How are you tackling child care? Are you looking for a facility or something in-home? It can be SO hard to find child care solutions that are not only quality but affordable for your family and inome. I know for us finding a place with a curriculum was very important!

I’ve worked with infants/ toddlers for the past 12 years and all of these are on point! I have my own in home daycare and in a couple of years I want to transition to a “boutique” style of infant care. I would only take on 2 infants at a time and they are able to stay in my care until they are 14 months. Quality infant care is greatly needed in our area.

As a nursery teacher I totally agree, that all parents need to search before saying yes.

I've been the lead infant teacher at the childcare center where I work for a little over 5 years. These are all good tips! I'm happy to say that I follow all of these in my classroom to the best of my ability.

My baby is being neglected at daycare, I was told by a caregiver that comes in midday to help as a second teacher and was told that she is left in the crib on purpose by the morning teacher ,left to cry till she falls asleep because the teacher is too busy, with the other baby she is 7 months old, the other babies are under 2 months so they are priority and she is left to suffer, a worker there spilled the beans , she said she is going to quit because she doesn’t like how they do the kids

A quality daycare is people who truly cares and not just looking for a check I know I work at one ps of course I care I treat people children like I would wants them to treat my own😊

New mom and looking into possible daycare so glad you posted this! Thank you! Gave me great questions for my daycare tour tommrow!

This made me feel better. I didn’t know anything beforehand. Thank you

Our daycare center is at the college, the child care students are taking care of your children for their course and each student is assigned two children each that they care for for the whole year. The professors are strict on health and safety and the students are being graded on it. I think I lucked out

That tip on stimulus made me realize that, despite all evidence to the contrary, I am actually an infant.

This is early on, but one thing I’d never do is select an day care that is based in the care providers home. In a lot of states including the one I live in those homes aren’t as regulated or inspected by the state vs their brick and mortar counterparts. I would want the baby changing stations in an open area and the building shouldn’t smell heavily of smoking. There was one facility that made headlines in people magazine that was very close to my home. In fact I went to high school with the girls boyfriend and his younger brother. I would contact the state regarding a facility I was thinking of placing my child in, to see if they’ve been cited for violations and what if any those violations were for. A red flag would be if they’ve changed their name, if they’ve been cited for not reporting abuse etc.

Really annoying these days that daycares don’t let parents see the classroom with the children in it “because of COVID precautions”. I feel like this is so important. I understand the health concerns, but at the same time I feel like this should be accommodated.

I work at a daycare that I find not using developmentally appopriate practice I actually will advise parents not to use this particular daycare because they put so much emphasis on shapes and colors letters and numbers from even age 1 and TWO!!! (way too early) Keep in mind as a daycare teacher the turnover is bad overall due to us being underpaid. Ratios are rough because most don’t want this job sadly again due to poor pay. So just something to add when it comes to your wanting to not have high turnover

I'd like to also add a few super important notes-- Just because they have high reviews on sites by people doesn't always mean they'll be good. I made that mistake. 70+ reviews on google, even from some of the parents of the kids in my boys class. My boy went in at 12 months and we took him put by 14 months. Here is what happened: 1. They didn't stick to their health policy. So, kids were sick and disgusting all the time. Not talking about standard "right of passage" sick that all kids go through. We would walk in and they all had green snot noses, all sharing the same toys. 2. My boy would get bumps and no one ever knew why 3. They couldn't even put his diaper on right. One time I went to pick him up, I had to change a poo. He had wet pants. I go to change him and his penis was out the top his diaper. The staff fussed the other staff. Well, it happened again. We go to pick him up and he was crying on the floor. The lady said he had just had a diaper change and didn't want to so he was fussy. We get home and do our after daycare routine to find his penis was out again and his skin chafed raw and he had poo on the front. 4. The final straw was we were on our way to pick him up. We get a call saying that 40 minutes ago they texted about him having a 102.7 fever. They didn't call after the text. They didn't call the emergency contact number. We get there, he's in the infant room...alone... in a crib. On his stomach. No one paying attention to him. He was shaking. We had to go to ER because he was passing out in the car. The building was warm too which didn't help. We decided to tour a smaller daycare with less visibility and hardly any reviews because our friend had their babies there and now they're 4 and 6. It's a smaller facility but LIGHTYEARS different. All the kids are calm. Out of all ages, maybe 1 had a lightly runny nose. Everyone was well behaved. They don't allow sharing of chewed toys. They put them in buckets. The take home slips says what they ate, how much, and what they learned. Get this. If you have green, you're not allowed in. We took our boy on the tour and he was so calm that the 3yr old teacher took him to play blocks and color and my boy never cried ONCE. So, when you tour, please consider all options. Also, most parents don't know this, but inspections are publicly available. Make sure to read inspections up to 5 years. It will give you an idea about what the center actually cares about. Turns out his previous daycare didn't bother to do tornado or emergency drills. They also, on multiple occasions, accidentally left toddlers outside in the playground for a few minutes and the company next door had to call.

