Las Vegas: how to chose hourly day care for a toddler

It is incredibly easy to find child care in the US. That, I said it.

When we decided to go to Las Vegas it was clear that I would like to rock climb for at least one day. The easiest way to achieve it is to schedule child care for Nicole.

From my experience is hourly child care is Washington State, where I reside, that type of child care does exist but is not as easy to find as a regular one. At that type of a facility, there will be no teaching programs, which makes sense considering that children will be dropped off and picked up on a chaotic schedule. It is usually more expensive and you can either bring your own food (nuts free) or order a meal for your kid. In many cases, it is also required to schedule it ahead of time to secure date and time.

It did not take me long to find two possible child care facilities: Kids Quest and Kinder Care. Both seemed good.

Kids Quest has five locations in Las Vegas. I called them to confirm that the parents do not need to be onsite like at Wiggle Works when their child is at their facility. For toddlers they have “safe place environment with soft climbing zones .. that encourages sensory stimulation, interactive play and toddler-friendly snacks.” They offer a lot more fun activities for older children.

Kids Quest hourly rate for toddlers is $10 per hour. Reasonable and on a low side. In Washington State hourly rate at a similar facility is $12 per hour for a toddler.

To sign up I completed an extremely short form online, called phone number of my desired location and scheduled specific drop off time. They also asked for $25 deposit and took my credit card information. In addition within 15 days of the date of the day care, I was required to provide immunization records for Nicole. I did call our doctor asking to fax the records to Kids Quest directly. That was it! Sweet!

Kids Quest caters to Las Vegas audience that apparently does not include climbers, which is evident in their operating hours: they are open Sunday to Thursday from 11 am to 12 am, Friday and Saturday from 10 am to 2 am. They do stay open longer, till 3 am, during summer, I guess because summer is more popular than winter. They also cannot accept children for longer than 5 hours. I am not sure if it is possible to drop off the child in the morning, check out after 5 hours and than drop off the same child again. For climbers it was not a viable option anyway, so I did not do any research.

To enforce policy of 5 hour stay Kinds Quest has really, and I mean it, bad sanctions policy. Late fee is $25, and you incur it every 15 minutes after the supposed pick up time. We were 45 minutes late, which resulted in $75 late fee.

The other option was Kinder Care. We did not use it but I did talk to the stuff on the phone. They also have several locations in Las Vegas (search by zip code provides better results than search by city name). I called to Torrey Pines Kinder Care, where they confirmed that they accept toddlers for drop off. They are open Monday to Friday from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm, which is perfect for climbers and not so perfect of everyone else in Las Vegas. I do not remember what their hourly rate is. It did not strike as too much when I talked to them.

The best way is to call them ahead of time, fill out questionnaire, forward immunization records and set a drop off date. Because it is a regular daycare, not fun play care like Kids Quest, they probably have some sort of teaching activities for kids enrolled full time and they might provide meals to the child. At least that is what happened at other similar centers in Washington State.

Next time when we are at Las Vegas for our climbing trip, I will schedule day are at Kinder Care.

Finally, I also wanted to write about methods to ensure success of placing a child in a day care.

First, I always research day care centers, read reviews and call them to schedule drop off date and time and make sure that I understood everything correctly. If any questionnaires could be filled out ahead of time, I always do that before the trip.

In the US immunization records are always required. That means that the child in question should be fully immunized and records should be provided in a form acceptable by the center. If you cannot follow immunization schedule for whatever reason, it is best to confirm with the center whether they would accept the child without full immunization and what records should be provided to them.

Second, I am certain that Nicole is going to be ok at any day care center. I used drop off day care since she was month old (for a couple of hours once every one or two weeks), now she attends day care part time (5 hours 5 days a week). She is very adaptable and thrives in unfamiliar environment.

Our friends, on the other hand, cannot leave their toddler at any day care because their child is not used to day cares. His mother takes care of him 24/7. When she tried leaving him for 2 hours to go to a doctor’s appointment, he cried entire time. I do not think they will be able to drop off their child at an unfamiliar day care any time soon.

As I see it, the best way to avoid separation anxiety of a toddler is to take them to different day cares once a week since they turn 3 months. In that case, the child will get used to day cares and will not mind staying there for a couple of hours when needed for doctor’s appointment, or on vacation.

Next post - exploring Las Vegas with a toddler includes activities for toddlers, places to get milk and other food, and methods to decompress for parents.

