Healthy Way to Grow:

Park Ridge Child Care Center is recognized by the American Heart Association and Nemours as a Healthy Way to Grow (HWTG) Gold Center for improving nutrition, physical activity, and screen time policies and practices. With 60 percent of American children spending a majority of their day in early childhood programs, the goal of Healthy Way to Grow is to help improve and sustain nutrition, physical activity, screen time, infant feeding, sleep habits, staff wellness, and family engagement. Healthy Way to Grow provides support to participating centers through subject matter experts and guides policy change as centers implement key HWTG components. Each month there is a calendar and a newsletter from Healthy Way to Grow located at the main entrance that will provide your families with fun and healthy activities and ideas for the month!

LET’S MOVE! Child Care:

We have joined Michelle Obama and other child care providers across the nation in the fight to prevent childhood obesity!

By working towards the following five goals we are helping to build an entire generation of healthy kids:

• Physical Activity:  Provide 1-2 hours of physical activity throughout the day, including inside and outside play when possible.
• Screen Time:  No screen time for children under 2 years.  Limit of 30 minutes of quality screen time for children 2 and older
• Food:  Serve fruits or vegetables at every meal, eat meals family-style whenever possible and don’t serve fried foods
• Beverages:  Provide access to water throughout the day and don’t serve sugar-sweetened drinks.  For children age 2 and older, serve low-fat (1%) or non-fat milk and no more than one 4 to 6 ounce serving of 100% juice per day.
• Infant Feeding:  For mothers who want to continue breastfeeding, provide their milk to the infants and welcome them to breastfeed during the child care day.  Support all new parents’ decisions about infant feeding.

Child & Adult Care Food program (CACFP)

Healthy meals are crucial for positive childhood development!

CACFP provides aid to child and adult care institutions and family or group day care homes for the provision of nutritious foods that contribute to the wellness, healthy growth, and development of young children, and the health and wellness of older adults and chronically impaired disabled persons.  

Through CACFP, more than 4.2 million children and 130,000 adults receive nutritious meals and snacks each day as part of the day care they receive.

NYS Breastfeeding Friendly Child Care Center

Park Ridge Child Care Center has been designated by the New York State Department of Health’s Child and Adult Care Program as a Breast-Friendly Child Care Center. We provide comfort and privacy for our mommies and daddies in our Family Feeding Room located in the back of the nurse’s office if family choose to feed their baby while their child is at our center. We have a separate refrigerator for storing breast milk where we keep a daily log of any breast milk going in and out of the refrigerator at all times. Lastly, we have a private Family Feeding Room, where we offer a quiet place for parents to come nurse or feed their child throughout their day!