No Outdoor Time at All? Really?

[DCMomOf3]

I guess I would be concerned about the safety of it all. Today where I am it was below 0 this morning & the windchill was negative something! To me it would just seem to be more common sense that it is not safe to play outdoors when it is that cold. Now when it is 10-20-30 degrees I guess it is "okay" even though it still is cold. Not saying anyone who does it has poor judgment I just can't imagine taking kids outside when it is almost 0 outside.

If it's above 10F (I include wind chill here) we have to go outside. And really, if you are in snow pants/coat/boots/hat/mittens with the optional scarf you are plenty protected.

[cillybean83]

we stay inside if it's below 40 degrees, but I only keep littles, 6wks-2...so there is no acceptable reason for taking tiny people out into the cold to toddle around when they can toddle around just fine in the playroom. If I had older kids that would be different, my son goes outside no matter what, rain, snow, sleet, you can't keep that boy inside, he's 8

[Unregistered]

I have owned my own daycare center for 12 years. It is a licensed child care center, not an in home center.

One of my most important factors when staffing for the day is making sure if I have atleast 2 students here in one age group, then I have 2 adults also here for that age group. Having one child recovering from a cold is enough reason to keep them inside, but not all the children should stay inside, hence one teacher for inside and one for outside. In my personal opinion that should be standard for all daycare centers. Not all children take their nap at 3:00 in the afternoon, so one teacher with children who are taking a nap and one teacher with children not taking a nap that day. It makes much more sense to me. No matter how many children are on the premisis that day, there should be atleast 2 adults present, even if your daughter is the only child there, so why wern't capable children taken outside and others supervised inside?

The major problem I run into in the winter (Cleveland, OH area) is parents are often neglectful when it comes to providing a change of clothing, and children will come inside wet from playing in snow. I have had a few parents question why their child missed out on the snow angels and snow men, and I simply have to explain that their child did not have adequate clothing provided for the activities that day. I wil not ever send a child out to play in the snow so they can have damp clothes for the day, nor is it my job to provide clothes. If your child is not properly prepared, they miss out, and that is not something that I can change.

It seems to me that there must have been some logical reason that the children at your daughter's daycare did not go outside that maybe was not related to your daughter (you seem very prepared and on top of things), and that the provider did not have adequate staffing to provide two options for activities for her age group. That to me is reason to find another care provider, since you never know what the ratio of children to staff will be. Now you just know ahead of time to ask this question when looking for other locations!