This Mumbai daycare for children turns 'night'care too!

Meet Chandni Mehta, the 24-year-old who's started a series of Mumbai daycare centres for working mothers with a difference -- they also look after your babies at night. Ronjita Kulkarni talks to the young entrepreneur, who holds a master's degree in child psychology about her unique venture and the success she's made of it.

Bringing up and taking care of young children is not easy, ask any parent.

It's especially tough for working mothers, who have to handle all kinds of stress from their tiny tots, their demanding bosses and sometimes meddling in-laws.

But every once in a while, help comes knocking at the door.

And in Mumbai, it's come in the form of Chandni Mehta and her chain of daycare centres called Jumping Genius.

What sets Jumping Genius apart from other childcare facilities is the fact that they have a 'night'care centre as well. Which now means parents don't only have a few hours to themselves in the day -- they can also avail of some time to themselves in the night.

Since this is a fairly new concept, it's still to take off in a big way. For now, Chandni claims she gets requests for nightcare about twice a month.

You'd think Chandni has children of her own to even think of such a concept but she is, in fact, only 24 years old -- 22 when she started her first daycare centre. Dressed in a white top, black mini and stilettos, she isn't the kind of person you'd expect to see in this line of work.

But she has the experience it needs. She has studied psychology in England and holds a master's degree in child psychology. She worked in a couple of daycare centres in London before becoming a school counsellor at Bombay Scottish School in Mahim, Mumbai.

In April 2009, she opened her first daycare centre in Bandra. Her parents helped her out with the first investment of Rs 12 lakh for a rental property at Pali Hill.

Since then on, she's expanded to six more centres (Juhu, Sion, Mahim, Prabhadevi and Tardeo), and is on the verge of opening a seventh.

So what made Chandni think of starting a daycare?

"I started wondering, 'what do working women do with their children?'" she says. "Today, women want to work. They may not do it within the first year of having a baby, but after that, they want to do something at least for five to six hours a day. Also, if the mother is at home with the child, she cannot provide him/her with overall stimulation. You can give (a tot) an hour of your time, plus feeding and napping time, but beyond that even the child wants to spend time with other children, wants to learn, wants to grow..."

"And once you start a daycare, the next step is nightcare," she adds confidently. "Parents have been asking me about it since the time we started off."

The reason why Chandni did not start nightcare earlier was because of the risks involved.

"Getting staff for the night is very difficult. You need to trust them. Also, it's scarier at night because of intruders. Security is an issue," she says.

Besides, children below three years of age like routine, and can pose a problem as well when it comes to looking after them at night.

"But that depends on the temperament of the child and the caregiver. Sometimes, the kids arrive sleeping because they are usually dropped off at 8:30-9 pm. Generally, kids above three years are not a problem, but children below that age can pose a problem," explains Chandni.

Activities like jungle yoga, gym and story-telling help the children cope with their new surroundings and enjoy their time in nightcare before they go to sleep.

Additionally, Chandni says they request parents to bring their children in to the centre for a couple of hours a day or two before, to get them used to the place.

Nightcare is not the only element that sets Jumping Genius apart from other daycares.

Every centre has CCTVs installed, so that parents can watch videos of their child whenever they want.

Plus they have a BBM facility, where pictures are BBMed to parents periodically. Also, they have an 8:1 teacher-child ratio.

A fun element that kids will obviously like is that every centre has a cable car to ferry the kids from one point to another.

All this, of course, comes at a price. A year's fees at Jumping Genius come to Rs 1,29,600, which includes caring for your child five days a week (10.5 hours a day) and half-days on Saturdays. Nightcare is additional, costing Rs 2,000 per night.

"It's expensive because the child is in daycare all day," Chandni explains. "Someone is constantly monitoring and stimulating the child. We give monthly progress reports, we have sports days etc. When you're giving so much to a child, you have to keep it exclusive to an extent. If you subsidise your cost, you're going to get 40-50 parents and then you won't do justice to anyone. No point in filling up the centre with so many kids."

The steep prices haven't completely put off working parents. There's still a huge demand -- in fact, just the Prabhadevi centre has as many as 80 children using all the facilities.

Business is obviously very good for Chandni now, but it did not come all that easy.

"Daycare was a risk I had to take initially. And it was very difficult for the first six months. First off, there were already established schools around us. And I was very young, so I had to build an image," she says.

It was also difficult to convince parents and understand the pulse of the market. Plus, Chandni did not advertise at all.

After business settled down, there were other difficulties. One of the toughest things about running a daycare is handling the parents, she says. "Parents have a guilt factor for not being around their kids and sometimes they take it out on us. We have to keep tackling and pacifying them."

And for a woman who is working so closely with children, Chandni has no immediate plans of getting married and having kids of her own.

"I don't think it's necessary to have kids," she says. "In India, it seems a compulsion, a social necessity. I've seen so many mothers who've had kids because they feel that's the only way to go. That's very scary for me."