Little River Children's Place, Chantilly

My son has been attending this daycare since he was 4 months old and he is 18 months now. He loves his friends and his teachers. It gives me piece of mind seeing how he gets excited when we approach the door to drop him off. If you have questions, the owner is really great in providing the information requested in a timely manner. I have also been there at different times throughout the day and have seen them dancing, outside playing, eating and napping. I am happy I have found such a caring and fun daycare for my son.

The owner puts her realtor job in front of her childcare job. She is double-dipping and scamming parents. Read on for the full story, or just drop your kid off and pretend it's fine, never ask questions, never hold these expensive in-home daycares to a hire standard, never say "hey, uh, let my kid play outside for more than 20-25 minutes, how hard is that??? No, I don't care that it's not 76 degrees and sunny. Stand at the door and watch from inside for all I care." Maybe if parents cared more, these places would provide better service. Sickening experience all around. Said Sickening Experience: I'm a single father with full custody (24/7) of two beautiful sons , who were 3 and 1.5 when under this provider's care. I work as a full-time lawyer at a non-profit in Springfield. I live in South Riding. I was concerned about my older son feeling cooped up; he, like every three-year old boy, needs to be outside. I couldn't afford a larger center, and I wanted my boys to remain together anyway, so we ended up here. My extra concern for my older son led to me dropping my boys off as late as possible sometimes. One day I dropped them off at around 10:15 AM to find the owner not home. Just her assistant, Marta. I counted the children and, including mine, there were 11 children. This included at least one young baby in a bouncy (maybe technically an infant), multiple babies in high chairs (still eating breakfast, right?), and some other toddlers. I absolutely regret not taking a video. I asked Marta if the owner was home. Marta doesn't speak much English (to be generous) and was clearly coached what to say in this event, and she tried to tell me the owner's mother was upstairs "making lunch." I sat there and counted the children in front of Marta and she got the picture. In fact, she understood so well that she contacted the owner, who immediately contacted me and wanted to know why, if I have a question, I didn't just call her. I told her, in not so many words, hey, I'll talk to whomever is watching my kids, and trust me, you're on the list of people I am going to speak with, we'll talk at pick-up. I got there at pick-up time and, as usual, there was only one person. (It took me awhile to "pick up" on the one-person thing. In the AM, I figured, 'ok, not everyone is here yet.' In the evening it was 'ok, some of the kids have been picked up, two people are no longer required.') This time, the one person was not the owner's 17 yr old daughter, who occasionally was there by herself at pick-up, it was the owner herself. And, in classic "I'm guilty as bleep" fashion, she came at me hard. "Why were you questioning Marta? YOU MADE HER FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE! Counting the kids!? You should've called me. I told you to call me." etc. I told her it was my intention to make Marta feel a little uncomfortable, just as it's my intention right now to make you feel uncomfortable for leaving my kids here under supervised and borderline neglected while I pay you out the ears to watch my kids. Then she tried to tell me her mom was upstairs. I said, "Ok. Is upstairs downstairs? No? Well then I think we can agree that her being upstairs does not count as her being downstairs. And where was her car? The boys have been here for months. You always talk about your mother, yet I have never seen her." Owner: "Are you calling me a liar?" Me (with supernatural help to remain calm and not flip out and cuss her out): "Yes. Yes I am." She said we should part ways. I said, yes, we should. But I need the rest of this week and next week to find a new place, and we agreed. The next day, for the first time, I saw a vehicle I hadn't seen before (her mother's) and her mother was downstairs with Marta. (haha) Quite the "coincidence." Anyway, two days later Marta was downstairs alone with the kids again. I JUST ASKED HER IF THE OWNER WAS UPSTAIRS. She said yes. I went outside to my car. The owner comes out her house (dressed REALLY NICELY to WATCH SOME KIDS ((clearly preparing to leave, again, to show a house...what a piece of work)), approaches me at my car as I am about to leave for work, gets huffy that I am "questioning" Marta again, and tells me to take my kids RIGHT THEN. Totally breaching our written (and verbal) contractual agreement. On a Friday, at 9 AM or so. SO MUCH FOR GOING TO WORK. She proceeds to talk nonsense as I go to get my kids, so I basically tell her to shut up and that she left 11 kids with Marta so she could go make even more money (perhaps for another $50,000 Mercedes) selling houses. She says "I never left 11 kids here with Marta. There were not 11 kids. And Marta can watch up to 7 kids by herself by law anyway." Which led to my favorite part of this whole fiasco, as I proceeded (recording all of this on audio, by the way) to count the kids there at that moment, and there were 8. It was great. Her response was, VERBATIM "Really? One extra kid?" Yes. If the one extra kid is mine, then yes. And ya know what, even if the one extra kid is someone else's. Because there are people who exist who care more about children than money, believe it or not. I know that is a foreign idea to you. It shouldn't be though, because you RUN A DAYCARE. I contacted CareLuLu who did a decent job, but there wasn't much they could do except plan to do more drop-ins. I asked for the contact information for the state agency that supervises childcare places and they gave it to me. They refunded me the appropriate amount of money and offered to help me find another place. Thank God I have since moved on from in-home daycares. It's too bad, she could've done a great job---she is high-energy, high-performance, and seems pretty caring. But she's walking a fine line, ethically and practically. Had my kids gotten hurt, this could have gone much differently.

My child has been coming here for a while and he loves it! the staff here are so friendly and helpful.

We love the provider and her daycare! We have been attending this daycare for over 6 years (2 kids for approx 3 years each). Her facility is very clean and the kids have great options for toys, books, and games. My kids have always been happy when they are dropped off and happy when we pick them up.

I love the facility and the staff. My son is excited to go to "school" everyday. It's a wonderful childcare facility.

The home is beautiful. Premises are super clean and teachers care are five hearts!!

I was so thankful to have found this provider when I was looking for childcare. I had gone to many different daycares to interview for my children and I knew the moment I met this provider she was the one!!! She is very caring and loves the kids. My kids absolutely loved her which made it so much easier for all of us when they needed to go to daycare. I highly recommend her to everyone I know in need of childcare.