Tips when considering child care providers

There are different types of child care provides, home child care and center-based child care. What one family decides to use really ultimately depends on the individual family. Here are a few tips that were shared with me as I began my child care search. I think a lot of these tips can apply to both a home-based and center-based child care provider.

Licensing
Licensing ensure the safety and developmental well-being of children while in out-of-home care. It provides a baseline of quality below which it is illegal to operate. While a non-licensed child care provider may provide quality child care, it is important to take this into licensing into consideration. Are they licensed and how long have they been been providing care? Licensing also places regulations on how many children care may be provided to with respect to the number of adults. This is important that you know how many children your child will be in child care with and how many adults are responsible.

Caregivers
Be sure to find out how much experience the child care provider has with infants and what kind of training they have. Get an understanding of what the caregiver knows about infant development. The primary caregiver should be educated in early childhood development. This is important because the child care provider must be able to provide age and interest level appropriate activities and expert, loving care. You will also want to make sure that they have training in in infant CPR and first aid. If there are an assistants or helpers should also have a certain level or training and knowledge as well.

You will also want to learn about their philosophies on key childrearing issues such as discipline, sleep, and feeding.

Environment: Health and Safety
The environment should be clean and sanitary and observes the basic rules of safety. You will want to see that the indoor and outdoor areas are child-proofed and escape-proof.

Parent Interaction
Consider how the child care provider communicates with parents as well as what their expectations are of parents. Do they encourage visits from parents? A child care provider should allow parents to visit so that they can observe the environment that their child experiences.

Activities
Consider the activities and program that the child care provider has. What is a typical day like for the children? How much time do they spend outside? There should be plenty of books and opportunity to learn new skills. Television and videos should have little or no part in the daily schedule. Are the activities age-appropriate? Do they have a safe play area both indoor and outdoors?


There are many other things that you might want to ask and there are several resource online. Babycenter.com has a nice interview sheet you can print out, as does RealWorkingMom.com. It is a scary task but you need to be informed and you need to do your research. In the end, you want to trust your gut. You need to feel comfortable. These are the people who will care for your child while you are away, you want to trust that your child will be cared for.