The First Month - learning routines, building relationships.

The first month your child is in the caregiver’s home is the most important and potentially most challenging month – for your child, for you as a parent, your caregiver and your child care consultant.

For the child, it is a strange place.  The people are new and often the child will miss his or her parents a great deal in the beginning.  He/she may cry in the morning, when you drop him/her off in.

For the parent, it is unsettling to leave your child in a strange place.  You can take comfort in the fact that caregivers are carefully selected for their aptitude in caring for children.   You will have already seen that the home is a happy, caring and active place; and you can rest assured that if there is any need at all, our caregiver will call you.  Your child, above all, is safe with her.

For the caregivers, it is a process of learning slowly and carefully about each individual child – a process we take very seriously indeed; a process for which our caregivers have been well prepared.  You can help us complete that process successfully by giving us the information we need to begin understanding and forming a relationship with your child.  You will know other things that will help us ease your child into our community, taking the fear and loneliness out of this important first month.

Communication with your caregiver and consultant is encouraged and we invite you to review your child's activities regularly.  Both the parent and the caregiver will have extra information each day such as: how the child played with others or what he or she learned; about whether or not the child wanted to come in the morning; about how soon after the parent left the child stopped crying; about any signs of illness; about how the child is eating or sleeping.  All this information should be shared by the people who are acting as partners in providing care for the children, i.e. parents, caregivers and child care consultants.  We understand that it is very important for parents to be aware of how your child is spending his/her day.

The first month is very important as we lay the foundations for a happy and rewarding experience for your child.  It is when we begin to build trust and an open partnership among child(ren), caregivers, parents and child care consultants, so we can meet the goals we share – excellent care and real opportunities to learn, grow and develop.

• Child care application form
• Child medical form
• General consent form
• Individual action plan for anaphylaxis
• Infant feeding form
• Infant toddler information form
• Permission for photographs form
• Permission for transport by motor vehicle form