The Ohana School of Early Learning’s infant room provides a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment for infants to explore throughout their day. Infants learn through their five senses and through discovery play. Infant learning experiences with teachers, peers, language, movement, music, books, water, art and dramatic play materials enhance children’s growth and development. Teachers design weekly curriculum based on children’s developmental needs and individual interests. These experiences are documented for families through daily reports which are communicated at drop off and pick up times. The infant room environment is designed to be safe and stimulating for all infants. One way we keep the room clean and safe for crawling infants is by maintaining a “shoeless” environment. We ask that all adults entering the room remove their shoes. Socks are allowed and slippers will be provided for those adults with bare feet. Infant feeding is both a social-emotional and physical process. All infants are held when bottle- feeding to facilitate loving contact with a nurturing adult. The infant room welcomes breast-feeding mothers where they can relax and feed their infant. Infant feeding is individualized, incorporating the child’s changing developmental needs and individual cues, as well as family preferences. As infants grow older, they are encouraged to be as independent as possible when eating; plastic bibs are provided for them as this process can often be messy! Menus are provided so that families can indicate those foods that they would like older infants to eat at mealtimes. Sleeping is also both a physical and social-emotional process that requires teachers to observe carefully for children’s cues. We help infants fall asleep by holding, rocking, singing, rubbing backs or gently rocking a crib. Infants are permitted to sleep only in cribs. We follow all policies recommended by the American Pediatric Association on Safe Sleep. At Ohana School of Early Learning, we look forward to developing strong relationships with children and their families. Please take some time at arrival each day to tell us about your child’s evening and morning at home so that we can more effectively meet their needs. When you return, we will tell you about your child’s day with us. In addition, we will provide you with a “daily report” indicating your child’s feeding, napping, diapering and play activities

Infants