Resources for finding daycare?

hh3073a

I'm just hitting my third trimester and someone told me I should already be on waiting lists for daycares in the area?? I live and work outside of Washington, DC. Are there websites I can be looking at? Should I just ask around? 

 

A million thanks from a frazzled mom-to-be,

-hhb 

QueSrah

State and county government websites often list licensed daycares.  There is a service in VA called something like Infant Toddler that you pay registration to upfront and they help you find daycare.  There's something similar in MD called Monday Morning Moms.

At this point in the game, focus on in-home daycare or nannies - unless you're 60 miles outside of DC, you probably won't make it off a center waitlist in time.  Most centers have year-long wait lists (so you get on by 1st tri, and you might get a spot by the end of your maternity leave).  For in-home daycare, they might not know they'll have an opening more than a month or two in advance.  We found an in-home in Arlington when DD was about 4 weeks old.

bhjones1980

Ugh seriously??  I didn't even think about being on a wait list, we are in NOVA and had plans for day care after my maternity leave.  I didn't realize they would be that hard to get into.

lets add this to my list.

aeh72

Estwd2:

I'm in NoVA and yes, the waiting lists for centers are huge! We ended up going with an in-home provider we love and luckily there are a lot of in-homes in the DC area to choose from. I started with Google searches, Yelp reviews, and the DC Urban Moms board.

If you're in VA, I used this website to narrow down my list before I even called to schedule a tour and interview: https://www.dss.virginia.gov/facility/search/cc.cgi. I'm assuming DC and MD has similar websites. You can look up licensed in-homes and centers to see their inspection reports and see what violations they have had. Just a note - almost all daycares have had some type of violation at some point or another, usually missing paperwork. It's almost impossible to find an experienced provider with absolutely no violations. I don't worry too much about paperwork violations myself, but I ruled out everyone with a major violation. That way, we didn't have to tour a bajillion daycares; just the ones that made the cut after reading all available reviews and had openings. GL!

Ditto all this!  What I also found helpful when looking at the DSS website was checking to see how many years a provider had been giving a license renewal for  If I recall correctly, when someone only has a 1 year renewal, they may have had some issues that the state is monitoring, and people with 3 year renewals are, for lack of a better way to say it, going "above and beyond."  Of course, most received 2 year renewals, but at least I could rule out all the 1s right off the bat and save myself a little time.  Good luck!

saraboston

I used metrodaycare.com. It listed all licensed daycares (homes and centers) based on zip code. I started with convenient ones and did lots of interviews, and phone calls, etc.