When interviewing

What questions do you ask? What do you look for?

Tell me about your day?
Do you have a specific parenting style?
How does baby nap? Does baby self-soothe?
Does baby still take a bottle?
Does baby eat finger foods?
How would you describe baby's personality?
What do you do for a living?
Do you have backup care?
Are there any medical conditions or allergies in the family?

There are more but my own little monsters are running amuk right now. LOL...brb.

My biggest one is... Why are you choosing an in-home childcare vs. a centre. You can usually get some good information about what is most important for the parent (ie. money, one on one etc) you also may be able to find out if you are just a "jumping off point" until a centre has a space

Just had an interesting thing come up in a discussion with one of my daycare parents. Special note to parents looking for care: Do not be afraid to ask questions about what you see in the daycare. There may be a very good reason for things that you have not thought about. Do give your prospective daycare provider the benefit of the doubt and ask for clarification if you are unsure. Send an email, call, don`t be afraid to ask.

Here is what happened to me: I have interviewed a family this past week and I thought it went pretty well. They called one of my daycare familes for a reference and asked lots of questions but did have two concerns about my home - the fact I kept old milk cartons under the coffee table and that I stored my cereal on the bookshelf.

Well my daycare mom and I had a good laugh over it as she said I just gotta ask about the cereal on the bookshelf. She knew about the milk cartons because she provided many of them while her son was still on homogenized milk. I wash out the cartons with bleach, trim them and put two together to make blocks. And yes we store them under our large square coffee table. We build walls, forts, roads, child high towers, etc with them and I recycle as they get scrunched and add more as parents provide cartons. The cereal boxes are the large family size and are larger than 8 1/2 x 11 so I use them for filing. Yes I could cut the sides down like other magazine type holders but this way everything stays clean and needs no dusting.

As I said, don't be afraid to ask. We won't treat it like a dumb question. These things are normal to us and we do things differently when we are dealing with a whole group of people - my large exerecise ball sits in the exersaucer - why? so the 2 year old I have won't try to climb in. His arms are too small to get the ball out. Works and is for a reason so please ask.

I LOVE the milk carton idea! I'm going to start doing that, what a great idea!

Milk carton blocks for anyone that has never done them: open them up completelly and fill with water and bleach - I usually let them sit over night and then dump the next morning and let them sit for 2-3 days to be completely air dried. Then cut off the parts that fold. Do this to two cartons. Pinch one carton by pushing in slightly on all 4 sides and insert it into another carton. You will need to push on the top to get it all the way down. If you want you can cover the blocks with mac tac or paper or whatever but I find that a waste of money because the kids are quite content to use the cartons as is. When they get squishy, pull them apart and sometimes you can use the two squishy parts as the inserts into two new cartons. The are great for piling up and using a stuffed toy to play humpty dumpty. The 2L cartons work the best because they have a larger flat side to them but I do it with the 1L too. The smaller pint etc can be done but because the block isn't perfectly flat when made they don't stack too well and can frustrate so stick with the bigger ones.

Yup, definitely snapping up that idea.... I have heard of the milk carton blocks but didn't know how to make them.
Now my only problem will be to find 2L containers. With 8 or more people in our house at any given time, I don't buy anything less than 4L jugs, 2 at a time, every couple of days!!!

I do jugs here and it seems like some days we stop by the store morning and night depending. Most of the cartons come from the parents of infants who want their child to be on homogenized milk since I use 2% they must supply if they want. I ask for a carton to be brought and used as needed. Many of the families also used the cartons at home too since they used 2 or 1% themselves so they would bring me the cartons - assume they just rinsed or used soap only to wash so do the same bleach out. Spread the word at your church, or other social group you go to. A lot of seniors buy just cartons and would be more than glad to share. Take a walk on recycle day and find the families that have them in their bins - while in most cities you aren`t supposed to help yourself from the bins you would know which famililes to approach asking them to save them for you. The more cartons the merrier - entire forts can be built and so much cheaper and safer than the wooden hollow blocks they use in kindergarten.