A Child's Place maintains written policies that guide our approach to major issues and provide a common understanding of many practical and safety related issues. Our policies reflect current state and federal regulations as well as best practices in early childhood educaiton. We suggest that all parents become familiar with our policies and we encourage you to contact your child's head teacher or the Executive Director if you have any questions. Our programs and policies reflect the contributions of all involved and are updated regularly to reflect parent feedback as well as changes in state and federal regulations and best professional practices.
NUTRITION
- The program staff work with our families of infants (who are informed by their child’s health care provider) to ensure that the food is based on infant’s individual nutritional needs and developmental stage.
- The program supports breast feeding by accepting, storing and serving expressed human milk for feedings. We accept human milk in ready-to-feed sanitary containers labeled with the infant’s name and date. We will store the milk in a refrigerator for no longer than 48 hours (or no more than 24 hours if the breast milk was previous frozen) or in a freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below for no longer than three months.
- Teaching staff do not offer solid foods and fruit juices to infants younger than six months, unless that practice is recommended by the child’s health care provider and approved by families. Sweetened beverages are avoided and if juice is served, only 100% fruit juice is recommended. The amount of juice served is limited to no more than four ounces per child daily.
- The program does not feed cow’s milk to infants younger than 12 months, and it serves only whole milk to children of ages 12 months to 24 months.
- Staff do not offer children younger than four years these foods: hot dogs, whole or sliced into rounds; whole grapes; nuts; popcorn; raw peas and hard pretzels; spoonfuls of peanut butter; or chunks of raw carrots or meat larger than can be swallowed whole.