Daycare Choices

Hi Everyone-

My husband and I recently found out that we are expecting. We will be looking to place our child in daycare in early April 2011.

We have read a number of reviews online and a number of postings within the forums. I was hoping to see if there is any recent feedback on the following locations:

1. Bean Tree
2. Winwood (Ashburn Farms location or Brambleton Location)
3. La Petite Academy
4. Creme de la Creme

I've heard horror stories about long wait lists. Hopefully we're avoiding some of the hassle by starting extra early. Any detail that is provided is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

~Caroline

 

Don't rule out KinderCare. There are several in the area and we know parents of children in three of them - no complaints

 

I posted a lengthy review of Bean Tree Learning (about 3 weeks ago), here is the link:
http://www.broadlandshoa.org/hoaforum/showthread.php?t=21094

I am very satisfied with Bean Tree.

In only a few weeks time we have seen a marked improvement on his verbal (Spanish skills) and his cognitive skills, such as; clicking on the mouse/keyboard keys, cutting with scissors, gluing and putting together a 50 piece puzzle.

My little guy has made a bunch of new friends and is truly excited to go to school each morning. Plus I am enjoying making new friends too.

 

I've heard great things about KinderWorks in Brambleton. When our son was at Beantree, a number of his classmates switched over. I've heard great things from their parents.

 

It's never to early to start looking and if you like something, get on the waitlist. Granted it's been 8 years since I was 6 weeks pregnant with my first and we've been lucky that the siblings are moved up to the top of the list, but it took 18 months (from 12w pg to 1 year old) to get into one of the daycares we were considering. No clue how it is now.

FWIW, as I understand, Kinderworks is now run as a Winwood rather than as a separate program within the Winwood umbrella.

Check out pea's write-up of Bean Tree. We've been there 4.5 years with 3 kids and feel it's the best for our situation even if it costs extra. We've done Golden Pond back when they did daycare as well as Ashburn Farm Winwood. We have no problems paying the extra $ at Bean Tree for teachers who have their bachelor's degrees and for a late pickup at 7pm. It all depends on what's important to you. We did go to check out the Brambleton Winwood when it was a Kinderworks and while it seemed fine to us, we felt we were losing more for the $ we'd be saving. Small things like the lack of toys out on the playground on a beautiful though winter day in February, a "gym" attached to a 2 year-old classroom causing a ton of noise and then just the lack of warmth from management we received when touring.

Good luck!

 

Thank you, everyone, for the additional detail. It's very helpful!