Baby Day Care Is in Demand, Hard to Find : Infants’ Needs Make Them Difficult Clients; Facilities in Short Supply

For Richard and Nula Stellar of Woodland Hills, the toughest task of parenthood was finding infant day care that inspired their confidence without draining their checking account.

In six months, they tried three different licensed homes, looking for a baby sitter and a setting that would be nurturing for their son, Miles, who just celebrated his first birthday.

The Stellars stopped taking their son to one home when they learned that, every Friday, the licensed sitter had a day out with friends and left six children, three of whom were under 2 years old, with a housekeeper who spoke no English.

Another sitter “kept Miles in a crib, like a cage, for the entire 10 hours I was at work,” said Nula Stellar, a 35-year-old accountant. “From that same lady, Miles has a scar on his tongue from a bottle that was overheated in a microwave.”

The third home, she said, was run by a woman who seemed too forgetful to be responsible for their son.

“We’re pretty easygoing,” said Richard Stellar, 32, a graphic designer. “But the fact that we went through three baby-sitting situations, it’s a crisis in inadequacy.”

The Stellars never reported their concerns to the state Department of Social Services. “We were afraid of the husbands (of the baby sitters); they all lived about three blocks from us,” said Nula Stellar.

Finally, five months ago, the Stellars took Miles to the Woodland Village School, a licensed child-care center in Agoura Hills. The Stellars, who pay Woodland $125 a week, say they are pleased with the care, supervision and stimulation Miles is receiving.

Their search is indicative of the problem many working parents face: Licensed day care for infants--those under the age of 2--is a scarce resource in an area covering Burbank, Glendale and the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Simi and Antelope valleys. In that area, which has about 2 million residents, Woodland Village is one of two dozen licensed day-care centers that accept babies. (There are about 450 centers in the area that accept children between the ages of 2 and 5.)

Day-Care Referrals

In addition to the two dozen licensed centers, the greater San Fernando Valley area has about 750 private, licensed homes that accept infants, but many of the spaces allotted to babies are actually taken by the care-givers’ own children, according to Marjorie Morris of the Child Care Resource Center of the San Fernando Valley. The center receives about 500 calls a week requesting day-care referrals, with the largest increase in calls from parents looking for infant day care, rising steadily at a rate of about 145% annually, she said.

The demand probably will continue to increase. According to Peter Morrison, director of the Rand Corp.’s Population Research Center, half of all children younger than 2 have mothers who work (compared to one-third 10 years ago and 12% in 1950). Nationwide trends suggest a rapid increase in the demand for child and infant care, especially in an area like Southern California, where the high cost of living compels both parents to work, he said.

Parents of infants do have some child-care alternatives. The most expensive is a sitter who comes to the home. The price for an in-home care-giver ranges from $175 to $400 a week, too pricey for many parents. Prices at day-care centers range from $75 to $160 a week, and the cost at licensed private homes ranges from $50 to $90 a week.

Experts say there are advantages to both centers and private homes.

“I think there are prejudices on both sides,” said Judy Bencivengo, outreach coordinator for UCLA Child Care Services. “There are people who cannot see home care as anything but baby-sitting. Many families then get to a fork in the road when the children start to grow and develop, and then they want the stimulation of a large group in a center. People who take their children to a center like to say, ‘I leave my child with a whole staff.’ ”

But most centers exclude babies, and the expense of infant care frequently is cited as a reason.

Expense Cited

Dianne Philibosian, project director of the Center for Childhood Creativity in Warner Center, said: “One of the reasons we haven’t undertaken infant care has been the expense of it and the space requirements. The minimum (caretaker to child) ratios of 1-to-4 are inadequate.”

The Center for Childhood Creativity is a private and public effort involving the Los Angeles Unified School District, Cal State Northridge, the United Way and the Warner Center Assn. (See accompanying story).

Morris agrees that the 1-to-4 ratio is inadequate. “We’re not realistic about what we expect from child-care providers,” she said.

The National Assn. for the Education of Young Children (based in Washington) supports a 1-to-3 ratio for care-givers to infants and toddlers. But, in a licensed home, the allowed ratio is one care-giver to six children, three of whom may be less than 2 years old. In a licensed center, the infants must be separated from the older children, and there must be one adult for every four infants.

Philibosian, who is also associate dean of the School of Communication and Professional Studies at CSUN, said it would take at least $600 per child per month for Warner Center to provide a quality infant care program.

Intensity of Care

Carol Dipoma, director of the Devonshire Pre-School in Chatsworth, said providing day care for infants is costly because of the intensity of care that babies require. “Feedings are frequent and time-consuming. The only reason we can make it financially is that we don’t have a loan, so our overhead is low.”

Many centers that accept infants have waiting lists.

Dipoma, who charges $90 a week for babies, does not have a waiting list. “If I do have an opening, we give it to the first caller,” she said. Her school is licensed for 46 children, 18 of whom are infants.

A branch of the Woodland Village School in Woodland Hills can take 21 babies and has six openings. For infant day care, the school charges $125 for five days a week and $60 for two days a week.

Why do some parents pick a day-care center, rather than a private home?

Separate by Capability

Dipoma says centers can better separate the children according to age and capability. “We have three infant groups, one for the pre-crawlers, one for those who crawl and one for the walkers.”

Debby Berthiaume, director of the Woodland Village School, said: “The advantage of a center environment is that it is safer. If a single care-giver has to go to the bathroom, in those 2 to 3 minutes, children can get into a great deal of trouble. And in case a child does become injured, how can a single care-giver get the injured child quickly into the car along with four to five other children?”

Nonetheless, many Valley parents are enthusiastic about the care their children receive in private licensed homes.

Alison Corrigan, a 30-year-old registered nurse, and her husband, John, a 31-year-old journalist, take their 2-year-old daughter, Kelly, and 5-month-old son, Kevin, to a licensed home. She said the baby sitter takes care of six to eight children at a time, depending on the number of “drop-ins”--part-time children whose care is paid for on a daily basis.

The Corrigans, who live in Tujunga, pay their sitter $150 to $190 a week for both children, depending on the number of hours Kelly and Kevin stay there.

‘Special Person’

“I never even considered a day-care center, probably because of the larger number of children there,” said Corrigan. “This baby sitter is a special person.”

Most private homes--family day care--are licensed for six children under the age of 12. The state Department of Social Services requires that all adults in the home have a criminal record clearance, and a licensing inspector must find a clean, orderly home with smoke detectors or a fire extinguisher, a telephone and appropriate toys. In addition, homes must have fireplace screens, child safety gates on stairs and 5-foot fences around pools.

In addition to visiting a center or private home and talking to care-givers and other clients, parents can call the Department of Social Services to check on a licensed home or center. State officials investigate complaints ranging from sexual abuse to driving children without a car seat. Records of substantiated complaints are available to the public; unsubstantiated complaints are confidential.

What can expectant or planning-to-be parents look forward to in the next several years? Experts seem to agree only that the need for infant care will increase; no one is willing to predict that supply will rise to meet demand.

Dana Friedman of the Conference Board of New York, a nonprofit business research organization, said: “For the future, a lot depends on a change in attitude. What we’re talking about is the need for decent infant care and, in a sense, the need for the universality or acceptance of motherhood.” Motherhood, she added, doesn’t end after disability leave ends.

National Priority

CSUN’s Philibosian said infant care must become a national priority “because over 50% of a child’s intellect is established before age 5, and a good portion of the personality traits and orientation toward life are also established before age 5.”

In the future, she said, parents will be enrolled in day-care centers prenatally and will become acquainted with their child’s future care-givers even before the infant’s birth. She also believes that infant care quality will be improved if family day-care homes unite with centers to provide support, education and monitoring to the smaller, satellite operations.

The future of infant care also will depend on the quality of the child-care professional, said Philibosian. “Not just anyone can take care of children,” she said. “The quality of any program is directly related to the quality of the care-giver. We won’t know the results of raising a whole population of children in child care for the next 20 years. We have to start now to do the very best we can before it’s too late.”