Las Vegas: day one

Nicole woke up at 7 am. On one hand, I was glad we did not need to wake her up. On the other hand, she slept around 7-8 hours, which is way insufficient as she normally sleeps 2 hours per night. Anyway, my hope was that she would get a very nice and long nap in the daycare.

After breakfast at a café in the hotel, we drove to the Kids Quest day care. I will write more on the subject of day care in a separate post.

Kids Quest has five locations in Las Vegas. The closes one to Red Rocks National Park is in Red Rocks Hotel and Casino. It is a huge hotel. Looked nice. The daycare is also big open space with a separate room for infants and toddlers. The remaining space is loosely divided into sections. There are two table called iPad Station. That is all I could see as parents are not allowed in the actual day care center.

I ordered food for the baby, and while reading the forms before I signed them, we noticed a nasty surprise – you can only leave the child at Kids Quest for 5 hours or less! The time limitation has something to do with Nevada laws. No way we will be back in 5  hours from our rock climbing trip!

Well, it was quite clear that the route we were going to climb was not going to work out. My husband chose a different one. He said “approach will take 30 minutes, it is a two pitch route, we will be back at the day care by 3:25 pm within 5 hours.” Two pitches route is short, but five hours is just too small time frame.

 

Red Rock were packed!

 

It took at about 30 minutes to get to Red Rocks, park the car, and start hiking to the head of the route. The hiking was ok first 5 minutes as it was a nice trail.

 

 

Then it quickly turned nasty – we had to scramble boulders and follow barely visible path. I had to take off my backpack (was carrying our rope, my climbing shoes, harness, and some other gear) several times in fear it would tip me over. At some point it became clear that I could not continue in my running shoes, had to switch to climbing shoes. I was definitely not looking forward to the way back.

The route looked good. First pitch was 5.8, second 5.9 climb. Or 5.7, 5.8. Both pitches had layback moves. The second one had several traverses. It was fun! When we got on the top of the rock we were climbing, it became clear that our way to get down will be longer than expected – there was nothing we could rappel from.

We went left. It was a long way down without any path whatsoever. At some point we got to an place where we found an anchor with slings for a short rappel down. After a bit more scrambling along the rock, we found ourselves in a dead end – no way to hike down. Fortunately, there was a nice tree, which we use for rappelling. I was afraid it would crack under our weight, but it was stronger that I expected.

Once we got to the route head, picked up our backpacks, we started scrambling down to the parking lot.  Of course, as there was no visible path, we got lost couple of times. Finally we got to a place I sort of recognized. When we safely got into a car, it was 3:30 pm. Nice!

At day care we paid $50 in daycare hourly rate (5 hours for $10 per hour) and $75 in late fees. And we lost a cam while climbing (another $50 in gear). Lovely! The climbing trip turned out to be quite expensive.

Nicole had lots of fun at the day care. When they brought her back to me, she was smiling and looked happy as usual. Their notes stated that she played with every toy they had and ate well. She did not sleep though.

After short trip to REI, where we bought that cam that we lost and additional one because it was there and we definitely needed it, we got back to the hotel. It was Friday of Thanksgiving holiday. We did not have a reservation for a restaurant. As a result by 7 pm we were still walking on Fremont Street looking for a place to eat.

As a reminder, we had breakfast at around 8 am and did not have anything else to eat since that time. After an hour of walking without any success, my husband reserved us a table through OpenTable at a pizza place that turned out to be a very nice restaurant.

Unfortunately, Nicole was tired and hungry. It was past her bed time, and she did not have enough sleep the previous night and she did not have a nap during the day. She was fussy as hell! Eating and getting her milk did help but still …. I would say it was the only night when she was that fussy and difficult to deal with. Next evening went a lot better and we did not have any problems on subsequent days.

Getting Nicole to sleep was easy though. I turned off the lights and viola, she is asleep.

The important question is did I have fun? Yes! I loved the climbing, and spending time with my baby afterward. I actually missed her a lot during the climb. Granted she was difficult at the restaurant, but she could be difficult at home too. Her fussiness did not stop us from enjoying the restaurant and our dinner.

 

Las Vegas Trip: bedtime routine for toddlers

We arrived to our Plaza Hotel in downtown Las Vegas at around 10 pm. Right after checking in, we decided to go for a walk. I have been to Las Vegas before (5 times) but never with a baby.

The downtown is an old Las Vegas. It has a covered walk called Fremont Street Experience. The canopy that covers Fremont Street is actually a video screen. Under the canopy they also have a zip-line and several bands performed on the street. In short, it was loud, funny and shiny.

