At Bright Start, we understand and place high value on the care of very young children. During infancy, it is extremely important to establish a secure attachment between each baby and his/her parents and caregivers. Ensuring that the quality of care and routines that the baby receives at home is continued at their place of day care through culturally sensitive and responsive practices is also vital to their continued overall development. Therefore, our infant care is firmly grounded based on the information that we gather from our families and what we know about how babies develop.

            The focus of our Teddy Bears classroom is to provide a very safe, comforting, and nurturing environment for babies from the time that they enter our program at six weeks of age until they are crawling. Diapers and wipes are provided as are all linens. All bottles and food for infants are kept in refrigerators that are for the exclusive use of the infant room. We encourage our parents to spend time getting to know the caregivers in the classroom and to provide us with as much information about their baby’s schedule, favorite activities, and their special remedies for soothing their baby. We also provide reports about the baby’s feeding, napping, diapering, and other observations on a daily basis and webcams have been installed in the classroom so that parents can view their baby at any time during the day.

            Since we arrange the activities in the infant room based upon each baby’s individual schedule and particular developmental level, our caregivers go through monthly training to continually improve their practice so that they can provide the most quality care possible for each child. In addition to their formal training, our staff was carefully selected so that over 90 percent of the staff in the infant room are mothers themselves. Our mission is to care for each baby as if he/she was our own.

            We pride ourselves reaching beyond the state’s requirements of having one teacher for every four infants by hiring enough staff to have one teacher for every three infants. Because of this, we are able to provide a lot of one-on-one care to our babies. For example, it is customary for our caregivers to sing lullaby’s as they feed or rock an infant. One might also see that some children are involved in sensory activities on the floor, engaged in tummy time, or are being read to while others are getting their diapers changed, sleeping, or eating. When the weather permits, our six-seated comfortable strollers are used to take walks in the park or around the neighborhood morning and afternoon.