Childcare Facilities ... Concerns
 

When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, we worked on arranging our finance so that we could live on one income. It was very important to us that she stay home; we're even doing home-schooling. We couldn't imagine leaving her with someone all day, just to go to work, to make money, to pay someone to watch her, so we could go to work, to make money, to pay them... etc.

So our baby is about 6 months old now, and other than various of her grandmothers that we've had watch her for a few hours here and there, we haven't left her with anybody. In fact, when someone has watched her, it's been at our house.

So here's the deal: Mama and Papa need to work out, we're fat and unhealthy and Papa's goddamn neck hurts from sitting at a computer all day. Okay, so we've been checking out some gyms that provide Childcare services, but this is something we know nothing about.

So... Is there some kind of certification that these things need to have? How do you evaluate them? Does anybody have any experience with Childcare services provided by gyms? Are they on par with standalone facilities, and are standalone facilities even a standard to aim for? Basically: how the hell can you leave your kid somewhere?

I'm not sure there is anything whatsoever that will make me feel comfortable with this idea. But if I don't start working out soon my spine is going to collapse.

Check out a local YMCA. I practically grew up in one of these.
http://www.ymca.net/programs/program...hild_care.html
Even though YMCA's are Christian based, I can't recall them ever even mentioning Gee-Whiz, let alone shoving the Bible down kids' throats.

Thanks. We have considred a local YMCA as one of our options. I'm wondering though, if there is there an objective standard to measure whether one facility is as trustworthy as another. Surely, with all the red tape, someone has thought to regulate whether Childcare facilities are safe or not...

You are talking about a place where the kids are dropped off while the parents work out, right? Not a childcare facility in the sense that the parents go to work, and the kids are watched by the same professionals each day?

My friend works a few hours a week at the Y, doing babysitting, to get a free membership. She's a mom, but has no other special skills. She probably had to take a CPR class or something like that.

I think if you go to one of these places and talk to the staff and watch them for a bit, you will quickly get a sense if it is any good or not. I wouldn't expect a highly trained staff paying a lot of attention to your kid with an eye toward the kid's development. They're just gonna watch 'em while you work out.

Sure. The place gets shut down if they are found to be in violation of anything major. Your town's mileage may vary.

I especially don't want anybody tinkering with my child's "development" - that's my job! I just want her not to die, for about an hour.

Yes, I expect the gym to provide a childcare facility where my child will be watched by professionals, for a short amount of time. Other than the amount of time involved, I expect every other standard of professionalism to be intact. And by professionalism I mean defined safety procedures.

Here is Virgina's state child care regulations, general procedures and information for licensure of facilities. Just as an example.
Provider support services portion of above.
And the Texas state licensing standards for day care centers.

Wow. Bullitt, you've proven to be quite a resource, again. Thanks.

Licensed or not, the most important thing is to go and see the facility yourself and talk to the people. Don't trust the government to make sure the place is safe. Trust your own gut feeling.

Also I would make sure to ask if their caretakers are Red Cross CPR certified. CPR techniques are different for infants, toddlers, and adults. Not knowing how to do proper CPR for the child can mean life or death, you don't want somebody who is going to freak out and not know what to do during a choking or non-breathing and unconscious situation with your child.

I trust the government to have made sure a bridge has been constructed safely, when I drive over it in my car, with my family inside. I trust the government that the bridge won't collapse, and therefore I don't have to consult my "gut feeling" every time I cross an overpass. That's what I meant. I trust the government that there won't be poisons in my food, so I don't have to investigate every item I put in my mouth, or the mouth of my family. We blindly trust that the government is doing a good job on countless things, every day.

That being said, I would not "trust the government" 100% in this matter, and I will absolutely consult my "gut feeling" in this case. But, the point of regulations, certifications, and defined procedures is that there aren't good days and bad days and I don't happen to see a good day as a fluke, and base my perception on that.

