It might be hard to believe, but Precious Stones Preschool in West Sedona’s Rock of Ages Lutheran Church is the first area day care center to offer services to the under-1 crowd.

Since opening last week, 7-month-old Mateo Steves has had certi­fied nurse aide Jessica Schaefer’s undivided attention and, between naps, feedings and diaper changes, is able to marvel at the tree branch-and-yarn mobiles crafted by the center’s older kids, or get lovingly thrust into the air.

By Monday, Nov. 2, however, Mateo will be joined by a 10-month-old and a 1-year-old.

“One’s feeding, one’s sleeping; it’s a little rotation,” Schaefer said of what she anticipates Monday and thereafter to look like.

“It’s like circuit at the gym,” preschool director Gioia Quisumbing adds, laughing.

Those three babies will put the infant room at 75% capacity, with only four youngsters allowed in the room at a time. However, not all of the parents opt to leave their children there every day.

“We can have up to eight or more enrolled as long as scheduling-wise we just have four each day,” Quisumbing said.

But even though there will be just a few more little faces at the preschool, lots of big changes were needed to accommodate the new age-group.

The idea of having an infant program at Precious Stones had been a long time in the making, and Quisumbing applied for grants through the city of Sedona and the Arizona Community Foundation at the end of 2019.

“The grant funding came through, it was approved, so we went ahead and placed the order for whatever things we needed and some outdoor equipment, strollers and all sorts of stuff,” Quisumbing said.

Then staff needed to outfit a room to be specifically for babies.

“The church congrega­tion and the church program helped us with some of the repairs and some of the things that we kind of needed to put into place,” Quisumbing said. “They’re putting in a changing table in one of our other classrooms so that we can accommodate the kind of shift in the enroll­ment and the age.”

Donations came from enrolled families and the greater Sedona community, and the infant room was soon stocked with a refrig­erator, a rocking chair and swings.

“We have an assessment annually for our program, but to offer infant care is serving another age group which requires an addi­tional add-on to our existing licensing certification, so we added on the infant care,” Quisumbing said. “So we start as early as 6 weeks up to 1-year-old, because we were licensed from 1-year-old to 5-years-old.”

Having the existing certification for the older kids already in place was something that Quisumbing said made the process easier, adding that other area groups have tried to start infant care but faced barriers along the way.

“They would have been starting from scratch as far as the licensing … so luckily we already have so much of that structure in place,” she said.

One of the reasons Quisumbing wanted to open infant care was that there weren’t many options avail­able in the area. She said she felt bad turning mothers down when they called and asked if Precious Stones could care for their babies when they were ready to go back to work after maternity leave.

“What I find is that a lot of parents will be relying on their parents to pitch in, to help supplement that kind of stuff,” Quisumbing said. “There are some nannies that will take in infants but even people who usually get certified to do an at-home program still would wait until the children are 1 until they bring them on board anyway.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic, time will tell whether the need for area infant care will increase with older relatives keeping more distance from family, or possibly become less as more parents are able to work from home.

“If the need really grew, then we could offer up to six [in the room]. That wouldn’t take much to change licensing-wise,” Quisumbing said.

For now, Precious Stones is just going with the “flow” with the infants, and they’ll see where the program takes them down the line.

“The infant schedule is much more in flow because you’re just responding to their needs and sleep rhythms,” Schaefer said.

Precious Stones has a program in place that can offer or accept subsidies for families looking for care.

Some proceeds from the Saturday, Nov. 7, Classic Cars for Kids show, with raffles, an auction, food vendors and more, will go to Precious Stones. Last year, $2,800 was raised. Admission is free, and the show takes place at Verde Valley RV Resort in Cottonwood. To donate auction items or find out more, visit preciousstonespreschool.com.