Crèche or Day Care Center

Crèche or creche or  day care center is a place where working parents keep their child when they are at work. Working parents faces many obstacles in raising their child. After the termination of maternity leave, the working mothers have to get back to their work. Indian parents generally keep their child at home with their grandparents or babysitter. But due to splits in joint families, leaving the child only with the babysitter alone at home may not be safer. There are many cases of kidnapping of the child by babysitters in India. Many women leave their jobs only because of taking care of their child. So crèche or a day care center is the only source where working parents can keep their child during their office time. The crèche culture in India is very new.  With the increasing numbers of working parents day by day,  crèches are getting very popular.  

The Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Act, 2017 lays down some provisions for establishments that employ 50 or more employees to provide for crèche facility. Such crèche must be either in the office or within a distance that is comfortable for the employees to pick, drop and nurse their child.  The mother should be allowed to visit the crèche 4 times a day to nurse her child which includes her rest interval period. 

There are many organizations in public and private sectors that provides crèche facility to their employees.  But there are still some companies which do not provide crèche facilities to their employees. In such cases parents can keep their child in private crèches or day care centers. 

Some private crèches or day care centers are run by individuals or group of individuals. There are also some home based crèches run by caretakers at their own home. Sometimes these crèches may not be safer for your child because of the incidents of negligence by the caretakers in taking care of the child.  Therefore some important things you must see before keeping your child in such crèches. 

• The crèche must have sufficient space per child and it should be well lit, ventilated, clean and hygiene. 

• The crèche must have proper security at all times. 

• The utensils,  pillows and mattress used in the creche for the babies must be clean. 

• The crèche should keep first aid boxes and the stuffs should be trained in the basic first aid course .

• The crèche must have some toys and other baby stuffs to play and they must well maintain those toys and keep them clean. 

• The kitchen of the crèche must be little far from the baby room. 

• The crèche should keep records of the children and their parents together with their tracking records of dropping and picking time. 

• Select a crèche which is near to your workplace or home. 

• The toilet facilities should be clean with regular maintenance. 

• The crèche should provide pure and safe drinking water.