How to Find the Best Infant Child Care

These days, many families have two working parents. This means that they must find child care for not only their older children but their infants as well. Infant child care has always been controversial regarding its affect on the child. When you consider that the first year of a child's life sets the stage for their future development, many wonder if it is such a good idea to have them spending huge amounts of time with strangers.

Based on my research, I feel that it really depends on the facility that you send your baby to. Are they giving you and your baby the kind of service that will help your child grow and succeed? Good attention to specific family needs is very important, especially if this is an infant child care facility.

What are some of the most important questions for you to ask? I recommend questions such as:

Are your caregivers trained in infant specific child care and infant development? Does your staff undergo training in infant CPR & first aid? Does your facility offer infant mental development programs such as stimulation activities through baby massage and baby sign language. How long have you been in business and are you in good standing with the BBB?

These are all great things to ask your infant child care facilities to better determine which one is best for your baby. Educate yourself about the different kinds of programs out there. Remember that your baby is learning at a very fast pace right now and what they are taught in these first years will continue to be a part of their attitude and educational growth for the future.

You also may want to think about how long you'll need to keep your baby in an infant child care program each day. Is this something that you only need a few hours a day or are you needing 8 or more hours each day? This will play a big role on what kind of facility you choose. If you only need a few hours for instance maybe look into hiring a family member or someone that you know from a social area. This way the baby does not have to leave the comfort and security of your home. If you need longer term care make sure you are getting the best that is available in your area.

There of course are many good child care programs and facilities out there, but you want to always do your research in order for you to pick the very best for your baby. This development stage is very vital, and you want the center you choose to be very educated on infant child care, not just a day care in general. So educate yourself as much as possible that way you know that when you leave your baby in their care that you are leaving them with people who will educate and help develop your baby.

Do You Need an Infant Rocker for Baby?

Like any infant accessory, an infant rocker is designed to aid parents and care givers in taking care of babies. But not all parents buy one because they seem to still do well without it. It is something that is nice to have but one can still live without. However, an infant rocker has become a necessity for a lot of people especially first time moms and dads. To know whether or not you need to buy one, you need to assess your needs as well as your baby's.

Colicky baby

When you have a colicky baby who needs to be cuddled and soothed most of the time, an infant rocker might just be what you need. Its speed control feature provides several rocking motion options that have been proven to immediately calm colicky babies.

Care giver
An infant swing is also a good thing to have when you have hired help to take care of baby temporarily or while you're at work. You can help the care giver by equipping her with the right tools. She can place baby down on the swing when she needs to go to the bathroom or get some food or coffee. But be sure to advice her never to leave baby unattended even when on the swing to avoid accidents and mishaps.

Parenting skills

Of course everybody knows that what babies really want is mom and dad's tender loving care. This is why some parents don't opt to buy soothers like infant rockers. They seem to manage doing the soothing and cradling manually without any help from any rocking equipment. But if you are among those who don't find it too enjoyable to carry baby for more than 30 minutes, you can definitely make use of the infant swing. This is also true for newbie parents who are still getting a hang of taking care of an infant. The infant rocker would definitely be very helpful to them especially in the first few weeks.

If you do decide, however, to postpone your rocker purchase for later, make sure that you make your final decision before baby becomes heavier than 15 lbs and outgrows all rockers available in the market.