Meet Shahnaz Ahmed

Shahnaz Ahmed has been caring for children for over 20 years. She started in Falls Church in the early 1990s and moved to South Riding in 2004, where she has run Shahnaz Home Daycare as a licensed provider ever since. Mehwish has worked alongside her for more than 10 years. In all that time the reason families keep coming back hasn't changed: every child is treated like part of the family, not a number in a classroom.

Shahnaz Home Daycare is licensed home-based child care (formerly a Family Day Home in Virginia) caring for children 3 months to 5 years 11 months, with the same two familiar, consistent caregivers your child sees every day — not a rotating staff. Families who've been with them for years say the same thing: it's the small, personal touches — home-cooked meals, real relationships, and caregivers who still check in long after a child has moved on to school — that set a home daycare apart from a center. And because the same two caregivers meet you at the door morning and evening, you get a personal update on your child's day at every pickup.

There's no rigid curriculum here — children are given room to play, and the goal every day is simple: a loving, caring atmosphere where your child feels at home.