Would you be comfortable with this at a daycare?

[PEANUT1]

If it makes you feel weird...don't send your child there.

I think it is alot to ask to have someone sit in a room with sleeping babies...very strange and a waste of time. Monitors should be fine..that's what you do at home.

 

[natnelliesmom]

I worked in a daycare center when I was in college. This was some years ago, but I can't imagine rules have changed?
We had separate rooms for sleeping infants- but there had to be a staff member present in the room while there were babies sleeping. So that meant someone had to sit in the semi-dark in the rocking chair. We'd take turns so we'd stay alert, but we were not allowed to leave a child alone. It was an "eyes-on" rule.
-Sarah

 

[TwinsinCA]

I'm curious -- how did that work for staffing? Did you always have one dedicated sleep monitor but enough staff to cover the remaining babies with appropriate ratios?

In other words, say you have a 1:4 ratio and 12 babies in a room. You would need three full time adults in that room. If there are 2 sleeping babies that needs one adult to supervise, how many adults are caring for the remaining 10? Two or three? Because as a parent I'd have a big problem with one person sitting there watching babies sleep while two adults are running ragged trying to care for 10 babies between them.

And it honestly shocks me that some on this thread expect their SLEEPING babies to be watched at all times. As someone else asked (but no one has yet to answer) do you sit in the room with your babies at home so they are never out of sight?

 

[summerrluvv]

Isn't it a law that daycare rooms need 2 forms of egress in case of fire? I would NOT be comfy with no window in the room. God forbid there was a fire and they couldn't get to the room from the hallway or what have you. I

 

[princessmom29]

I'm curious -- how did that work for staffing? Did you always have one dedicated sleep monitor but enough staff to cover the remaining babies with appropriate ratios?

In other words, say you have a 1:4 ratio and 12 babies in a room. You would need three full time adults in that room. If there are 2 sleeping babies that needs one adult to supervise, how many adults are caring for the remaining 10? Two or three? Because as a parent I'd have a big problem with one person sitting there watching babies sleep while two adults are running ragged trying to care for 10 babies between them.

And it honestly shocks me that some on this thread expect their SLEEPING babies to be watched at all times. As someone else asked (but no one has yet to answer) do you sit in the room with your babies at home so they are never out of sight?

That is an awfully low ratio. Is that the state mandate where you live?? Ours is 1:6 for infants so 2 adults and 10 kids still meet the requirement. Typically what our center does is staff the rooms so that they have enough to make ration and check on the sleeping babies every 5-10 min. The door between the two rooms stays open and the cribs are on the wall opposite the door so they can look in the room at any time and see the children in the cribs.

 

[princessmom29]

Isn't it a law that daycare rooms need 2 forms of egress in case of fire? I would NOT be comfy with no window in the room. God forbid there was a fire and they couldn't get to the room from the hallway or what have you. I

It depends on the size of the room. A small room with one door that empties into a larger one with multiple exits is sometimes ok as far as fire code goes.

 

[TwinsinCA]

That is an awfully low ratio. Is that the state mandate where you live??

That is what it was in MN and CA. I moved to NM next where the ratio was more like yours. I changed jobs. I think 6 infants for one adult is absolutely insane.

 

[melancholywings]

Our day care has each room on video monitors and parents can log in and watch the cameras via the web. I wouldn't put my kid in a day care that only used audio to monitor. Or put babies in a one door room.

 

[redrosesix]

Our daycare had such an arrangement. Several of the newer daycare centers in our area do. I want to also note that it seemed so completely strange and awful to me when a friend told me her daycare didn't have a seperate sleeping room, so I think these things are largely just a matter of what you're used to.

In our daycare they had to check sleeping infants every 5 minutes, and there was a chart on the door to record those checks. There was no door on the room, just a cloth curtian and I always felt more comfortable with my child having a quiet, peaceful, dark place to sleep becuase it is more homelike to me. At home my kids nap in thier own rooms without constant supervision, so I didn't have a problem with the babies napping in a quiet room without constnat supervision. When the kids get a little older, at the 12 month mark or so, they sleep out in the main room on a scheduled naptime on a cot, just like they will when they move to a toddler room.

Our daycare is excellent, I have been very happy and satisfied with the care they have given our children. They try and make everything as home like a possible - meals are served family stye, children have to use table manners and eat with utensils from the time they are old enough to eat table food. My kids love thier center and thier teachers.

I think this is one of those things were people will say "i'd be uncomfortable" but really its about what you've done and seen in the past. Examine what really is unsettling about that scenario. If "the other centers don't do that" is the reason, I wouldn't let that stop me from enrolling my child at an otherwise great center. I guess what I'm trying (ineptly) to say is to evaluate the center and programs as a whole. I wouldn't get hung up on this as a deal breaker.

Some good insight here.

