Ballestrini Child Care Center- Niantic

Unless you want your child to be mistreated and not ready to go home the way you brought them in...do yourself a favor and never consider this place for child care. My experience with Ballestrini's was unprofessional and extremely discouraging for being the first place my husband and I chose for our child. On numerous occasions they were picked up with shoes on the wrong feet, no pull-up or underwear, completely WET jeans due to an accident, no juice/water, hungry, dirty, and complaints about "mean teachers". We both expressed our concerns with the director Amanda and were given excuses every time. Due to their age they were no given help when it came to getting dressed. Mind you, our child was just getting in the habit of picking out their own clothes, they still needed help when it came to buttoning or zippering pants. Her diaper was constantly wet upon pick up, they had poop in their diaper more than just a few times and to the extent of causing a rash so bad they had to go to their pediatrician. Ballestrinin's communication app "Pro-care" is supposed to be used to give parents updates throughout the day such as eating lunch, when their child was going to the bathroom, and photos. Rarely ever did we recieve updates on when they were going to the bathroom and they would come home so thirsty to the point of chugging water and eating their lunch in the car because there were only certain times eating was allowed. Our child also came home with a scratch on their face and it was laughed off by staff because their friend bit them at recess, TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. We always packed a bag of back up clothes and underwear. We were called more than once saying they couldn't find their spares and upon my arrival all I had to do was open up the front of their back pack. One time they didn't have any under-garments on and the excuse was "forgotten" to be put back on after nap time. During beach day, my child was picked up dirty, sandy, poop in their bathing suit and a horrible rash. Their pediatrician had to do tests for a UTI as well, which should never be happening at age 3. Among all of our concerns, Ballestrini's "didn't know" if a call was necessary, however they contacted DCF with allegations such as our child not being put together, going to school dirty, not being made aware of a cut (that her pediatrician said we did everything we could for and to keep putting neosporin on it), packing "snacks" for lunch (consisting of fruit, crackers, peanut butter, hot dogs, etc. because it wasn't a "solid" lunch, and picking them up late a couple times although we were given a 9 hour window and latest pick up being at 6. They also mentioned help upon grandparents was clearly frowned upon because ya know, first time parents should have it all together. With such an awful 6 months and now ending with an unnecessary DCF investigation, we decided to remove our child from their faciiity. We paid over $300 a week for this "care"...I hope future parents will save themselves the stress of knowing their if their child is safe and any money Ballestrini's will rob them of. This establishment has been dodging the BBB of paperwork since 2015. We were also told we couldn't go to the back to see the classrooms, which I always thought was weird, maybe health inspections couoldn't be passed on their end as you see upon arrival in the "meeting are" their health code violations have not been updated in I don't know how long. Seems to be they are only concerned about money and not the children who are in their care and are too young to be doing certain things for themselves. SHAME ON YOU AMANDA AND THE REST OF YOUR STAFF.