We preferred close to home. we commute by train or bike into our work, so it just seemed better if DS was still playing during our commute time, also didn't want to deal with potential tantrums on the way home.
Building Quality - we live in Canada, so it gets cold in the winter months lol.
Food options - I didn't want to have to pack a lunch for DS every day if I could avoid it for a few years. So they have a full on kitchen staff with a decent menu that gets rotated
Program/Schedule - any early education/development learning program they offer was a benefit (I think that's common though)
Outdoor exposure - how much time would DS get to explore/play outside. (this was important to DH, as he grew up in South Africa and was able to play in the trees like monkeys lol)
Oh and Drop off/Pick up times! I think our daycare opens quite early and stays open later than a few of the options we had
And of course, cost!
DH is an engineer so of course we ended up having a nice matrix/spreadsheet that we filled out after each daycare visit (we went to about 6 locations), and it was tough to decide!
This LO will be joining his brother there eventually, so I'm happy we won't need to go through that exercise again.
Per @blaf322 :
@b_1029 Here are the things I either noted/asked about or would consider if we were looking for a new facility now. It's going to seem like a lot but, often, they'll tell you most of this during the tour and you'll only end up having to ask a handful of things. I made a spreadsheet to help me keep track of things.
· Ask about their star rating, but keep in mind that 5 star isn't always better than 4 star as far as care.
· Are there cameras in each room (and can you pull them up to watch, remotely, if you want)?
· What is their sick policy? If they have a fever but it's because of an ear infection (or something else that isn't contagious), do you still have to keep them out for another day?
· What all do you provide? (sheets, snacks/meals, formula, diapers, wipes)... pro tip- you definitely want somewhere that provides food once they're eating table food. I feel like I got my nights back the day we stopped having to prep bottles and purees. If we had to continue to prep meals... nope! If they provide snacks and/or food, find out what a typical menu looks like. One place we toured only gave snacks and they were saltines and canned peaches... every. single. day. Give the kids some variety!
· What's your allergy policy? Are they nut free?
· What's the earliest/latest you can pick up and drop off?
· Do you charge extra for early/late pick up/drop off (ours charges extra if you want to drop off before 8am)
· Do you have a bite policy? (if a kid is biting, at what point do they get the boot... or will they ever kick a kid out for that?... Are there any other measures they'll take to keep a biter from continuing to bite? remember... the biter might end up being your kid so make sure you're okay with their policy, either way.
· How do you handle parent communication for both daily things (like diaper changes, feedings, naps, and activities) as well as less frequent things (like school closures and reminders)?
· How much is tuition for each stage of life? (most decrease in cost as the child gets older)
· Do you provide employer (or military) discounts?
· What kind of security do you have in place to keep someone from walking in and taking my child? We toured one facility that had a deadbolt unlocked and hanging from the gate where the kids play outside. They tried to tell me that it's a regulation that they have it unlocked during school hours. That's straight up bullshit. Look around and pay attention to doorways and such. Make sure you feel safe about the enclosure.
· What's your policy on giving back unused milk? (ours has to throw out anything leftover in the bottle.... which hurts your soul when BFing... but it's not uncommon. Just something to consider)
I chose to also ask about things for when they're older because our plan is to stay with one place until she's in Kindergarten. Things like...
· How do you handle discipline when a child is acting out/misbehaving?
· What activities, if any, are provided when they're a little older (some bring in companies like Soccer Shots or music lessons... some provide it for free and some have it as an optional activity you can choose to pay to participate in)
· When they leave daycare to head to Kindergarten, what do you expect them to be able to do, academically (some examples: write their name, address, phone number, site read some words, etc.)?
Other tips:
· Just see how you feel about the teachers and the class in general. If your gut is saying something is off, just go with it. You'll never be able to shake the feeling. For example- we didn't choose one daycare because it was straight up chaos in the 3yo room (among other reasons) and, my biggest concern was, kids were being mean to other kids (which is normal) but it was completely unaddressed by the teacher. Another we saw was fine, but I felt like the teachers were just acting like babysitters. If I'm going to pay an arm and a leg for care, I want you to be doing more than just watching them play.
· Like @meanjellybean suggested, look up their visit notes for violations when the state came through for evaluations (both planned and surprise visits).
We found both of our people through word of mouth. Our first babysitter was a former teacher who opened a daycare to stay home with her kids and make some extra cash. There were 2 other teachers at my school who took their kids there and they had awesome things to say. She went back to teaching this year, so we moved to another babysitter who lives next door to another colleague of mine and she sent her kids there. Another family from our old babysitter ended up there too, which is nice to DS has a buddy he knows!
Things are definitely a little less strict with in home daycares so they aren't for everyone. I do like that if DS spikes a fever, my babysitter will keep him quarantined for a couple hours if necessary since it is SUPER hard for me to get away. She will give medicine and is a former Kindergarten teacher, so she does lessons with the kids as well. You will typically have to give the same permissions for medical interventions that you would for a daycare center as well as permission for them to potentially drive your child places. Another plus is that there is no turnover. I know that she will be there every day when I drop him off. DS is super happy there with the 5 other kids, and I feel like our babysitter is like a mom to him during the day.
Definitely a Con: If your babysitter is sick and can't take care of your child...you have to find something to do with them. This happened to us on Monday (She had the flu over the weekend and wasn't quite better). Thankfully our parents live nearby so they were able to help us out.
@stlbuckeye132 we have PNO but I cannot do it. Like, how TF do you get your kid back to sleep after picking them up. DD goes down at 7:30 and I can't imagine she'd handle going down there well.... and would definitely not handle going back to bed well. Do you find your DD handles it well?
ETA I kind of misread your post lol oops.I think doing an alternative work schedule could work so that you only have a 4 day work week, but that other day may be tough for you both to be working from home for the reasons stated above.
But this time around we're thinking of doing in home for the first 2 years so we can be more flexible with the hours for MH schedule and he can stay home with babe on days off.
RE: cost of daycare for more than one child at a time. I was so excited thinking about how much money we are going to save now that DD is going to be in K next year, and then remembered the cost of infant care lol. But, at least they aren't at the same time!
Try this? https://childcarecenter.us/ I think if an in-home daycare is licensed, they are on here because they have inspections etc.
ETA- If so, an intro in the intro thread would be super helpful. Also check out the board organization thread when you have a minute. It'll help you navigate the group.
SO, to my list, I'd add questions about how they teach manners and kindness. Are they just teaching in the moment, when there's an issue (so the 3yo is going to only be thinking about their current injustice and not caring about your lesson on being nice to our friends) or are they taking time to talk about how to be kind, take turns, and use manners when things are calm. Kids reflect back on that stuff when the opportunity arises. So if we teach them in advance, they remember later on. It's why, before we have friends over, we have a convo about how DD is going to share ALL of her things with her friends. If we don't have that convo in advance, there's fighting and tears. If we do, everything goes so smoothly.