For parents

What to ask on a daycare tour

Ask to see the license and the latest inspection report, how many children there are for each adult in your child’s room, how long the teachers have been there, what happens when a child is sick or there’s an emergency, and how you’ll hear about the day. If you’re touring for a baby, ask where and how infants nap. The checklist below has all six (center pages carry the first five); the sections after it say why each one matters.

Tour checklist

Check each question off as you ask it. Write the answers in the margin.

How do I check a daycare's license and inspection reports?

Ask to see the license on the wall and the most recent inspection report, then check both against the state’s own record. Inspection reports are public: federal law requires states and territories to post the results of child care monitoring and inspections online (Childcare.gov (opens in a new tab)). Ask the director to walk you through the last report, including anything they had to fix and how they fixed it.

Center pages in this directory link to the state’s record where the state publishes one. To look a center up directly:

What child-to-adult ratio should I ask about?

Ask how many children there are for each adult in your child’s room, at the busiest time of day, and compare it with your state’s limit for that age. Each state sets its own maximums, and they tighten for younger children. A state limit is the most the rules allow, not a promise about any one center’s staffing, so the center’s own answer is the one to write down.

Each state guide lists its ratios by age with the regulation they come from, and where the state’s rules cover a center, its page’s checklist fills in the number for your child’s age. Find your state’s guide.

Why ask how long the teachers have been there?

Because your child will spend the day with the teachers, not the director who gives the tour. Ask how long the lead teacher in your child’s room has worked there, who covers when they’re out, and how often staff change. Ask to meet the room’s teachers if they’re free.

What should a daycare's sick and emergency policy cover?

Ask for it in writing. It should say when a child has to stay home and for how long, who calls you and how fast, who may give medicine and how it’s recorded, and where children go in a fire, a lockdown or a closure. Ask when they last ran a drill.

How will I hear about my child's day?

Ask what arrives and when: a report on the day at pickup or in an app, photos, a note about naps and meals for a baby, and how they’d reach you if something went wrong. Ask where the school calendar lives, since specials, picture day and early release are the things that slip past in a backpack flyer.

Whatever the school uses, you can keep your side in one place. How Clear Day Family helps once your child starts.

What should I ask about how babies sleep at daycare?

Ask where infants nap, how they’re put down and who checks on them. The American Academy of Pediatrics says to place a baby on their back for all naps and at night, on a firm, flat surface, with soft objects and loose bedding kept out of the sleep area (AAP (opens in a new tab)). Ask the center to show you a crib in the infant room.

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