Lunch (rajma rice and mashed potatoes) was long over and an exciting game of Scrabble had come to a close. It was 4 p.m., and the children nestled into the reading corner with their favourite titles.
But the children aren’t at home. Akshit and Rishit are at Nestling Palms, a unique daycare in the upmarket corner of gurgaon.
Nestling Palms introduced a new daycare option to gurgaon parents that allows them to book a daycare space, with as little as one hour's notice.
Be it the occasional coffee morning with friends, popping out to the gym, the parlour or visiting someone at the hospital, going for a child unfriendly movie or the mom with a freelance project or an outdoor assignment. Today’s mums often want flexibility in their work and life.
Parents are often not comfortable leaving children home alone with unsupervised maids or nannies when the unscheduled need to pop out of house arises. Nestling Palms on-demand day care centre provides flexible, reliable and safe childcare for parents who work from home, have occasional jobs or just need to attend to something without children.
“If work calls, then you have to work. So, it’s not always possible to know a month in advance whether you’re going to need child care on Tuesdays or not,” said Nupur Agarwal, the founder at Nestling Palms.
On a recent late afternoon the scene was something like this at Nestling Palms: the preschoolers creating pictures with nontoxic finger paints while after-schoolers sat around a table catching-up on their homework. In the nap room, nannies rocked the toddlers to sleep for their afternoon nap.
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“Some children arrive both before and after school. So we try to make it as much like home as possible, with customised routines for children in consultation with their parents -- with what they’re going to do, with the learning & homework, with the nutrition,” said Nupur Agarwal.
“I buy ten hours a month, and do a little bit of top-up on top of that” said Aditi mother of Adhiraj, a stay at home mum, who now manages to squeeze some ‘me’ time thanks to the Nestling Palms daycare on demand option. “I am getting back in shape with my three days a week workout having made a comeback and the occasion pedicure or spa is a blessing without worrying about what my son will be up to. And I can book up to an hour before, so that is totally invaluable.”
Saurabh, an IT professional at Accenture, had an important meeting on the client site and needed childcare for her 2-year-old daughter for the afternoon. So, Saurabh bought a membership of on demand daycare at Nestling Palms that he will use as needed over the next month.
Nupur said the business was opened with parents like Aditi and Saurabh in mind.
“They’re caretakers, they’re sisters, they’re mothers, they’re aunts, they’re cooks, they’re friends—they’re everything,” said Sanjay Haldar, an employee at Maruti Suzuki whose six-year-old daughter, Shreya, attends Nestling Palms often.
“The fixed-or-nothing daycare doesn’t make sense anymore,” says Nishi. “People like me who have a flexible job with unpredictable hours have a lot of moving parts and need flexible daycare without the fixed cost.”
The Nestling Palms day care service is currently available in Gurgaon and charges just as low as Rs.150 per hour for flexible on demand day care and even lesser for parents on a membership plan.
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