Help - American licensed home day care or Indian lady?

Hi,

I have a daughter who is 2 yrs and 5 months old. She has been going to a day care center for 10 months now but she doesn't enjoy it and has not been very happy there. So now we want to pull her out and put her in a home based day care. We are hoping that a smaller setting will help her come out of her shell. At home she is very active and talkative but at the day care center she is totally quiet and unresponsive.

We have 2 options. One is an American home based day care. We went to visit the lady and she is really nice. She is licensed and has said that she will offer vegetarian food to my daughter because we are veg. But we are just worried:
- We just don't know what to expect from an American lady.
- Their house has a very long driveway and is surrounded by woods so the house cannot be seen from the street. Most Americans would want their kids to go to such a place because of the safety of being away from the street but I've always wondered how people live in such isolated houses.

Basically it is just fear of the unknown with the American lady.
One of our neighbors (American) recommended this lady to us and we like the lady also. She says she will do arts and crafts, etc. She also has a lot of toys and a playground with swing/slides in her backyard.

The other option we have is a Gujrati lady who stays on our street with her daughter and son-in-law and takes care of her 1-yr old granddaughter. She is not licensed but she has experience in baby sitting. But we cannot expect her to do any arts/crafts with my daughter or give her a lot of attention because she also takes care of her own grand daughter. Our concern here is our daughter will completely lose touch with the American world that she will have to eventually deal with. Also this lady is not licensed and there won't be any major activities. But somehow just the fact that she is Indian gives me and my husband a lot of comfort. We also feel that may be our daughter will be comfortable there because she will be with a grandmom-like person.

Which one should we choose? Any opinions? Has anybody left their kids with American homebased day cares? What has your experience been? Any experience you have had with American care takers will be very helpful.

Thank you for making it to the end of this long post. Looking forward to some replies.

Thanks!

 

Thank you cuties for responding in this thread and the other thread. We would like to put her in Montessori but the one near our place has only 3 or 5 hr days. The plan is to move to another town and put her in a Montessori-daycare by mid next year. Grand plans! For now we're going to try the American lady 3 days a week and see how it goes.