How to Find the Best Day-Care Services

These days, it is essential to find a good day care service for your children, especially if both parents work (as most of us do!). Finding the best day care service, one that is high-quality and professional and meets your kids exact needs can be difficult at the best of times.

Often times you will be confronted with several options. Picking between them can seem like a daunting task. How do you make a decision? How can you be sure that you have made the right decision? We're talking about your childrens safety and well being here, so you don't want to make any mistakes.

You've come to the right place because in this article I am going to discuss exactly how you should find and pick the best day-care services for your children.

The absolute first thing you should do is make a list of all the child-care services in your area. Look to see if your community has an R&R, that stands for resource and referral (sometimes they are called I&R for information and referral service). These places usually compile extensive information on child care services for a given area. Find them in your local phone book.

If your area doesn't have an R&R, then check with your states child care licensing agency. This is usually going to be the Department of Human Services, or the Department of Social Services, or the Department of Health, and they can help you in your search.

If you strike out at both of these places, then just start asking around. Talk to other parents in the area, talk to your friends and family members, and if you go to church, talk to the people there. Sometimes churches keep a registry of child care services that you can look at.

Another place to look is the local YMCA if your area has one of those. Often they have reference material on local child care services that they can share with you.

Obviously, the quality of the child care is most important to you when choosing between facilities. But other things to consider are cost, hours of operation, and location. You don't want to pick a facility that is far from your home, and you don't want to choose one that is not open when you need it to be open to cope with your specific work schedule and that of your spouses as well.

Before selecting a child care center, be sure to drop in without telling them in advance. You should absolutely feel free to do this. Unannounced visits allow you to see the place as it actually is, and not how they want you to see it. Do the children seem happy? Do the kids seem busy?

Find out what kind of training and experience the staff has. Are there enough staff working there that your kid will get personal attention? There should be!

Is the facility clean, well lit, and safe looking? Are there safety and emergency equipment available in case something goes wrong? Is there a lot of play equipment and toys and things of this nature?

So there you have it, hopefully this little article has given you a good head start towards finding and choosing a day-care service for your children.

Jason has been writing articles online for over thirteen years. When not writing about health or fitness, Jason runs a wildly popular silverwarepro.com silverware web site where he reviews silverwarepro.com/hampton_silverware.cgi hampton silverware for your dining needs.