Child Care near or Around Fridley

I personally think that both options have good and bad things about it. My advice is to really look at your priorities and figur out what will work best for you and your family. Home daycare is great that you get attention when you have an infant, however I have both my kids at a center as well and I'm completely happy with the set up. My son is 2 years old and he's at the age where interaction with older children helps him develope much faster. I am given a monthly schedule of things he is learning so I'm satsified that he is learning something everyday. The teachers are required to attend a professional training class periodically and so I'm guaranteed that they care continuously updated on teaching skills and emergency sisuations. They are a fully licensed center registered with the Better Business Bureau so any complaints against the center is publicly recorded. And lastly, there is control over who has access to my children - something that you have no control over at a home daycare. The center is open (there is only one room - for the infants) and no child is ever left alone with any adult at any given time. This defined my decision to go with the center with no regrets. We go to Kindercare. It is a chain of centers that is part of a large corporation so they are very accountable for their teachers.

You can tell I'm a little biased on my thoughts, but good luck and do some research. You may get a list of recommended care givers from your local community, church groups etc.

Hi M., I agree that inhome care is best, especially when they are babies. I can refer my old provider, Linda Thomas. her # is ###-###-#### and she lives right off East River Road in Fridley. the only reason I don't use her now is I changed jobs and it was too out of the way since I live in Columbia Heights. I know she has openings now and her rates are reasonable. Good luck on your search and feel free to email me with any other questions or concerns (____@____.com)!
A.

We made the decision to use a licenced home daycare and I really think that was the best decision for us. There's not many kids there and our son gets pleanty of personal care from our provider. My personal opinion is an inhome daycare is better. I believe there's more focused attention. Plus the rates at an in home care seem to be less than a center. (At least all the places I looked at.

I have to respecfully disagree with the other advice you've received, my son (30 months today) is in a wonderful center. Not only within a center do you have a guarentee of licensure, your child is with others the same age. My older daughter started at an in-home daycare but I was unhappy with my 10 month old being watched by one person who was also working with 2 2-year olds a 4 year old and after school a 2nd grader. I felt that it was more important to be with teachers that were focusing in on our child's age group. Plus, you have guarenteed ratios, which are inforced, unlike in home care.

Anyway, the daycare my son is at is Jack and Jill in Roseville (but right on the Roseville/St. Paul line) about 1.5 miles from the UofM St Paul campus. VERY low child-teacher ratio, caring staff, very involved administrators. Its been great for our very shy son.

Good luck, it's a hard process, I guess my final thought is, you have to find the right place for your son, in home or center, what really matters is that it is right for you and him.