Like many parents we live in a city where good daycare either has a ridiculous waitlist, or is ridiculously expensive. We considered ourselves very lucky to find a licensed home daycare for our 9 month old which was close to our house, with no wait list, affordable (flag #1) and with a glowing recommendation from a friend of ours.Our friend had nothing but great things to say about the daycare, as their child had been with the provider for 5 years, and her girl loved the provider.Based on her recommendation we were confident to put our son in the daycare. We interviewed the provider, saw all of her certifications, and she had a spotless record on the online inspection report provided by the government licensing authority. She seemed a little no-nonsense and not super huggy-lovey, but we were okay with.So in our son went. The transition was a little rough, which we chalked up to 9 month separation anxiety. There were 3 other children under the age of two, 1 other 2.5 year old, and she took in 3 other kids for after school care. She was licensed for 7, because her husband and daughter were also on the license. We never saw her husband and daughter though (flag #2).The provider would drop off and pick up the three older school age kids to their school. We were told that either the husband or daughter (who were licensed) would be watching over the children while she did the school run.After about a month, little things started to niggle at us. The TV was on when we dropped him off (we have a no screen policy at home), when our son would come home, his lunch was eaten, but his afternoon snack was untouched ("he wasn't hungry" - but our kid ate everything), she complained that he cried and didn't go down easily and was needy, occasionally he would come home with small little poop stains on his clothes, and one week he came home with a bad diaper rash.We got the feeling that she was really just doing the bare minimum for him, and that she was kind of lazy. We talked about finding a new daycare, but it would be such a pain for the transition and to find something new. We put it as something to explore for the new year.Last week my partner was dropping our son off when she ran into one of the other mom's in the driveway. She asked my wife to meet her at the nearby McDonald's after dropping off our son because the daycare provider wouldn't like us talking. Our son was dropped off and my partner went to the McDonald's. There she met that mom and another mom. Both moms' had pulled their kids from the daycare. "Have you ever seen the husband or daughter at home during the day?", asked the mom. We hadn't.One of the mom's had dropped by the daycare during the day, because one of her older children had indicated that they were left alone, a lot. She purposely dropped by around the same time when the older kids were to be picked up at the school. Nobody would answer the door. She walked all around the house, ringing the doorbell, banging on the doors. She could hear one of the kids go, "mommy, mommy", but nobody would answer the door. Of course she starts freaking out, 20-30 minutes later, the daycare provider drives back with the older kids. "Who's in the house?" the mom demanded. "My husband", the daycare provider responded. The mom asked to speak with the husband, and the daycare provider refused, "he's busy". Obviously frustrated she went in to get her kids. Nobody was in the immediate area with the children and her kid needed a diaper change. While changing her kids diaper she decided to snoop around the rest of the house trying to find this "husband". She went all around the house, and there was no one else there.The mom accused the daycare provider of abandoning the child and threatened to call the cops. The daycare provider said that she would give her her money back for the month. She took her money back, took her kids, called the cops and filed a complaint. She contacted one of the other mom's who also pulled her kid out.The other mom was on the way to collect her cheques, when coincidentally she ran into my partner that day. Otherwise we wouldn't of known.Obviously we pulled our kid out of there that day. The icing on the cake was when we told the provider that, "we knew everything", the provider responded with, "you know you have to give me one month notice"... lovely.The health authority has opened an investigation opened, but she still open for the time being.Apparently the police won't do anything, because it's only one mom's word over the providers. Child protection won't do anything because the health authority is the lead on complaint investigation.Lesson learned via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2gi2itf
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