It turned out that Nicole was mesmerized by the screen, she loved loved loved all shiny stuff and moving pictures. She would pull away from me watching blinking lights and videos upside down. It was super fun for her. But it was quite difficult to hold her head and I did not want to let it go in case she bends too far backwards.

 

 

After walking the street twice, we came back to the hotel. After all those crowds, we did not feel like have a sit up dinner. Instead with went to a Subway. Nicole wanted out subs! And she is 17 month old! Not only she insisted on eating them but she also wanted to hold them in her hands without our help. I did not feel secure giving her my subs so my husband fed the baby. I guess we are not going to have problems with feeding the baby on this trip.

 

My next concern was putting Nicole to bed. At home she sleeps at her own crib in her own room. The bedtime routine is very simple: Nicole drinks milk from a sippy cup, I help her to put on the pajamas, turn off lights, turn on the noise machine, hold her for 10 seconds, put her in the crib, give her the soft kitten toy and the blanket, and leave the room closing a door behind me. She is fast asleep within 5 minutes, usually faster. It was pretty clear that this routine was not going to work at a hotel room.

Our room had two queen size beds separated by a night table. I moved one of them to the adjacent wall. I did not want Nicole to be able to fall off the bed during the night. After that I prepared for bed myself. In a few days I skipped that step and regretted it dearly. Had to clean the teeth and ect. without lights with a sleeping baby nearby.

After we got the baby changed into her pajamas, gave her the sippy cup with milk and her blanket, we turned off the lights. Baby climbed onto me and fell asleep on my stomach hugging me. Not bad!

During the following nights, the going to bed routine improved slightly. I did not have to hold her until she would fall asleep. What we had to do though is to stop all activity (or she will be distracted), lay with her in the dark room, while Nicole tossed and turned at her half of the bed. She always fell asleep within 10-15 minutes. After that I could read books on my phone or surf internet. We did not dare to turn on lights though.

Here are my recommendations for establishing a working bedtime routine for toddlers while on traveling:

1. It is best to create a routine at home that could be easily used at a hotel room. From my point of view, taking a bath before bed is not a good option. It is possible to have it at a hotel (at least some of them) but it is clearly impossible to do so on a plane.
 
And that is an essential step to stress free traveling with a toddler.

2. Turn off all lights and keep silent – it is easier to fall asleep in a dark quite room. That means no lights, not TV, no moving around. Once the child is asleep, it might be safe to turn on some light or a TV.  

When I write it, it sounds like common sense. It is shocking though how many people ignore those simple steps!

Nicole woke up at 7 am, as usual. We had breakfast and headed to her daycare and then to Red Rocks for some rock-climbing.

 

 

Trip to Las Vegas: day zero

As we are travelling to Asia in the middle of December, I decided that it would be great to have a test run in Las Vegas. Vlad, my husband, went there climbing for Thanksgiving weekend and Nicole and I joined him.  

I wanted to test the following things:

1) Air travel with a one year old. Nicole is now mobile and extremely active. I wanted to see how she will behave on a plane and, if any concerns, address them during our next flight.
 

2)  Milk for the baby. We are planning on taking dry milk with us to Thailand. While in Vegas I wanted to see whether it is a better idea to buy milk instead of taking dry milk.

3) Co-sleeping with the baby. Since 7 month old, Nicole sleeps in her own bed in her own room. We have a short and effective routine of putting her to bed, which included leaving her in a crib and walking out of the room. It was clear that this routine would not work in a hotel room.

4)  Ergo baby. I used it with Nicole when she was small. Now I occasionally use it as well. But she is bigger and as I said is very active. Needed to see if I would survive carrying her all day.

5)  See if there are any other issues that might come up that I am not aware of.

 

 

 

We left Seattle on Thanksgiving day at around 7 pm. It was a short 2 hour flight to Las Vega. I would say it went okay. Normally Nicole goes to bed at 7:30 pm, so she was fussy. She did behave fine during boarding but because it took too long for us to take off, she became restless and super fussy and wanted her milk. She even cried for a couple of minutes. It turned out she needed twice as much milk as she would normally drink (around 12 ounce for a short flight). We ran out of milk shortly before the take off.

Once the airplane started moving and they deemed the lights, Nicole calmed down, accepted a cookie and … I am not sure if she slept or just behaved well. I guess, it was all good.

 

By the time we arrived to the hotel, Nicole was sleepy and ready to go to the bed. We all were exhausted and fell asleep quickly.

Next day I planned on going to rock climb with the guys. That meant that Nicole would spend a day in a day care.