Infant daycare checklist

Infant care is the hardest to find and the most important to get right. Spots are scarce, ratios are tighter, and a baby cannot tell you how the day went. This is the short list I would carry into every visit.

Before you go

• Confirm they take infants at all. Many programs start at 18 months. On Daycare Index, the “Infant care” filter shows only providers whose license covers infants.
• Check the license and the inspection history. Open the provider’s page. Look at capacity, how long they have been licensed, and whether recent inspections cited anything to do with supervision, sleep, or ratios. Then ask about it in person, without accusation. Most citations are corrected quickly; what you are looking for is a pattern and how they talk about it.
• Ask about the waitlist honestly. Infant rooms fill first. Ask when a spot is realistically likely, not whether one exists.

In the infant room

• Ratio. Ask how many babies per caregiver, and count for yourself while you stand there.
• Sleep. Babies on their backs, in cribs, with nothing soft. One baby per crib. Someone able to see them. If you see a blanket, a bumper or a baby asleep in a swing, ask about it directly.
• Feeding. How do they handle breast milk, formula, and your baby’s schedule rather than a group schedule? Where do they log it, and can you see yesterday’s log?
• Diapering and hand-washing. Watch one change if you can. Gloves or a wash, a clean surface, a wash after. It should look like a routine, not an effort.
• Floor time. Are babies on their tummies on a clean mat with someone engaging them, or in seats and bouncers most of the day?
• Who holds them. Ask who is with the babies at 7am and at 5:30pm. Consistency of caregiver matters more for infants than for any other age.

The daily report

You should get, every day, in some form: feeds and amounts, diaper changes, sleep times, mood, and anything unusual. If they cannot show you an example, ask why.

Trust your read

The best infant rooms are calm and a little boring to watch. Caregivers are on the floor. Babies are held when they cry. Nobody is rushed. If it feels frantic on your visit, it is frantic every day.