What Actually Happens Between Drop-Off And Pick-Up
Every daycare in the Tri-Valley will tell you it is warm, safe and licensed. Far fewer will walk you through an ordinary Tuesday. This page describes the Mullins program the way it runs: one purpose-built room at the back of a Pleasanton home, one caregiver with 42 years behind her, and a group that stretches from six-week-old babies up to children about to start school.
42 years
How long Nancy Mullins has cared for other people's children
32 years licensed
As a State Licensed Pleasanton child care facility
Six weeks and up
The age at which a baby can join the group
Open open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
The hours the business gives: 24 hours a day, seven days a week
A daycare room that was built to be a daycare room
Nancy's family added a room to the back of the house expressly for the needs of the Pleasanton day care, and a Little Tykes Big Toy stands in the middle of it. That detail carries more weight than it sounds like it should. It means the space is not a family lounge cleared at eight in the morning and reassembled at six; the floor, the storage and the sightlines exist for one purpose, which is how a single adult can watch a crawling baby and a climbing three-year-old at the same moment without moving any furniture.
What the program covers
Set out the way Nancy sets it out on her own site, including the one thing she says she cannot do.
Infant care from six weeks
Babies join at six weeks, and Nancy says infants and toddlers are the bulk of who she looks after. The youngest end of the group is the centre of this program rather than something bolted onto the side of it.
Toddlers in the same room, with the same adult
Nobody graduates down a corridor on a birthday. A child who learned to sit up on this floor learns to run on it too, watched by the person who was there for the first version.
Preschool-age children as the seniors of the group
Children on average move on around preschool or kindergarten age, so the oldest child in the room is usually the one closest to leaving for school. Being the biggest in a mixed group is a genuine role, and four-year-olds take it seriously.
Hours discussed family by family
Nancy's stated position is that every family has its own needs, that she is as accommodating as she can be, and that she cares for children for as long as she is needed. The business gives its hours as 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so an unusual shift pattern is a conversation rather than an automatic no.
No school run
She does not currently transport children to school. The Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton school districts require school-aged children to be walked to class, which cannot be done with several babies in tow. It appears here rather than in the small print because for some families it settles the question.
The shape of an ordinary day
Arrivals, one family at a time
Children do not all appear at once, which is a quiet advantage of a small group. A child who arrives alone gets a greeting and thirty seconds of undivided attention, and walks into a room that is already occupied and settled rather than filling up around them.
The long morning stretch
the right hours of a small child's day sit between breakfast and lunch. This is when the climbing frame earns its place, when babies get their floor time, and when the older children have the run of the room while the youngest sleep in shifts.
Lunch, and then the great sorting of naps
Sleep is the part of a mixed-age room that takes the most managing, because a six-week-old, a fifteen-month-old and a four-year-old want three different things at one o'clock. Ask any provider how that is handled; the answer tells you how well they know their own group.
The slower afternoon
Quieter play, the bottle rounds, and the long tail of the day when tired children need less programme and more lap. It is also the stretch in which most of what you hear at pick-up is decided.
Handover at the door
For a child who cannot yet talk, that two-minute report is your entire window into eight hours. Agree at the start what belongs in it - feeds, naps, mood, anything that went sideways - so it is not being improvised every evening.
Why one room and one adult changes the day
Structural consequences rather than selling points. Each of these would be equally true of any single-caregiver daycare.
Nothing gets handed over
Where a rota exists, knowledge of your child moves between people at every shift change and a little of it evaporates each time. Here, whoever noticed your daughter go off her food at ten in the morning is the person telling you about it at five.
Siblings stay together
A baby and a three-year-old from the same family share a room instead of sitting at opposite ends of a building. That is one drop-off rather than two, and one adult relationship rather than four.
The group is small enough to be named
Children in a home daycare know every other child by name inside a week, and so do the parents. Weighing that against a larger site is the job of the companion page at https://pleasantondaycare.bookmarkingtoday.com/daycare-in-pleasanton, which lays out what each type of setting is genuinely good at.
Continuity runs in years, not terms
Because one adult covers the whole run, the settling-in period that usually accompanies each move between rooms simply never occurs. The stage-by-stage version of that argument is at https://pleasantondaycare.bookmarkingtoday.com/pleasanton-childcare.
One Pleasanton address, three towns' worth of parents
The daycare sits at 3809 Yosemite Ct N in Pleasanton, 94588, and Nancy describes her area as Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton. Families cross a town line for it more often than you would expect, and nearly always for the same reason: they would rather keep one caregiver for five years than take the nearest room with the soonest opening. Whether that trade works is a question about your commute, not about the daycare.
What you can verify before you visit
Nothing on this page has to be taken on faith. Here is how to check each part of it.
The licence
California maintains public records of licensed child care facilities together with their inspection history. Nancy states 32 years as a State Licensed Pleasanton child care facility; look the record up yourself before committing to any provider, here or elsewhere.
The room
Ask to stand in it while children are in it. A daycare room photographs one way and behaves another, and twenty minutes on a weekday morning settles the difference.
The person
You are choosing an individual rather than an institution, so the meeting is the assessment. Bring the questions you actually care about instead of the ones you think you are supposed to ask.
The hours
The business publishes hours of 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What that means for your particular schedule is worth confirming directly with Nancy on (925) 462-9606.
The things this page deliberately does not state
Fees, current openings and group size are absent on purpose: they change, and they should come from Nancy rather than from a web page. The enrolment walk-through at https://pleasantondaycare.bookmarkingtoday.com/childcare-in-pleasanton covers what to ask about them and in what order.
Mullins Day Care & Child Care
The full business details, exactly as the daycare gives them. Call for openings, hours and fees - none of the three are quoted anywhere on this page.
Mullins Daycare
Mullins Day Care & Child Care, 3809 Yosemite Ct N, Pleasanton, CA 94588. Phone: (925) 462-9606. Web: https://www.pleasanton-daycare-childcare.com/. Hours: Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Questions about the program
How young can a baby start?
Six weeks old. Nancy states that her daycare is for children as young as six weeks, and that infants and toddlers make up most of her group.
Is there a set daily timetable?
Not in the way a preschool has one. The day follows a settled order - morning play, lunch, naps, a quieter afternoon - built around whichever children are in the room that day.
How many children are there?
Ask Nancy on (925) 462-9606. Group size in a licensed home daycare depends on the licence and on who is currently enrolled, so it is not a number this page will put in print.
What are the opening hours?
The business gives its hours as open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Confirm what is workable for your own schedule when you call.
Where is the daycare?
3809 Yosemite Ct N, Pleasanton, CA 94588, serving the Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton area.
Where do the other pages go?
Comparing local options is covered at https://pleasantondaycare.bookmarkingtoday.com/daycare-in-pleasanton, the age-by-age journey at https://pleasantondaycare.bookmarkingtoday.com/pleasanton-childcare, and getting started at https://pleasantondaycare.bookmarkingtoday.com/childcare-in-pleasanton. Nancy's own site is https://www.pleasanton-daycare-childcare.com/.
Ask what a Tuesday looks like, then come and see one
A written description is only useful up to the point where you have stood in the room. Call (925) 462-9606 to arrange a visit, or read Nancy's own account of her daycare at https://www.pleasanton-daycare-childcare.com/.