Selecting a daycare? It’s no child’s play

Bangalore has seen a growth in daycare centres in recent times. With working parents who are putting in long work hours, it’s just natural that they seek a structured and safe environment where their children are nurtured and taught the first lessons in life. But the question is how do you know which daycare is the right one for your child?

It is very difficult to entrust the well-being of a child to strangers and instincts does play an important role when it comes to zeroing in on the right one. But you do have to look for something more concrete than that ephemeral gut feeling, don’t you?

On the top of the list is proximity to workplace. Some employers in Bangalore have already started the trend of offering a daycare centre in office premises. Seena Edvin’s Tom and Jerry crèche based in Brookfield runs centres in GE, Tesco HSC and ABB.

“Tom and Jerry has corporate centres that caters to employers as well as independent centres that families can opt for,” says Edvin.
Then there’s Bharat Kapoor’s daycare chain Your Kids ‘R’ Our Kids (YKROK). In Bangalore, YKROK caters to employees at IBM, Infosys, Accenture, Oracle and others.

Parents find this arrangement works best for them as they are close at hand to drop in and check on the child and monitor the kind of care the child receives. If one is not so lucky as to have a daycare centre on premises, it makes sense to choose one that is close to work. This affords parents the option of making the most of the lunch hour or drop in to see how the child is getting along on an easy day. Then, there are daycare centres like The Little Crest chain that offers parents the option of logging on to the Internet and checking on their children.

A close second on the checklist is the health standard that a daycare centre adheres to. If the centre provides food, a nutritionist must draw up the meal plans. Also, a doctor must be on call and cleanliness and hygiene practices do the staff is paramount. Tom and Jerry has a nutritionist who watches and has a doctor on call too. The Little Crest offers milk and snacks to children, but insists on packed meals from home.

Another criterion that parents look for is the opportunity for outdoor play and engaging with nature. Instead of keeping the children cooped indoors, a daycare centre should offer unstructured play and outdoor activities for children. Tom and Jerry, Star Kids Day Centre, The Little Crest and Kara4Kids are some centres that provide outdoor activities to children. In fact, Kara4Kids recently launched a Green Tots initiative. Each child plants two saplings named after them and tend to the plants. In line with this, look out for extra-curricular activities that daycare centres offer. The Little Crest has a dedicated after school programme for children between four and 13 years of age.

A pick-up and drop facility also comes in handy for working parents. Check with the daycare centre if they have transport facilities or arrangements with private operators for pick-up and drop.

Above all, it is of paramount importance that the centres involve the parents in the child’s development and seek feedback. “We have planned activities on monthly and weekly basis. There are workshops conducted for parents by us to keep them updated of our developments “says Edvin. The Little Crest is also committed to communicating with parents. They not only interact with parents regularly regarding a child’s development, they also invite experts to interact with parents on the issue of effective parenting.