Choosing a daycare is an important parenting decision in the daily care of your toddler or infant. Since daycare is the place where your child will spend a significant portion of their day during the week, you want to feel comfortable that your infant or toddler is in good hands and that they are being well taken care of. This article will outline some ideas on how to evaluate a potential daycare facility and provide some tips on what to look for when picking a daycare.
To start the process, make a list of several daycares that are in your desired location. There are two schools of thought on where the daycare should be located. Most people like their daycare to be close to either their home or work.
When you have picked a specific location and found several daycares in that area, schedule a visit to each facility. I recommend you start this process several months before you know you will need to enroll your child as there can be a waiting list to get accepted into daycares. To schedule the visit, call each daycare and tell them you would like a tour. This will let you get a feel for the facility and talk to the director and teachers. Most all daycares will happily oblige.
Here are some things to look for and ask about when you visit each daycare:
1. How are the classes separated by age? Some daycares will have all children from age 0 to 2 in the same class, others will have a higher degree of separation. The daycare we use has a class for 0 - 9 months, one for 9 - 12 months, one for 12 - 18 months and one for 18 - 36 months. We prefer having the classes separated so that all the kids are roughly the same age and are cared for in the same manner. I like this better than having one class with infants and 2 years olds in the same room.
2. What is the curriculum for the room your child will be in? Is there an effort to teach children new things like letters and numbers or are the teachers just trying to baby-sit the children and keep them under control?
3. Check the Child Protective Services website for your state and look to see if they list violations reported for each daycare. Keep in mind that there are many violations and some are more important than others. It might not be a big deal that a daycare got a violation notice for not posting a class curriculum, but if they have lost a child, it is a whole different ball of wax.
4. Go to your child’s prospective class and talk to the teachers in that room. Make sure you are comfortable with the people that will be taking care of your child.
5. Make sure you know the daily schedule. Especially important is the feeding schedule. You need to know in advance if they provide breakfast, lunch, etc or if you need to feed your child at home and bring lunch.
6. Ask about the tenure of the teachers. A daycare that constantly turns over help is less appealing than one that has had the same teachers for years.
7. Find out about activities such as outdoor play, swimming time, field trips, etc. Again, you don’t want to be surprised with what your child is doing during the day.
8. Finally, ask friends for references and experiences. They might have some firsthand knowledge or recommendations to make you decision easier.
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Posted in
Daycare on August 23rd, 2007
Quick Tip #1:
Spend time on your toddler’s physical level. Play with your toddler on the floor or ground and view the world from their perspective.
Toddlers enjoy playing with parents when they can physically interact with all of the parent and not just their feet and knees. They like playing with your facial features, hair, etc. Rolling around on the ground, wrestling, and giving horse back rides is great fun and entertainment for toddlers and parents alike.
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Quick Tip #2
Make bath time more fun
Quick Tip #3
Get your toddler to follow you
Quotes about Toddlers and Infants
Amusing parenting quotes
1. “I always wondered why babies spend so much time sucking their thumbs. Then I tasted “baby food.” - Robert Orben
2. “A three year old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.” - Bill Vaughan.
3. “Did you ever notice that a new baby always seem to bear a striking resemblance to the relative who has the most money?” - Robert Paul
4. “There are three reasons for breast-feeding: the milk is always at the right temperature; it comes in attractive containers; and the cat can’t get it.” - Irena Chalmers
5. “You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.” - Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”
6. “It sometimes happens, even in the best of families, that a baby is born. This is not necessarily cause for alarm. The important thing is to keep your wits about you and borrow some money.” - Elinor Goulding Smith
7. “Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud “snort” noises.) I don’t know why parents don’t do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you’re a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won’t have his friends hanging around your house all the time.” - P.J. O’Rourke
8. “If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human being can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby `it’.” -Jerome K. Jerome
9. “Babies are necessary to grown-ups. A new baby is like the beginning of all things - wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. In a world that is cutting down its trees to build highways, losing its earth to concrete… babies are almost the only remaining link with nature, with the natural world of living things from which we spring.” - Eda J. Le Shan
10. “I don’t know any parents that look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say, How can we screw this kid up.” - Russell Bishop
11. “Families with babies and families without are so sorry for each other.” - Ed Howe
12. “If you want a baby, have a new one. Don’t baby the old one.” - Jessamyn West
13. “There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.” - Winston Churchill
14. “People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.” -Leo J. Burke
15. “Having one child makes you a parent; having two you are a referee.” - David Frost
16. “A truly appreciative child will break, lose, spoil, or fondle to death any really successful gift within a matter of minutes.” - Russell Lynes
17. “The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable.” - Lane Olinhouse
18. “When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” - Erma Bombeck
19. “You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” - Franklin P. Jones
20. “The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is because they have a common enemy.” - Author Unknown
21. “The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.” - Bill Cosby
22. “The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.” - Calvin Trillin
23. “If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?” - Milton Berle
24. “Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.” - Ed Asner
25. “Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.” - Peter Ustinov
26. “Think of stretch marks as pregnancy service stripes.” - Joyce Armor
27. “Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.” -H. Jackson Brown
28. “My kids are the reason for everything. The reason everything is out of place, broken and dirty.” -Unknown
29. “Before I was married I had six theories about raising children. Now I have six children and no theories.” -John Wilmot, earl of Rochester
30. “A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.” - Anonymous
31. “Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be.” - David Bly
32. “Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me?” - Nancy Thayer
33. “It is true that you may occasionally overhear a mother say “Children must have their naps, It’s mother who knows best.” When what she really means by that is that she needs a rest.” - Donna Evleth
34. “Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
35. “I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.” - Harry S. Truman
36. “Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he’s in trouble.” - Dennis Fakes
These quotes were originally found at http://www.positivearticles.com and http://www.free-toddlers-activity-and-discipline-guide.com/free-toddlers-activity-discipline-guide-parenting-childhood-quotes.html.
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