Baby To Child

Child Care Providers

Child care providers nurture and care for children who have not yet entered formal schooling and also work with older children in before- and after-school situations.

These workers play an important role in a child’s development by caring for the child when parents are at work or away for other reasons.

In addition to attending to children’s basic needs, child care workers organize activities that stimulate children’s physical, emotional, intellectual, and social growth.

They help children explore individual interests, develop talents and independence, build self-esteem, and learn how to get along with others.

Recently my daughter had her first baby. She was able to take three months off of work, but was planning to go back full time at the end of the three months. She had found out from co-workers that child care providers are difficult to find, especially for infants.

She wanted to place her baby in a home setting so she began calling child care providers that were licensed by the local county social services agency...

She calls social services for the list of child care provider in her area. She was surprised when she was told that she needed to pay for the list. Because social services charges for the list they provide the names of all the child care providers in the area. The list was very extensive.

It listed the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the child care providers as well as details of their license. These details included how many children they were licensed to provide care for as well as the names of any child care aids that they employed. My daughter brought the list over to my house so we could find the right home for the baby.

We all started by locating child care providers on the list that were close to my daughters home. Several of the day cares were full, or were already caring for an infant. The child care providers are only allowed to have two infants in their care at a time. We called one provider and were told that she would have an opening in six months. This child care was located two blocks from my daughter so the location was perfect. She placed her name on the waiting list for the infant slot.

We afterward tried calling child care providers that would be able to care for the baby for the six months. We found one that was located in the opposite direction from where my daughter works. This was going to add forty five minutes on to her morning and afternoon commute, but she was running out of options.

She decided that for the limited time she would make the extensive drive. My daughter had no idea that she would have such a difficult time finding child care providers with openings, or she would have started the process of looking earlier.

Subsequent to two weeks of driving the extra distance and trying to adjust to getting herself and a baby ready in the morning my daughter decided that she needed to find another option. Her husband suggested using a day care center until the opening occurred in the neighborhood.

To ensure that children in child care centers receive proper supervision, State or local regulations may require a certain ratio of workers to children. The ratio varies with the age of the children.

There was a center located three blocks from my daughter’s work place. She went to visit the center and was pleased to see the care the children were given. She would also be able to go and see the baby during her lunch hour. She decided that she would go with this option. After one month she decided that she liked the center so much, she took her name off of the waiting list with the neighborhood provider.

Child development experts generally recommend that a single caregiver be responsible for no more than 3 or 4 infants (less than 1 year old), 5 or 6 toddlers (1 to 2 years old), or 10 preschool-aged children (between 2 and 5 years old). In before- and after school programs, workers may be responsible for many school-aged children at a time.

Resource

Child Care Aware - The following points are good ways to measure the quality of a child care home or center.

Child Care Costs - Once you've decided that an outside provider is right for your family, an important consideration in choosing the right option is child care cost. A big question is what level of service do you receive for the child care cost charged?