I worked at a daycare for 3 weeks. I was going to quit, but they ended up firing me first. Anyway, so much no that I see for their facility based on this video. Can you do a video like this for inspecting the toddler room to see if the daycare is ok? There were lots of broken toys that they took their time throwing out. I was the only worker who read and sang to the kids. The toddlers were put in high chairs for punishment and containment which is against the state training. They put in their high chairs like an hour and a half before snack time. In that time, given snack then given paint then given another snack. These ones were shoveling the paint into their mouths. They didn't allow toddlers to get up from their naps when they woke up. They would tell them "lay down" for another hour or so (after about 40 minutes of napping or more. One child, they even laid over him propping themself up. I later realized that was one of the kids that woke up from nap screaming bloody murder. There should not be TV in a daycare (you mention that for overstimulation) and kids shouldn't be watching teachers phones or anything. Oh and that place had a strong favoritism for teacher's kids. They weren't supposed to be with their mom, but they always were. They just gave them another class on the rosters. Another thing is, if I apply to daycares later, what do **I** look for and ask about to see if it's a good place. That's a possible video topic.

Thanks a lot. Exceedingly helpful!

All of these are on point, however I would want to be nosy and check out every classroom, watch how the teachers in those rooms interact with those kids in the other classes.

I’m praying to do a babysitter because in my city people believe in crying it out my son is breast feed I enter act with him during the day he never cry’s for long periods with my I carry talk and play with him he is a person I know sending him to a daycare he won’t get that I want him respected loved on emotional and encouraged to grow .

I run at home day care in the garga ei turn into storagre lkke stove,frige ,microwave. So my actually kichten dont get messy .then i have closet with aed ,frist aid kits ,and spare inhalers just in case . Then i have 7 bed room hkuse i have 21 kids every room is 4 kids 1 teacher .and provide transportation

I would seek daycares without musical toys and super overstimulating bright colors everywhere. especially since they’re doing enough stimulation with the interactions (as a daycare teacher)

Thank you 🙏🏼

Is it better to stay at home with your 1 year old or send them off to a daycare? I’m worried that keeping our baby at home past the first year is going to impact his social skills. But, I also am able to stay home with him. What is the best choice?

What is your opinion on home daycares? Some are really good. But unfortunately some are in really bad conditions. I hope you replay and I hope to see your opinion💖💖💖Thanks!

Nope. Do whatever is humanly possible to be with YOUR baby. Do NOT abandon your child--ESPECIALLY a pre-verbal child--to institutionalized childcare.

Most childcare centers will not tell the truth about ratio every single last childcare center i have worked at except one had left me out of ratio

I can understand the need for day care for toddlers but for less than one year old seems too young.

I will say that toddlers are very very loud by nature. My class is full of what I would call “busy noise”. They all like to explore things by banging them on tables or my walls.

Uhh.. I guess I'm the outlier of not wanting to be with my kids full time. I'm losing my mind.

Just don't! Don't put your child in day care. It's the worst you can do to your child.. destroy his future. That and sleep training.

Why don't mothers dig in their heels to stay at home with their children. Day care workers know what to sayto career women parents. BecUse caring for children is too much trouble and it is easier for the mothers to work. Uyou ou only have one mother and she has mothers instinct childcare doesn't have it.

It’s sick how people drop their babies off to be watched by strangers. These people should be arrested

Everyone keeps mentioning turnover rate, but how do you get the daycares to actually tell you the truth.. they know high turnover is bad, so they aren't going to say that outright. Are there any questions you can ask to get a sense of this information without explicitly asking it?

My baby is being neglected at daycare, I was told by a caregiver that comes in midday to help as a second teacher and was told that she is left in the crib on purpose by the morning teacher ,left to cry till she falls asleep because the teacher is too busy, with the other baby she is 7 months old, the other babies are under 2 months so they are priority and she is left to suffer, a worker there spilled the beans , she said she is going to quit because she doesn’t like how they do the kids