Logistics of Care
Our daily routines include meals, snacks, rest time, outdoor and indoor play time, stories, learning activities, diapering and potty learning for little ones,  drop off and pick up times, and sometimes, transport to preschool or field trips. These care routines are valued as an important part of our dayhome lives and learning experiences.
Fees and Provincial Standards
As a licensed Agency dayhome in Alberta, I must follow all provincial safety and programming standards, and I am in turn able to offer my families the benefit of childcare subsidies and affordability grants.
For more information on these standards and subsidies, please visit the Alberta Government childcare web pages. Once the move towards $10 a day childcare is complete, I will add a fee schedule to my website.
Eating
We follow the new Canada Food Guide in dayhome menu planning and do our best to strike a healthy balance between meeting the children's nutritional needs, serving familiar healthy foods, and encouraging children to try new menu items.
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Children spending a full day at my dayhome are served a minimum of 2 snacks with 2 food groups, breakfast if arriving early, and hot lunch ,both meals with 4 food groups. At minimum, any child who is hungry between our scheduled eating times will be able to access water at all times, and a non-messy snack like apples, crackers, or carrot sticks, upon request.
I offer an allergy-friendly program and have safely cared for a number of children with severe allergies over the years. I currently accommodate allergies to fish/shellfish, tree nuts, peas, eggs, and dairy. I will do my best to accommodate allergies on a case-by-case basis, if I feel I can do so safely.
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My dayhome serves fresh, high-quality food, whole grain breads and cereals, and an increasing amount of organic and locally-grown food as well, especially fruits and vegetables. We drink lots of water and I offer milk or alternative at meals. I try not to serve candy or cake on Halloween or birthdays or Valentine's Day, figuring the children will likely get all they need at home later on!
My dayhome menu does not include candy, Kraft dinner, or similar boxed mac and cheese. When I serve lunch meats, they are nitrate-free and preservative free.
Baby food and formula will have to be supplied from home, as well as any special beverages or foods you want for your child that are different from what I usually serve.
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I adapt my menu according to seasonal produce and the preferences and needs of the children in my care. Menus are posted daily on my parent board and rshared on a private parent communciation facebook group.
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We all sit down together for meal and snack times as much as possible. They are a great opportunity to practice skills like language learning, counting, good manners, and hand-eye coordination! Children learn independence by helping clear their space after meals.
Illness and Wellness
As an experienced family child care provider, I follow all Alberta Health Services and Licensing guidelines about health and safety, including current rules relating to providing childcare during the Covid-19 Pandemic
As a parent who has had a child in a daycare, I do know how frustrating and inconvenient it can be to have to miss work when your child is ill.
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Here are my best suggestions to help parents keep their children healthy and avoid the frustration of sick days:
1)You can make sure that the children's hands are washed before and after meals, after toileting and diaper changes, and after messy activities, after arriving home after outings, or after sharing toys with others.
2)You can make sure that your children eat well and get enough rest, especially when they are under the weather to start with. This can be hard to do when families are so busy these days!
3) You can consider avoiding large gatherings of children during the winter months when colds, influenza and gastrointestinal illnesses are going around, especially if your children are young enough to still put everything in their mouths.
4) Talk to your doctor about vaccines, and get all the flu shots and vaccinations your family are eligible for.
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5) If you have a nursing baby, you can consider continuing to nurse as long as possible - even part-time - to keep up the extra immune system benefits that breastmilk provides. As a childcare provider, I will always welcome and support breastfeeding families.
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6) You can start your child in dayhome or daycare a few weeks before you need to go back to work to give your child's immune system time to adjust. My own daughter was sick for most of the first six weeks she was in daycare, but then the situation improved and lost time due to illness was much reduced.
(There are no guarantees, but children often seem to have fewer illnesses in the small group situation of dayhomes than they do in daycares. I certainly found this to be true with my own.)
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It is vitally important that all parents using childcare have plan for how to manage care for a sick child BEFORE your child gets sick and have a backup child care plan in place BEFORE the morning you get that phone call that your dayhome provider is sick. Even daycares can close due to unexpected staff illnesses or shortages, as the pandemic experience has shown.
My top priority as a dayhome provider is the health and safety of the children in my care, as well as of my own family. I follow my training and child care licensing rules on proper sanitary procedures for diaper changing, medications, and food preparation at all times, and teach the children about handwashing, proper nutrition, and safety rules.
As a dayhome provider, I can NOT administer medications to children unless provided by parents in the original container with all appropriate paperwork filled out.
medications contained in their child's diaper bag so that I can store them safely.
If parents are administering new medications, herbals or homeopathics to their children prior to coming to the dayhome, parents must provide written notice of this to enable the provider to watch for any unusual effects. A text or notation in the margin of the sign-in sheet can suff
Documentation and Parent Communication
I maintain a private dayhome Facebook group for dayhome parents, where I share my program planning, menus, announcements and pictures of the children at play. I also do weekly observations of each child. These are shared with parents monthly and become part of an annual portfolio of their child, along with learning stories, and many pictures of the child's learning through play experiences.