If you plan to work after giving birth to your baby, you need to have suitable child care facility at your home. Getting hold of a dependable and caring caregiver for your little one is a daunting task. Finding an au pair or a nanny, or identifying an excellent home daycare or daycare center is not easy nowadays. You need to look up lots of child care tips to ensure you leave your child in trustworthy hands while you go for work. Take a look at some guidelines on choosing child care.

Tips on Choosing Child Care

Whether you are deciding to leave your baby in a daycare center or in somebody else’s home, you need to be very careful and consider a number of factors before making your final decision.

1. Call Experts in Your Area to Get Information

Make a call to your local expert, which could include your Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agency. A CCR&R agency will provide you with detailed information on choosing child care, and will give you a list of some good child care facilities and options that you can exercise in your area of residence. Ask your CCR&R about the licensing needs and requirements in your area, ways to get information on licensing infringements, and whether or not your family meets the criteria of child care monetary help programs.

2. Check Staff Ratio and Staff Training

Next, you need to visit some potential child care centers in your area. Find out about the centers’ discipline policies and take home a copy if they are available. Also, find out about the following things:

a) Child to staff ratio. You must inquire about the child to staff ratio of a center. If one staff member is handling dozens of children at a time, you will not want to send your child there. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, one staff member should handle three to five young children and seven to ten older children at one time. Find out whether or not the older and younger children will stay in separate areas so that you can ensure the safety of your little one. If a group of babies has six infants, there should be one caregiver for every three babies.

• For toddlers aged between 12 and 28 months, the ratio is 1:3 for 6 children.
• The ratio becomes 1:4 for a group containing eight children between the ages of 21 and 36 months.
• For kids aged between 30 and 48 months, the ratio is 1:6 for a children’s group of 12 kids.
• For kids between the ages of 4 and 5, the ratio is 1:8 if a group has 16 kids.

b) Staff training. Find out the training criteria for the staff and whether or not all members are certified in exercising first aid measures, have training in child care and development, are trained to identify child abuse, and know how to prevent injuries and sickness. Also, find out whether the center has strict hygiene rules for the staff.

3. Check Safety Facilities

You need to check the playground and building of the center to ensure it is safe for your child. Check if the playground has wood chips installed under the slides and swings to absorb impact if your child falls. Find out if emergency contacts and ambulance phone numbers are correctly posted in the building. Make sure that the younger children aren’t able to reach dangerous or high places and that they are safeguarded from strangers. Moreover, the building should have safety gates for small kids, protected electric outlets, smoke alarms, space heaters, clean toys, and a neat floor that is cleaned regularly. Also, find out if the fire drills are exercised regularly.

4. Ensure That the Food Is Safe

Find out about the safety of the food served in the center. Check the eatables served to children and also find out the timings of different meals and snacks. It is also helpful to learn about any food-related requirements of the center, in case you want to send food with your child.

5. Learn About the Accreditation of the Child Care Center

Make sure that the center you’re selecting is accredited by a reputable and national organization. Accredited centers have higher and better standards than the non-accredited centers. The National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children are two of the biggest organizations that recognize and sanction child care programs and centers.

6. Get References from Other Parents

Prior to finalizing your decision, do get recommendations from other parents for that center and for child care tips. You could do that by visiting the center during the afternoon and randomly meeting some parents, or you could ask the center’s representative to provide you with its existing clients’ names and contact numbers, so you could get in touch with them. The latter option, however, is unlikely, as privacy concerns would be raised.

What Should You Think and Do after You’ve Selected a Child Care?

Knowing child care selection tips is not enough, to ensure your baby’s health and safety, follow-up care should not be neglected. 

1. Visit the Center for Frequent Checkups

To ascertain that you have selected an appropriate center, you should frequently drop by unannounced. This will give you a chance to take a natural look at the different systems and practices carried out in the center. Check how children are looked after, what foods are they provided with, and whether or not the center is as hygienic and safe as it claims to be.

2. Inform the Caregiver About Your Baby’s Needs

Until the time you little one can talk, you will be depending on what their caregiver informs you regarding their day. When you hand over your child to the caregiver, inform them about your child’s sleeping habits, teething issue, eating times and preferences, and any important issues that involve the health and safety of your child.

3. Talk With the Caregiver About Your Kid’s Performance

When the day ends, ask your caregiver to give you a summary or description of your child’s behavior and other relevant issues related to the day. You can work out an understanding with the caregiver so that they give you a verbal or written description, which could be e-mailed later, or during the time you pick your child up from daycare.

4. Resolve Current Issues

If you experience any problems with your baby’s caregiver, try to resolve them politely; make sure you communicate all your apprehensions respectfully. It is advised that problems with caregivers should be resolved in a peaceful manner, which involves hearing them out.

5. Get Involved in You Kid’s Activities 

Stay engaged in your child’s activities in the daycare by celebrating their birthday there, having regular parent-caregiver meetings, visiting your baby whenever possible, volunteering every now and then, and participating in different activities with your child. Show your child that daycare is a place for them to feel at home.

6. Change Child Care When Needed

If things do not work as you desired, it is best to change the daycare and look for a better option for your child. However, avoid changing daycares too often as it could make your child uncomfortable with new environments and create difficulty for the child to adapt.

Now, if you’re ready to select a daycare, you may want to watch this video to find child care selection tips for you and your child: