COVER STORY : Swing-Swift Kids...

Bundled in a nylon jacket and a pink-and-white teddy bear jumpsuit, Shanice Cannon peeks out of Agnes Lewis’ living room window, checking to see if her mother’s Toyota Camry has pulled into the driveway.

Shanice’s mother, Sharon, is running a little late, but the 15-month-old baby is hardly perturbed as she happily wriggles in Lewis’ lap.

Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary at the Lewis household--which has served as a family child care facility for the past 13 years--except for one thing: It’s nearly 1 in the morning.

As the number of employees working swing and graveyard shifts, weekends and other irregular hours grows, many parents--particularly single parents--are turning to late-night and overnight child care. Although few child care centers provide overnight care, nearly 200 licensed family care providers in the Los Angeles area now offer such services out of their homes and apartments.

“Nowadays, people have all kinds of jobs with all kinds of hours, so it makes sense to offer 24-hour care,” said Lewis, an Inglewood family care provider who watches children from such areas as the Crenshaw district and Ladera Heights. “A lot of people turn to family care because child care centers aren’t always willing to be flexible with parents who work odd hours.”

Cannon, a single parent who lives just south of Ladera Heights, was referred to Lewis by Crystal Stairs, one of 10 child care resource and referral agencies in Los Angeles County.

A letter sorter for the U.S. Postal Service,

Cannon works from 3:30 p.m. to midnight. Her schedule isn’t ideal, but it’s an improvement over the 6 p.m.-to-2:30 a.m. shift that she used to work.

“I’m doing the best I can,” said Cannon, who is pregnant with her second child. “It’s hard because I don’t have anyone who can help me out. If Agnes wasn’t around, I’d probably have to quit my job.”

In the Central Los Angeles area bounded roughly by Beverly Hills, Monterey Park, Hollywood and Gardena, there are 178 licensed family care providers who offer 24-hour care, according to Crystal Stairs, the Mexican-American Opportunity Foundation, and Child and Family Services, three child care resource and referral agencies that service the area.

The need for round-the-clock care persists because of the prevalence of single parents, the increasing number of non-traditional jobs and the weak economy, said Cecilia Rojas, an outreach specialist for Crystal Stairs, which services South-Central and Southwest Los Angeles.

Last year, 27% of children under 18 lived with only one parent, up from 12% in 1970, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And on the job front, 14 million full-time employees--18% of the nation’s full-time work force--worked something other than a daytime shift in 1991. This represents an addition of 2 million such workers over the previous six years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor.

The government agency also estimates that the top five growth occupations in the 1990s will be waiters and waitresses, registered nurses, janitors and cleaners, managers and cashiers--all of which require long hours and some off-hour shift work.

“People are accepting whatever job they can get, even though it may require them to work non-traditional hours,” Rojas said. “It’s just a way of life.”

“There’s a need for 24-hour care, especially for single parents, because many don’t have anyone else who can watch their children,” said Pat Onuorah, who offers 24-hour family care at her Ladera Heights home. “I see a lot of low-income mothers who truly care about their kids, but have no choice but to take a night job or an overnight job. Every night, I have at least one child who stays over.”

Onuorah is licensed to care for 12 children at any given time, a typical number for family care providers. And like most providers, Onuorah, who works at the Watts Health Foundation during the day, hires assistants to help her watch children and prepare meals.

On a recent evening, about a dozen children were sprawled on Onuorah’s living room floor, playing games, eating spaghetti and watching the video “Aladdin.”

One baby in the room was scheduled to stay with Onuorah for four days. “He’s very adaptable and independent,” Onuorah said of the 15-month-old boy, whose mother is a flight attendant. “He’s been going to baby-sitters ever since he was born.”

Another 14-month-old baby, Mary Anyim, is also a regular overnight guest at Onuorah’s home.

“If I have to take care of business or if I want to go out at night, I bring her here,” said Mary’s mother, Theresa, a single parent who lives nearby. “She likes it here. When I bring her here, I don’t worry because everything is like home.”

Every Thursday, Eric Scaraglino, 3, spends the night at Elizabeth Wolfe’s Hollywood home, while his mother, Rose, attends a parents’ support group meeting.

“The first time he stayed over, I cried and cried,” said Scaraglino, a single parent from Palms whose son is hearing-impaired. “It was the first time he had been away from me, and I was devastated. Now, (Wolfe) is part of our family. I don’t have any family in California, so she’s like Eric’s grandma.”

For her part, Wolfe said she was willing to offer 24-hour child care in her home because she enjoys the company.

“After my husband passed away, it just made sense for me to do this,” said Wolfe, who has served as a family care provider for the past 10 years. “It’s like therapy for me to have the kids around. I love it.”

Family care providers charge $50 to $125 per week, although some licensed providers may charge extra for overnight or weekend care. To be licensed by the state Department of Social Services, family providers must meet certain requirements, which include attending a licensing seminar, being fingerprinted and having their homes deemed safe for children.

While many family care providers are willing to offer overnight care, few, if any, child care centers in Los Angeles provide 24-hour service.

“You’re not going to find many child care centers willing to provide that type of care because it’s not profitable at all,” said Tammy Baker, manager of Child and Family Services, which services the Downtown, Hollywood and Mid-City areas. “You need to pay your workers overtime and it’s hard to maintain a steady clientele.”

Many parents with non-traditional work schedules also prefer leaving their children in a home setting rather than an institutionalized child care facility.

“If you have to drop your child off at night in their pajamas, would you want to take them to a place where the person who answers the door is wearing pajamas and your child can snuggle up in a bed in their home?” Baker asked. “Or would you want to go to a place with fluorescent lights, where they put your child on a cot?”

Every afternoon, when Cannon drops Shanice off at Lewis’ home at about 3:15, Lewis makes it a point to tell Shanice, “Your mommy’s going to work now. She’ll be back tonight to pick you up.”

Cannon then kisses her baby goodby, and waves to her as she walks to her car.

“It’s really important for them to wave to each other,” Lewis said. “That way, Shanice knows she’s coming back.”

After watching her mother’s car drive away, Shanice goes inside to play with the seven other children under Lewis’ care. A few hours later, after most of the other children have gone home, Lewis and Shanice have dinner. Shanice is then tucked into bed, only to be stirred out of sleep shortly after midnight.

“You ready to see Mama?” Lewis asks Shanice, as she lifts the sleepy but smiling child from her crib. “It’s time to go home.”

When Lewis first started watching Shanice early this year, Shanice would cry and hold on tight to her mother.

“Her mother would sit in her car and hear her screaming inside,” Lewis said. “That made her feel so bad. She kept saying, ‘Hopefully, one of these days, I won’t have to work.’ ”

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Despite the reluctance of some parents to leave their children in overnight care, many have no other options. Few companies--even those with employees working irregular hours--have considered round-the-clock child care.

“The issue of 24-hour care has been brought up from time to time, and the unions have asked about it,” said Sylvia Woodside, a human services manager for the U.S. Postal Service in Los Angeles. “But we’ve held off because of the lack of funding.”

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles used to offer 24-hour child care to its employees, but the program was discontinued because the hospital couldn’t maintain a steady enrollment.

“I believe there’s a hesitancy to put kids in a center at night,” said Darcy Williams, who runs the hospital’s child care program. “All the guilt that women feel about leaving their child at a center is compounded at night. We’re considering bringing back 24-hour care, but we would only do so with trained people and lots of planning. It’s a very distant thought.”

Not so at other large companies.

Realizing the need for quality night and overnight child care, Mobil Oil Corp. teamed up with Torrance YWCA to open a 24-hour child care center that will primarily service Mobil employees. The center will be open until midnight starting this fall, and will start its 24-hour program next summer, YWCA officials said.

Nighttime care is a key concern at Mobil, where about 400 of the refinery’s 1,000 employees work night hours, company spokesman Barry Engleberg said. A typical night shift starts at 6 p.m. and lasts until 6 a.m.

“Our workers are shift workers, and we found that when something happened to disrupt a parent’s child-care situation, people would call in sick,” Engleberg said. “So, we approached the YWCA about 24-hour care and invested about $50,000 in the new facility.”

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Since 1990, the Whitney Young Child Development Center in San Francisco has offered 24-hour child care out of its Hunter’s Point facility. Every night, 15 to 20 children stay overnight, director Careth Reid said.

The center has received national acclaim for its 24-hour service, but Reid said she still has misgivings about her work.

“You can’t convince me that it’s OK to wake a kid up at 4 a.m., rain or shine, and put them in a car, and then drop them off at a child care center while you dash off to work,” Reid said. “It’s also not OK for a kid to come to the center after school by bus, and then get picked up at 2:15 in the morning. There has to be other ways.”

But Reid knows there is no other way for many parents.

Many are raising their children alone and do not have the financial means to hire a nanny or baby-sitter, Reid said. Many are also working odd hours or have two jobs so they can support their families, she said.

Although no one has studied the effect of overnight care on children, some child care professionals are worried.

Edward F. Zigler, a professor of psychology at Yale University and a national child-care expert, said waking a child in the middle of the night disrupts the child’s sleep patterns.

Children could also develop emotional problems if they are shuffled from one bed to another. “Children can adapt themselves to everything, but children want to sleep in their own beds,” he said. “They get frightened of strange people and places.”

But Darcelle Dixon-Hunt, an accountant who lives in Ladera Heights, said her three children look forward to spending the night at Onuorah’s.

“The kids love it when they stay overnight at Pat’s house,” said Dixon-Hunt, who works out of her home but frequently attends night meetings and takes out-of-town business trips. “A lot of times, they don’t want to come home.”