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If you have a child, you probably already know this...child care providers say they're experiencing a crisis! That's because there are few if any available slots for infants in our area. Debbie Kuehn tells us about the problem... Like a newborn stretching and reaching for the next dress size... Expanding communities can experience a certain amount of growing pains too. And as luck would have it, the children in that community are typically the first to experience those growing pains. Kristi Aesendorf/ Dir. Child Care Resource and Referral-I think the need for infant care right now is at a critical point. Currently we have about four vacancies for infants in the city of Minot and that's for children under the age of two. Take Stanley for example... Janinne Paulson/ Mountrail County Social Services- Infant care is always in short supply. It does seem it's especially dire recently. We had a group provider close because she purchased the cafe up town... which is good on one hand. Losing a Daycare provider, however is tough. Here where the oil industry is luring new families to the area, there is an increasing demand for child care... namely infant care. Aesendorf says not only are exisiting facilities filling up, but some providers are being drawn away from the industry in hopes of making more money elsewhere... Kristi-And when you see in the region across northwest North Dakota, Williston is having issues because of the oil boom and Rugby's having issues because of the baby boom. And so those are all good things to happen to North Dakota, but there's sort of a domino effect because those people need child care and it's just not out there right now. Admittedly, it's not all about money... Aesendorf says childcare can be a very rewarding career for the right person. And she's hoping someone will step up to the challenge as soon as possible. Kristi-My hope is that maybe some of the programs out there that are not taking kids under the age of two would maybe consider taking someone between the ages of one and two. Or if there are people who say, I'd lvoe to take a byaby or two, but maye not a houseful of kids, we'd love to talk to them too. Yes, growth is good, but don't kid yourself... experts say when community growth interfers with the growth of our kids, Janinne-And it's a helpless feeling for me because like I said, I can't just create these people that would be doing child care. we need to makel that our number one priority. Debbie Kuehn KX News. For a complete listing of child care openings, you can call Child Care Resource and Referral at 838-7800.