8VAC20-781-330. Daily Care and Activities for Infants

E. The licensee shall ensure that staff shall not confine infants who are awake and not actively eating in one piece of equipment including: swings, highchairs, cribs, play pens, or other similar pieces of equipment for more than 30 consecutive minutes.  Except when eating, the intervening time between confinements shall be at least one hour.

RESPONSE:

We suggest “intervening time” be 30 minutes, not one hour.  We fully recognize the importance of babies having significant time unrestrained by any equipment.  Most infant classrooms have mobile and non-mobile infants and there are often times that safety mandates a non-mobile infant be placed in an age appropriate piece of equipment while mobile infants are crawling and walking.  There will most likely be times throughout the day that are not conducive to this new regulation.