How did you find daycare?

Have you thought about a home child care provider? With a small group they may be able to adjust to meet your child's needs better (and may be more willing to). I myself am a home child care provider...I'd have no problem, as my home is already peanut-free! It may be something to look into. Maybe call your local referral agency and call some providers and just mention it...see what kind of replies you get. I'm not saying you will definately find someone willing to accomodate it, but I know that I myself would be very willing to accomodate special food needs, as we are dealing with an 18mo PA dd. HTH.

I am so sorry to hear about your experience. You would think that a daycare would be more open to getting rid of peanuts/nuts due to the "youngness" of the children alone.

My son's daycare didn't give me any problems at all about getting rid of PB--- but that may be because he was already enrolled there for more than a year before his diagnoses.

I'd keep looking for another daycare if I was you and only go w/ one of these two as a last resort. I'd think that them telling you that your son can't even attend on the days that they serve PB would be against the law in some way....

We were lucky, as the first daycare that we sent our son to was a home daycare and he started there when he was under 6 months. At a year we found out he was PA, and worked with our caregiver to give him "safe" food and snacks. Lucky for us, she never served PB in the first place to any of the kids.

When the home daycare provider retired and moved, we were stuck trying to find another center or home that understands PA or food allergies. Many of the places that we went to said that they understood, but really didn't (I posted about this before in another thread...one said that they were PS, but weren't, we found a nutter butter wrapper in the toys during our interview).

Luckily we found a place that is PF, at least in the foods that they provide. The director does not allow pb catered in or in treats. Occasionally some parents will bring in treat bags (halloween, etc) that have pb cups in them, but the kids are not allowed to eat their treat bags until they are home and the parents can decide.

We just had to keep interviewing till we found a place that we liked and felt right for our son.

Yes, we just came from a home daycare and she said she was PF, but last week she called me to say he had a PB cracker in his mouth. She said another child needed it to teeth and thought it was out of the way, obviously they didn't ensure his safety as I thought so he never went back.

Don't any daycare facilities need to follow 504 or is it just for school age children? (my PA is 2)

Sorry to hear of your experience. My ds 3, has PA and is in preschool. They have very strict guidelines due to the seriousness of his rxns, pf and chocolate free.
I would suggest talking with a local support group for food allergies to see if other parents have good experiences at the the day cares they use.
I use to work for the YWCA and they had very strict guidelines for the child care center.
It took me several tries before I found the preschool that would see my ds PA as serious as it is.
He isn't the only one in the class with PA which is helpful. It's nice to have another mom in the class to talk with.
Good luck with the day care hunt. You'll know when you find the right one.
JUJU

Quote:Originally posted by momtomitchell:
[b]
Don't any daycare facilities need to follow 504 or is it just for school age children? (my PA is 2)[/b]

I don't know. Good question. I would think that if they receive federal or state assistance they would have to. Perhaps you need to contact your local area's Council for Disablity rights to see if daycares need to follow the same rules/protocals as public elementry schools.

I read your post on this matter earlier (this is the day care that stated that you would need to give them 2 weeks notice and basically told you to leave right?).

Home daycare may be the best option for you. But please be careful. As mentioned by others, some home daycare providers don't understand the seriousness of PA. My DS used to be in a home daycare. The provider said she understood and wouldn't feed the kids PB&J anymore. I was suspicious though because his excema kept flaring up at her house. I came to find out that SHE was eating PB around the kids and she had a vegan kid whose parents sent his lunches (full of nuts) that he'd eat in front of my DS. We ended up having to pull him out of daycare and I'm now a SAHM.

Good luck in your search.

Just to add to my experience with home daycare, my provider was licensed and was required to take CPR and first aid training courses a few times a year. Once she was aware of my son's PA, the next class that she took happened to offer and allergy awareness and EPI pen training.

This may vary by state (we are in Chicago) but if you are looking for home care, find out if they are (1)licensed and (2)what kind or how often they are required to take continuing education classes. Also ask if they have taken a food allergy or training class and if they provide their own food or have food catered in.

After a couple of home day cares failed for us. My dd has been at a Bright Horizons center since she was 18 months.

They have been VERY thorough and even have a large 'no peanut' sign posted on the front door of the facility. And from what I've been told, this is a policy for all BH centers. They even moved her cubby to have her own (she's part-time) b/c her former cubby-mate was asian and they know that peanut oils are sometimes prevalent in their foods.

Here is their website if you want to search for one close to you -
[url="http://www.brighthorizons.com/Site/pages/center_search.cfm"]http://www.brighthorizons.com/Site/pages/center_search.cfm[/url]

Good luck!