I would think the "why" of the separate room is more important than anything else ie. if it's based on studies of how infants sleep at daycare. When my DD was in daycare, hers was a teaching lab for a childcare college so some of the programming was different than what would be found in other daycares -- developed more to provide better care, happier children than just to conform to legal requirements. But they could explain to us why they made every decision, so that made us comfortable with their choices.

I also would never enroll my child in a daycare until I could see it in action.

 

[summerrluvv]

Infant ratios where I live is 1:3. I've never used a home based provider though, only a center, so not sure if it differs.

 

[princessmom29]

That is what it was in MN and CA. I moved to NM next where the ratio was more like yours. I changed jobs. I think 6 infants for one adult is absolutely insane.

I did it for 4 years and never had a problem. I was the preschool teacher, but would fill in at least once a week in the infant room . You just have to be doing your job at all times. As long as you are the kids are getting eveything they need, including play time and stimulation. If you are not interested in doing that you shouldn't be working with kids anyway. It is actually very doable.

 

[TwinsinCA]

I did it for 4 years and never had a problem. I was the preschool teacher, but would fill in at least once a week in the infant room . You just have to be doing your job at all times. As long as you are the kids are getting eveything they need, including play time and stimulation. If you are not interested in doing that you shouldn't be working with kids anyway. It is actually very doable.

I worked for 3 years, full time, in a daycare setting with infants. And I could not disagree more. With all due respect, filling in once a week does not give you a real picture of what goes on in there.

We were busy constantly even with a 4:1 ratio. I do not think you can give quality care with a 6:1 ratio. There simply is not enough time to do much more than have their basic needs met.

I just think infants need more than 10 minutes an hour to receive good care.

 

[lnh'smom]

I worked for 3 years, full time, in a daycare setting with infants. And I could not disagree more. With all due respect, filling in once a week does not give you a real picture of what goes on in there.

We were busy constantly even with a 4:1 ratio. I do not think you can give quality care with a 6:1 ratio. There simply is not enough time to do much more than have their basic needs met.

Do you really think an infant only requires 10 minutes of attention every hour?

I completely agree! No way would I send my child anywhere that the teacher was responsible for 5 other infants! Indiana's law is 1:4 and accredited centers are 1:3. (At least it was when I taught preschool a few years ago!)

 

[luvsJack]

12 years in child care and here in MS the ratio is 1:5 which is too high IMHO. We tried to keep ours at 1:3. But, in the law states that the ratio has to be within the legal limits regardless of what the children are doing and that the caregivers must be in the same room with the children.

So, if a child is sleeping in a separate room, a caregiver is supposed to be with them (this is, of course MS law not necessarily any other state). If there are 10 children overall with 2 caregivers; 2 are sleeping and 8 are awake. One caregiver cannot be with the sleeping babies and one with the other 8, that would not be within ratio. For this reason, our infants and their beds were all in one room. The beds were around the perimeter of the room with a play mat, play-saucers and swings in the center of the room. We never had a baby that was not with in the caregivers sight and never had one that could not sleep under these conditions.

 

[justhat]

I live in DC and the law here is 1:3 for infants, 1:4 for 2 year olds, and 1:6 for 3yos. I cannot even imagine having 6 infants to care for on my own! How would you possibly feed them all bottles if they're hungry at once? Prop them?

I worked at a daycare in grad school and in our infant room the babies slept in cribs in the room. They were all in one spot so playing was in one area, sleeping in another, but of course some of the awake babies would wander over to the cribs while others were sleeping. They all seemed to get used to it though.

Regarding the sleeping in another room situation, though I have never seen it in a daycare, the nursery on the DCL ships is like that. There are swinging doors and I think windows up high, but the room is dark, quiet, and all the cribs are there. No CMs sit in the room and there aren't any monitors to my knowledge. We left my son there as young as 6 months old and never really thought twice about it. Of course, at 20 months when he was sleeping in a bed at home cause he had climbed out of his crib, I did have my concerns cause I figured they wouldn't see him climbing out, but everything was fine.

 

[Leajess99]

My older 2 were both in daycares as infants and their sleeping area was in the same room as the play area (built with self contained short walls) This helped the staff because since at any given time you had infants up and playing while others were sleeping. My kids could sleep through anything as they had been exposed to noise (ie radio, television, vacuum, etc). I had a friend whose child was placed with an in home provider as she could not sleep anywhere unless it was totally silent but her mother would come to my house and turn my television off so it was very quiet. That poor child had a very hard time as she got older and was placed into a regular daycare with noise.

 

[Chereya]

I would also feel really uncomfortable with infants sleeping in a room with a closed door. In the event of a fire, chances are that the teachers will rescue the kids that are closest at hand and then have to go back for the kids that are in the seperate room. I think that is common survival tactics - save those first that have the most chance before going back for those with lesser chance.

