It’s your right to be picky. Your baby or toddler may spend up to half a day in it so as responsible and caring parents, you have to make sure you’re leaving them in a safe, caring and fun environment.

Choosing a day-care centre, like many things in life involving your baby or toddler, is never easy. Heck, I’ve been through numerous paeditricians for several months before settling for the best one I could find. Which brings about the question, what makes a childcare centre good? What sort of criteria must it possess to quality as the childcare centre of choice? Of course, there’s no such thing as perfect. What appears to be the perfect childcare centre to you may not suit another parent. So word-of-mouth should be taken with a grain of salt. Try your best, be patient and draw up a list of criterias on what you look for in a childcare centre. Think about what is important and your expectations in a childcare centre. As a start, here’s a few things to consider:

Reputation of the childcare centre

Call up your friends or family who are parents of children within your child’s age group. They are likely to have gone through most of what you’re now looking for and their experience is appreciated. I’m sure they’ll be glad to answer all your questions about the childcare centre they’re sending their children to. At the end of the day, you’ll probably have a handful of childcare centre recommendations. Your first task is completely.

Childcare centre’s premise, environment and atmosphere

First impression counts a lot in this regard. A good childcare centre should excude a pleasant, welcoming, and friendly atmosphere. The environment should feel safe, clean, nurturing and comfortable.

Floors, walkways, walls and kitchen should be at their cleanest possible. Toilets, diaper changing facility and trash disposal areas not only has to be clean, they need to situated as far as possible from other areas.

Various environmental elements - lighting, ventilation and temperature is another factor to consider.

As for safety, check for things like smoke alarms, first aid facility, fire extinguisher and a slew of child-proof tools and techniques. To ensure your toddler can go about the childcare centre safely, make sure things like safety gates, door latches, covered outlets and more are present both indoors and outdoors. Medicines and hazardous substances should be stored safely and out of reach. Furnitures, toys and equipment that comes in contact with children should be child-proofed and in good working condition to prevent accidents.

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