Country Knolls Kids Care, LLC

Two of my children (age 11.5 months and 3.5 yr) recently attended Country Knolls Kids Care and I wanted to share my experience for others. We started Sept 15th, 2020. I dropped the kids off at ~8:30 am. 35 minutes after drop-off, I was called and told the baby was crying and upsetting the other children and I might have to come pick him up. We talked for a few minutes, and they agreed to try a little longer. Over the next 2 hours, I was informed that he was fine in the stroller, but if they took him out, he cried unless he was held. By 11 am, I was told I had to come get him because he was upsetting the other kids. This was a bit of a red flag to me – I have had kids in daycare for 5 years and never had this kind of experience. I thought it would be assumed that an infant new to daycare would need to be held quite a bit to feel secure in a new place with new people. The next day went the same and again I was asked to pick up him up for crying at 11:30 am. The last two days of the week went slightly better (1 full day and 1 half day), so we decided to stick with it for week 2. The first day went okay, but the next two days were awful. I was told that “they understand that I don’t want to give Tylenol but they can’t give 1:1 attention there and if he cries and could not be consoled, I would have to pick him up.” He was teething, but at home was his happy self and was sleeping normally overnight so in my opinion, no need to give medication (plus I never said I wouldn’t/don’t give Tylenol). With this message, they also said that he had been fine all morning, so apparently this was a preemptive threat of early pick up because he woke up early from his 1st nap and they expected it to go badly. All was fine until about 10 minutes before pick up time at 4:15 when I received a message that just said “Your child is screaming”. I am not sure what I was supposed to do with that since I was already on my way. He was not screaming when I arrived. Overall, of the 8 days we sent the kids there, there was only 1 day where I arrived and the baby was crying. On the two afternoons where I was told he was screaming right before pick-up, the third employee of the daycare confirmed for me that he was fine if held. 5 of the 8 days, the owner warned me that they could not provide 1:1 care and that his crying was disrupting the program and upsetting the other children, so we decided to disenroll from this daycare. Given this experience and the stress and anxiety this caused me in those two weeks, I cannot recommend this daycare for children under the age of 2. My 3.5 year old did enjoy it and from the limited time she was there, it seemed like a good program for the 3-5 year old range, so I am giving it 2 stars based on that.