For the youngest of children (from birth to about three years old) there are real limits to what can be done from a programming standpoint. The real emphasis is on care, nurture, safety and security. Parents are looking for an Environment that will help their child be happy and relaxed while away from their parent each Sunday morning. To this end, we advocate a relatively standard four-part nursery, which includes: 

1. Nursing mom’s room 
2. Crib area 
3. Crawler’s area 
4. Toddler’s area 

We also look to provide bathrooms for each of these areas, with a toddler-sized toilet for the children who have learned to walk and may have begun “potty training.” We recommend check-in counters that only authorized nursery workers can staff. This counter should provide open views into the nursery space addressing parents concerns about issues like molestation or abuse. We also recommend individual two-sided cubby-bins for diaper bag check-in assuring parents that there will be no confusion when it comes to their child getting their bottle or diaper needs met. Finally, as a notification system, we recommend vibrating pagers; such as many restaurants use today to notify people when their table is ready. From a security standpoint, the parent can only pick up their child if they turn in the corresponding pager. For an example of these types of spaces see churcharchitects.com/children’s spaces 

Trackback URI | Comments RSS