Rock Spring Little Playhouse, Bethesda

Love this woman! Totally trust her with our son. She treated him like her own. She is caring and loving and knows child development and has been flexible with us when needed. I have absolute confidence in her and highly recommended to anybody who needs childcare.

Our 8 month old son has been with this caregiver at her home -based center for several months and we could not be happier with the care he receives. He is always smiling and happy when we pick him up. He’s gained increased motor skills thanks to him time there and is clearly very loved. We would highly recommend it to other families!

I unfortunately have to edit my review from one year ago, this is now august 2023 and i had recommended this caregiver in the past (my previous review one year ago was great) but I completely regret doing so after now realizing how dishonest unsafe and irresponsible they are. My son attended here for roughly one year. During his time I believed at the time that he was receiving the attention and care he needed from both caregiver and supposed assistant. I later realized the assistant that I had met when I had enrolled my son (the owner's mother) was only there on and off and it was usually only just the main caregiver. I found it strange considering the amount of children she had in the small playroom on bottom level of her townhome but again, i trusted that the assistant was maybe upstairs or busy with another child when I wouldn't see her anywhere. Later it became very clear that she actually had no assistant and was handling all of those children by herself and included her husband for help sometimes, who I had never met as an assistant of the daycare but as her husband who works full time upstairs in the home. I didn't even know he was licensed or background checked, etc. My son then suffered a severe injury to his face in which an incident report was supposed to be filed by this daycare, and never was. Again, i trusted this caregiver and tried to give her benefit of the doubt considering my son was healing fine and didn't require stitches. She told me he had "Fallen off a kids table and hit his face on floor/chair". Im a nurse and work with children and i was positive the injury was not from falling off a low level kids table or off a plastic chair. Again, i tried to be understanding because i believed she cared for him at the time and he was very used to her and everyone makes mistakes but it was very clear that she was not even watching my child for him to injure himself to that extent. I still have photos. He had to have been alone for quite some time. Another incident- I walked in early to pick up my son one day to find a relative/friend of the owner randomly sitting in the middle of the daycare room during peak COVID with no mask, chatting with her while kids were dispersed around the room. Again, I tried to be understanding but that's when the bad feelings started to appear for me. The owner then lied to me telling me that she had to randomly travel abroad for weeks and recommended i find another daycare for my son as soon as possible. I spoke to two other parents and carelulu who all told me they had no idea of her travel plans, and I figured she wanted my son out of her daycare because she could no longer handle all of the children including my son who happened to be one of the oldest and reaching his toddler age. He required a lot more attention, activities, and overall stimulation. She as a single caregiver and her husband who works full time upstairs could no longer handle him and they both decided to lie to me instead of being truthful about their concerns. The dishonesty was upsetting but truly a blessing in disguise as my son enrolled in another home daycare not too far away with the same number of children but with one teacher and two assistants and has been THRIVING. His vocabulary increased significantly, he became potty trained in a few weeks, and he has a large playroom with ample yard space and attention from three licensed caregivers. His socialization skills improved so much! Since leaving this daycare, the owner kept in distant contact with me time to time while my son was in new daycare, so when his new daycare provider went on vacation, i reached back out to her to explore a drop in option for two weeks. She advised me that it would be fine and i could pay her what I used to pay her per week. For the first few days, i noticed again, she did not have an assistant and her husband was roaming around the home upstairs with some of the children. Now that my son can talk, he told me that he was never allowed to be downstairs with the other kids and that he was to maintain upstairs with her husband and her other son. Again, my understanding when I first met them was that the husband worked full time remotely from home, but now he is an assistant of the home day care? I started to put the pieces together now with the help of my son. Her husband is also the one who answers her text messages when trying to contact her through out the day. On the last day I took him, in the morning, the owner opened the door with a horrible attitude, I asked her if she could clarify payment for last few days that my son needed drop in care and that i had texted her over the weekend so i could pay her before week started. She said "oh you texted me? Ill text you later". Whole day I texted her again to clarify payment and to ask about my son and no response. I arrived that afternoon to pick him up to find her an her husband speaking amongst themselves without any greeting to me discussing that payments now changed and I needed to pay her more for daily care instead of weekly. I had no problem with the changes and paying more/less etc. the point was the malicious intent of her and her husband to AGAIN be dishonest towards me and now i deeply regret ever enrolling my son during the vulnerable times where he couldn't speak. Only god knows what happened when he couldn't speak up for himself. I have two children who have been in several daycares and i have never experienced something like this from a childcare provider. I have been lucky to find honest, safe, and nurturing environments for both of my children and I highly recommend looking elsewhere because you will not find that with this caregiver.

Our 9 month-old daughter has been with this daycare for a couple of months now and it has been great! The owner is a really nice and warm lady. Our daughter is thriving in her care and meeting all her milestones. This provider also sends us the cutest pictures of our daughter that we always end up forwarding to relatives :) Another bonus is that her facility is brand new so all her toys and gears are nice and shiny. Would definitely recommend her to any family.