Have NO idea where to start with daycare. Tips?

big_noise

So I have to start looking for daycare. I am bringing LO to work with me a bit right now and then MIL and my sister are watching her some. This will only be for a few months. I know about the mn child care site or whatever it is and have looked up who's in our area but I'm not even sure where to start with questions to ask, etc.

Any tips?

I'm looking in the West St. Paul/Mendota Heights area and am looking part-time for an infant, which I'm expecting might be a little difficult.

sensoregurl

Just wanted to say good luck. I think the bump and some other sites have a "what to ask a potential daycare" list that I started from and refined.

 I have part time infant care - Tuesdays and Thursdays. I started at a center because almost no in-home providers take part time infants, but then moved to an in home (which I LOVE and it's tons better and tons cheaper to boot). Part time infant care in a center is super expensive. One thing I did - I posted an ad on craigslist looking for someone else looking for the opposite schedule of part time infant care in my neighborhood - I actually found a girl and we searched for quite a while until we found a place that accepted pt infants anyways strangely enough. But if you can come to a daycare with a full time spot, it helps..and it's a great way to use craigslist!

 Good luck!!

Mrs. Sarah&Micah

DH and I just searched and found a daycare for our baby for next spring.

I started looking at: https://www.mnchildcare.org/

We also searched for centers around our home and around where we work. I called/emailed all the centers and asked if they had availability and what their prices were.

We also looked into a few inhome daycares and decided that inhome daycare was not for us- we had too many concerns/issues with them. Personally we would rather pay more to have more of an educational setting, possible bilingual options starting at infancy, more structure, a better baby to adult ratio etc.

We went back to our list of pricing and availabilities for centers, we narrowed the list by removing the outrageously expensive centers and toured the rest. We ended up finding the perfect fit and booked our spot a month ago for our baby to start in mid-April 2011. We ended up taking the last infant spot at the center.

If I were you, I would decide if you would prefer an inhome or a center. Then search your area. On MN childcare.org, they give you all the contact information for inhome and centers. I called several inhome places and they were even willing to give me more names of their friends who did inhome- so If you are looking for in home and cannot find an opening, ask those in home people you contact if they have any recommendations of people who might have availability and would take an infant. It never hurts to ask.

Questions to ask, we got all the question ideas from a pregnancy planning book, but like PP said, you can find lists on the bump or all over the internet. Also, we, my DH and I, brainstormed other information we wanted to know that was not on the list.

Good luck with your search. I didn't search for PT care, but hopefully something I "said" will help!

chickpea03

After working in childcare centers, the best advice I can give is try to get a referral from someone who has already been there. All childcare centers (in-home or center) are NOT created equally. I've seen beautifully run ones, and not so beautifully run ones. 

Do lots and lots of tours, and pay attention to details; cleanliness, baby's temperament, etc. It tells a lot.

By doing a lot of tours you'll get that "feeling". Either you'll feel really comfortable and know it's the place, or you'll have the opposite.

Good luck! It's stressful, but there ARE good centers and providers out there. Just a matter of finding them