Handing your child to someone else for eight or nine hours a day is a serious decision, and most parents make it under time pressure, usually in the two weeks before a maternity leave ends or a new job starts. This checklist is written to make one visit count.
Go unannounced, and go mid-afternoon
Any daycare looks good at 9 a.m. when the floor has just been mopped and the children have just arrived. Two-thirty is the honest hour: children are tired, some are waking from naps, staff have been at it for five hours. If the room is calm and the adults are still warm at that point, that is a real signal.
Count the adults
This is the single most predictive thing you can check, and it takes thirty seconds. As a working guide:
- Under 18 months: one adult for every three children
- 18 months to 3 years: one adult for every five or six
- Three years and above: one adult for every eight to ten
Ask what the ratio is at 8 a.m. and at 6 p.m., not just at midday. Some centres are well staffed in the middle of the day and thin at the edges, which are exactly the hours working parents use.
Safety, checked properly
Everyone will tell you they have CCTV. Ask the follow-ups:
- Who can view the footage, and how long is it stored? Cameras that record over themselves every 24 hours are of limited use.
- Are there blind spots? Nappy-change areas and the nap room are the ones to ask about.
- What is the release policy? Who is allowed to collect your child, and how is that person verified if you send someone new?
- Is there a first-aid trained adult on site at all times, and where is the nearest hospital?
- Gates, stairs and the kitchen. Walk the route a curious two-year-old would take and see what stops her.
Food
Ask to see this week's actual menu, not the printed sample one. Ask where the food is cooked and who cooks it. Ask what happens when a child refuses to eat, because the answer tells you a lot about the culture of the place. Coaxing is fine. Force-feeding, in any form, is not.
If your child has allergies
Ask how the information travels: is it on a list in the kitchen, is it known by the person actually serving, and what is the plan if there is a reaction. A centre that answers this crisply has thought about it before you asked.
Sleep and screens
Younger children need a proper nap and a darkened, quiet space to take it in. Ask where children sleep and how bedding is washed. Separately, ask how much screen time there is on an average day. "Only on rainy days" and "a cartoon after lunch" are very different answers, and the second one, repeated daily, is a lot of screen for a two-year-old.
How they will communicate with you
You will be at work and you will worry. Find out what you will actually receive: a daily note on food, sleep and mood, a photo, a WhatsApp group, or nothing until pickup. Also ask how they contact you in a small emergency, and how quickly.
The questions parents forget
- What happens when my child is mildly unwell but I cannot take leave?
- What is the policy on late pickup, and what does it cost?
- Which holidays do you close for, and is there a summer break?
- What is included in the fee and what is billed separately?
- How do you handle biting or hitting between children?
- Can I visit during the day once my child has joined?
That last one matters. A centre confident in what it does will say yes without hesitation.
Trust the room, not the reception
After the tour, stand in the main room for two minutes and just listen. You are listening for the sound of adults speaking to children the way you would want someone to speak to yours. Everything else on this list can be fixed with money. That cannot.
Sunny Skies runs daycare in Sector 2, Rajendra Nagar, near Karan Gate Chowki, and you are welcome to walk in during the day and see the room at whatever hour suits you.
