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Review content:
After touring several daycares, my husband and I decided BH at the Forum was the best place to leave our four-month-old baby. They were courteous, experienced, organized, and had a curriculum for babies that met our style of living (hands-on, floor time, active engagement, love, no swings, no exersaucers). They took the time to find out many details about our child before we started. Our first week went well, although I was extremely disappointed they didn't share when/how/why my child was crying even though I knew he was. He shudders after long periods of crying and every day, even though he was fine when I picked him up, he shuddered for close to an hour on our way home. Finally I asked the teachers and they assured me it was normal at the beginning. I was very optimistic and happy he was closely located to my job.
Then we have week two, conveniently after we wrote our check for $1500 for the following month's tuition. I visited him at lunch one day and I was abruptly questioned by his teachers ""how are you getting him to nap on the weekends?"" I was surprised because I had told them all along that our child did not nap well. It was presented to me in a way that sounded like ""it sure would make our jobs easier if he could self-soothe at nap time."" This doesn't sit well with me, as I only see my child two days a week during the day. Not sure how should I teach a nap routine on busy, errand-filled weekends to a four-month-old?
He continued to shudder most days, but there were no notes about his crying - if there were notes at all about his activities. I asked a teacher about the crying again and she abruptly replied ""when we set him down."" This is not what we experience with him at home, where he spends extensive floor time and is absolutely not held all of the time.
One of his teachers never seemed to finish feeding him, claiming he just didn't seem interested in eating - again, something our child never does at home. His teachers seemed defensive when we asked about it. My worst fear came true one day when I arrived earlier than expected to find my child wailing on the floor - to the point I didn't recognize his cry - while one of the teachers sat and wrote on a clipboard and another was just walking around. Unacceptable. It had always bothered me when I saw other children laying on the floor crying for long periods of time during my lunch visits, with no one actively engaging, but didn't think that could happen to *my* baby. He also had incorrect portions of solid food fed to him, was wearing another child's diaper, times he wasn't fed when he was supposed to eat, and feeding and diaper changes that were not correctly documented.
BH could not give our family peace of mind. Our son is healthy and I'm sure he will never remember the times he sat on the floor and cried his little heart out in daycare while no one tended to him. But *I* thought about it constantly.
I'm sure his teachers are fantastic when they have 5 infants in a room and a smaller infant:teacher ratio. However they seem to be quickly overwhelmed when their rooms are full or close to full, which is often. I just can't recommend Bright Horizons at the Forum infant rooms to anyone. Do your research and consider a center that has web video monitoring. Babies at Bright Horizons are all going to be fine, but I just could not erase the image of my baby laying the floor, with no one comforting him and no good reason not to be. Unfortunately I saw it way too often.
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