I felt really awful when I read about the fire in Mexico that engulfed a state run daycare. The fire started in the business that shared the building with the daycare and the daycare only had one entrance/exit that was functional - the front door. There was a back door that was bolted shut. The sprinklers and fire alarm were either non-existant or not functional and it only took about 5 minutes for the building to be engulfed in flame. God forbid something like that should ever happen to anybody's child but accidents do happen.

Mexico Daycare Fire

Yes, most parents who care for their own children at home put them to sleep in their own room and leave the room to do other things. But 1 - this is your own child whom you are 100% aware of and is your #1 priority, 2 - you would not forget about your child in the event of an emergency, 3 - you know your home and have a plan of action in the event of an emergency, 4 - you are relying on yourself and not someone else to make important decisions about your child.

In theory, I'd be more comfortable with my child sleeping in a seperate room with a home care provider if there weren't too many kids there at the infant stage. But, my opinion on care providers is kind of skewed towards over-protective since I don't trust very many people with my kids anyway. We don't have a regular babysitter and only go out when family visits or on the infrequent ocassion that I ask my close friends to sit so I can go to a Dr appt.

 

[dfarner]

We are in the process of touring daycare centers for our baby that is due in October. We have a 5 year old son so we have been down the daycare route before but I have found something this time that makes me cringe a little. We have toured two of them now where they have seperate sleeping rooms for the infants. I am used to the 1/2 wall or something where the staff can actually see the kids sleeping. These sleeping rooms are actual seperate rooms where they put the kids to sleep with an audio monitor so they can hear if someone is awake.

This made my DH and I really nervous. I cannot see sending my child somewhere that they were put in a crib, the door shut and they were left to themselves. One of them looked like a closet with a bunch of cribs, no windows in the room at all. It was really strange.

What would you think of this? Are we overreacting to this?

Kristine

That does sound a little peculiar to me. I don't think you're overreacting. Go with your gut. If it makes you and your DH feel uneasy I would look elsewhere.

 

[PolyndianPrincessJes]

...And for everyone's sanity it is good to have a room that is quiet for those babies who are trying to sleep.

I absolutely agree with that, however, I think there should be a staff member in the room. I worked at a child development center in college. We had to be at ratio (i.e., children couldn't be without an adult) anywhere we were in the building (classrooms, gymnasium, restrooms, etc.) or outside. That included when the children were asleep.

ETA: We went about our regular routines when DS napped, and that kid can sleep anywhere! He's dozed off quite a few times in the hustle and bustle of WDW and slept through FOTLK!!

I would also feel really uncomfortable with infants sleeping in a room with a closed door. In the event of a fire, chances are that the teachers will rescue the kids that are closest at hand and then have to go back for the kids that are in the seperate room. I think that is common survival tactics - save those first that have the most chance before going back for those with lesser chance.

I felt really awful when I read about the fire in Mexico that engulfed a state run daycare. The fire started in the business that shared the building with the daycare and the daycare only had one entrance/exit that was functional - the front door. There was a back door that was bolted shut. The sprinklers and fire alarm were either non-existant or not functional and it only took about 5 minutes for the building to be engulfed in flame. God forbid something like that should ever happen to anybody's child but accidents do happen.

Mexico Daycare Fire

Yes, most parents who care for their own children at home put them to sleep in their own room and leave the room to do other things. But 1 - this is your own child whom you are 100% aware of and is your #1 priority, 2 - you would not forget about your child in the event of an emergency, 3 - you know your home and have a plan of action in the event of an emergency, 4 - you are relying on yourself and not someone else to make important decisions about your child.
In theory, I'd be more comfortable with my child sleeping in a seperate room with a home care provider if there weren't too many kids there at the infant stage. But, my opinion on care providers is kind of skewed towards over-protective since I don't trust very many people with my kids anyway. We don't have a regular babysitter and only go out when family visits or on the infrequent ocassion that I ask my close friends to sit so I can go to a Dr appt.

Your child (and top priority) sleeping in his own crib at home is not the same thing as your child being one of x infants (where he could be the last priority) sleeping in a closed off room at daycare.

 

[TwinsinCA]

FWIW the area where the children slept was connected to the main room. It was not down the hall or anything. In the event of an emergency we were likely closer in proximity to those kids than a parent going about their business while their baby sleeps at home.

I can't speak for other centers, but the evacuation process where I worked involved putting the babies in cribs and wheeling them out. It was the safest way to get everyone out at once and it provided a way for the babies to be "contained" once outside. Any baby that happened to be sleeping would not be likely forgotten or harder to get to than a baby strapped into a swing in the main room. If anything they are better off because they are already in the crib.

I get that you know your home. But understand that the teachers are given specific instructions as to what to do as well. Every daycare I worked at also had two exits from the main rooms -- one of which lead directly outside. Most homes do not have those kinds of escape routes.