I deal with government regulations in my job, and they don't guarantee that I do a good job, but they do guarantee that it becomes more difficult to ignore best practices than it is to just go ahead and comply. That's the whole point, they make it difficult not to do a good job.

When somebody says they are "so-and-so certified" or "so-and-so compliant" it communicates at least a minimum amount of information about them.

This is a perfect example. Thanks again, Bullitt.

I'm with you, man. I'm just saying, it's great if they're CPR certified, but it's better if you can see they don't have tiny toys lying around for the babies to choke on in the first place, you know?

The thing I always look for is whether the care center has a reliable pager system, so they can alert me immediately if there's a problem. This is useful both for the 5-year-old who is deathly allergic to peanuts, and for the 9-month-old who more than likely is going to start screaming a few minutes after I leave and need to be picked up again.

So, I take it from this, you've utilized such a facility before? This is what I need to hear, "I used one and my kid didn't die" ... Thanks for the info!

Not at a gym, but at a church nursery. None of the kids died... so far I've been paged back once when the 5-year-old was 3 and bit another child during a fight over a toy... and every single time for the baby crying. If you've never left her alone before, you may find that she won't let you work out anyway. :)

The 2yr old and 3.5yr old in my care have been at our gym's child care since they were 6wks old and 11mths old.

The elder child was in swimming lessons, so the younger brother needed to be in care for that hour and then they were both in for the hour afterwards whilst I did boot camp, or RPM or something.

All the staff in the local facilities here are fully certified and I find the gym carers fantastic.

As the children are only there for a short amount of time, the kids are given heaps of attention and activities.

The boys are both super excited to go see Meagan and Kylie :) and I find them both super diligent about parents little *quirks* and requests.

Couldn't you just work out at home? Or separately?

I took swimming lessons at the YMCA when my mom worked out. It worked well for me and her.

So how old is your bairn now, Flint? Couldn't you just put her in a safe place where she could watch you work out and you could watch her -in an exersaucer or something?

Beest and I exercise/work out seperately, but if his mom's over from the UK we go together and leave her in charge -it is more fun to do it together (:eek:)

Really, though, don't stress too much about it. Just check the place out first, your gut feelings will guide you. It's pretty rare for nasty things which could have been prevented to happen, obviously you should make sure that the carers are trained in child cpr etc, but remember that knowing what you should do does not guarantee you will remember and do it when it matters, so your gut feeling about whether the person is competant is at least as important as the framed pieces of paper on their wall.

We used to go to LA Fitness. We currently have a YMCA membership. The kids have "done time" in child care at both facilities, and we found them both fine. Check the places out, and you should be able to find some parents who already use the place who can give you some opinions.

It's important to make sure the facility is qualified to care for your child, but I'd go with Clod when she says trust what you feel more. If you don't like the person who is likely to care for your child, then don't leave the child there. For one thing, the carer will probably get the vibe, and so will your kidlette...leading to an unpleasant time at best for all concerned.

I'm very much against child care unless absolutely necessary, so I can understand your point of view in this regard, however, human beings are social animals, and it's important for kids to learn to associate with strangers/new people from a young age also. It's a big part of cognitive developement, and very important during the first few years of life.

I think it's a great idea to give the little one a few hours each week with other kids and new people.

Thanks, everybody! We found a place that we trusted; meaning we liked the people, the layout, the company seemed concerned about hygiene in general (wall-mounted hand sanitizers everywhere is a must for me; maybe I'm germ-phobic but I do work in healthcare IT), and they have a bar-coded, photo-IDed checkin/checkout system (nice), and they were able to describe a back-up plan for the intercom system (I know from daily experience that an intercom can't be heard in 100% of locations within a facility). We did, as suggested here, accost some customers of this facility to confirm our observations. We also observed the staff with some small babies, and it's as you say (common sense now that I think about it) that anybody loves to play a cute baby, for about an hour. Also, the point about letting her experience different social contexts is well received.