Originally Posted by smoka:
My wife and I had a baby last December and considered several daycares in the Bothell area. My wife's mother runs a family daycare and we thought this was ideal both economically and felt that a daycare owner is more likely to care about her job than an employee at a franchise making close to minimum wage to babysit.
We enrolled our child at 6 months in a daycare near our home. She is now 9 months old, so she's been there about 3 months. The owner is probably in her 50's but gets help from a girl in her 20's. She seems very friendly (like my mother in law) and the only major downside was that English is her second language. We thought that would be okay since she will interact with people of different cultures and we can always enforce language/learning at home as long as she's in a loving environment.
In the past few months, we had several "incidents" that are making us reconsider this daycare:
1. Within the first month, there were a couple of incidents of major scratches. They were clearly not self-inflicted and the provider never even mentioned they happened (I'm not sure if she saw it happen and forgot to tell us or was too busy when it did happen).
2. One time I picked her up and found her salivating more than normal. After putting her in her car seat, I noticed that she was chewing on something. I opened her mouth and saw a piece of bark or wood from furniture! Again, it wasn't noted by the provider and she handed her to me with this in her mouth.
3. Today, we forgot her solids so I went around 2pm to drop them off. It was nap-time and there was one baby crying. As I walked in, the provider was getting the crying baby out of a closet. The baby was an infant in a car seat!
The first 2 points show that the provider was not watching the kids closely enough. Having been at the daycare with my mother-in-law, I know it's impossible to watch 6-7 kids with little or no help, but usually she knows if something does happen. The 3rd point is just a bit scary since the closet had little or no ventilation. I'm not sure if she does this with our child if she gets fussy/cranky.
Does this sound like normal/expected behavior or should I look for another provider in the area? Any good recommendations on providers (preferably Bothell but open to Kirkland/Bellevue)?
I don't know anything about the area where you are looking for daycare, but I can tell you that I would immediately remove my child. The closet thing, heck no. I wouldn't be able to function during the day thinking she has my child in a closet. Also her chewing something would piss me off too. My daughter went to 3 daycares because I felt the care wasn't right. I waited until she was able to talk to even attend but I would catch little things happening that made me change centers. I would definitely remove my child from there asap.
Also, did she even say anything about it when you saw it or she just seem like its an everyday normal thing???