aka The Early Learning Centre
<p>My personal experience of the baby class (3 -18 months age group)</p> <p> Incident 1: First day, my baby was wearing a bib, she did not come home with the bib. The next afternoon when collecting my daughter I asked about the bib and all the carers just stared at me, spoke to each other in Xhosa and just kind of shrugged their shoulders and said they didn't know what happened to her bib. And that was it. End of the bib I guess.</p> <p>Incident 2: I went to collect my daughter at around 3pm and found her in a walking ring in sopping wet clothes (in the middle of winter). I had to point out to the carer that my child's clothes were wet. She was blissfully unaware and could not tell me why they were wet. I pointed out to her that it was milk and she eventually came to the conclusion that the baby's bottle had poured out on to her.</p> <p>Similarly to this, on another occasion when collecting my baby in the afternoon, her top and jersey were also wet (again this is winter) even though she had a bib in her bag every day. The carers of this day care, in my opinion, just really can't be bothered to think as far as to put a bib on a baby.</p> <p> Incident 3: By this time, feeling unsure of this day care, I decided to pop in at around 11:30am...</p> <p>My daughter was sitting awake in her cot with white paint flakes all around her mouth. Keep in mind she was only 9 months old at this time. When I asked if that was paint from the wooden cot, the carer said "yes she bites it". I asked her to please not let my daughter do this and to stop her and she literally just stared at me and then turned her back and carried on with what she was doing. What if my child was swallowing lead based paint?, what if she had gotten a wood splinter in her throat?</p> <p>When I mentioned the incident to the office staff, all the woman said was oh, hmm, sorry about that.....</p> <p>In a nutshell, the 3 carers in the baby room do the absolute minimum required of them. They barely greet you or even acknowledge you when you walk in the room at any time of the day and give the impression that they don't actually like their jobs. They definitely don't smile or exude any warmth or interest at all which, in my opinion, is what you would want for your baby. At no point did I ever see them playing or interacting with the bigger babies in a stimulating way (not sure why it's called "The Early Learning Centre") and definitely never down on the floor with them. When we would drop our daughter off in the morning, either my partner or I would have to unpack her bag and get her situated in either a walking ring or on the floor and give her something to play with until the "older baby carer" gets there at 07:30am. Until that time, they older babies are really in my opinion, left to their own devices. Crawling off into corners or fiddling with the dustbin or standing in their cribs waiting for someone to take them out.....The 2 carers that are there in the morning don't get up from their lounge chairs where they sit holding and bouncing small babies literally covered over their heads with blankets.</p> <p>I did ask to have a meeting with the director of the school but she declined saying that I rather meet with one of the ladies in the offices at the Early Learning Centre to discuss my issues.</p> <p>And of course, even though I took my baby out of this day care because their level of care is nowhere near what I was hoping for or expected, I still had to pay for another full month as a notice period.</p> <p>Honestly, if you want your baby to have fun, to be mentally stimulated and to be truly cared for as I imagine you would do, I really would NOT recommend this day care. You can do much better in the Table View area for your baby seriously.</p> <p> </p>