I swung by a couple of daycare places on my lunch break today and I'm kind of depressed. One place was right on a busy road and skeeved me out while I was in there, I can't explain why, but it seemed so dirty. The second place I didn't get to see much of, the owner was out so I have to make an appointment to go back and take a tour, but I saw the baby room and it was SO tiny! They have four infants there and they are in that room until they're 1, then they move up to the toddler room, but I couldn't believe that once the baby starts crawling and everything, they would still be in this tiny itty bitty space. It was like the size of a very small kitchen. I want to go back and do a tour and talk to the owner in case there IS a bigger floor space they take the older infants to... but I mean, are all infant rooms so tiny? Just curious what my expectations should be.
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I think it depends on the types and sizes of daycares you are looking at. Our daycare happens to be part of a chain and is NAEYC accredited so there are some more "standards" in place than perhaps at another type of daycare. The infant room at our daycare accommodates up to 8 babies with 3 full time teachers and is probably 20X30 or so with a small kitchenette and a closet. They also take the babies out on buggy rides and on the soft structure portion of their playground so they aren't all in the room constantly. I would encourage you to tour a number of daycares.
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@pelikila: I definitely am going to several daycares, but there are only 8 in our area in our budget that take infants. This room was MAYBE 5x20. It was nuts.
Anyway I just wanted to get an idea of what's appropriate before we look at more places.
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We toured four daycares and they all had very spacious infant rooms. But every one had a separate area for the youngest infants, and then a different area for mobile infants that gave them more space to move around. When they are itty bitty they don't need a whole lot of space, right?
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@pelikila: Is your LO at Bright Horizons?
Ours is just like @pelikila. There is a sort of separate area for the cribs for naps, and then a large play area/open area for the babies to play in. It's a large room, with a kitchen area. The side of the room that faces the infant outside play area is basically all windows, so they can look outside too while they crawl around.
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@yoursilverlining: Yes.
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We are also at a center and they have a huge infant room (6weeks-10months or so). Its really two rooms that share a kitchen and diaper changing station. They have up to 16 babies at a 4:1 ratio.
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@pelikila: cool, mine too!
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My LO is in a fairly small infant room, but not as small as you're describing! I don't mind it, because it's a small program overall (around 8 babies total, but never that many all at one time) and they don't need a ton of space since the babies are just rolling around and barely walking. I think I'd be concerned if it was a a lot of babies in a tiny space.
But whatever the size, definitely make sure you are 100% comfortable with it! I really think my transition back to work was so much easier because I really love and trust our daycare providers.
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My LO's infant room is not too small, its quite long, it has enough space for lots of cribs, swings, and bouncers then they have a kitchen area and changing area. That room is for all babys from 6 weeks until they are walking. Then they go to the next room which is averag size and also has a kitchen area.
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My LO's daycare room is quite small but I've seen it with the max. number of babies (6 littles ones up to 18 months, with 2 adults) and it's not as tiny as it seems. Little babies are really little!
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The daycare we went with is limited to 10 infants. They actually have infant "suites" which are individual alcoves for each crib that are walled in on three sides. Each alcove has its own dimmer switch so they can adjust the lighting for each baby. The rest of the room was huge and separated into different play areas. They keep the babies in that room until they are 12months/walking.
We had looked at one onther daycare and we were not impressed. All the cribs were crowded into one portion of the room and then there was just a teeny tiny area for play which felt crowded with just the two infants that were there (they handle up to 10).
Both places we looked at were the same price but felt drastically different to us.
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Our infant area is really huge so it does exist! This daycare doesn't sound like the right one for you. Hope the others are better!
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