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heroldkelly
member
Daycare Sticker Shock!
heroldkelly
member
So... My wife and I have been looking at all the different financial stuff regarding having this baby of ours, and I thought I was prepared, but now I'm not so sure! It made me wonder what people find for daycare prices.
Our situation involves my wife and I both working full time (I am attending school full-time as well, but will graduate before the baby comes), and our hours are very similar, so we will probably have to pay for daycare 9-9.5 hours a day, Monday through Friday. The daycare down the street from where I work is $2.75/hour, and I am guessing that isn't high since it's a non-profit daycare in a rural town of 800 people in Wisconsin. It makes me curious what daycare costs elsewhere! Let me know what you pay, and if you have any ideas to reduce that cost, please let me know! 
Thanks,
Kelly
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Daycare Sticker Shock!
My wife and I will be paying $800/mo for daycare. We live in Knoxville, TN.. pop ~150k people. Primarily a college town.
They will let us drop out during the summer and pick back up in the fall with no penalty and we can still use her during the summer by paying their daily rate. My wife is a teacher so this was a huge perk for us.
We are also considering my wife staying home as an option. I make more than enough to support both of us. The problem is my wife just finished her Master's and is undergoing an internal struggle of not wanting to just give up her career, but also wants to stay home with the baby.
I am all for whatever makes her comfortable. But as of right now, it looks like we will be shelling out $800/mo with the exception of summers. Oh and the place is by my work so I would be on drop off/pick up duty. I'm good with that.
The ONE THING I am NOT looking forward to is writing that check once daycare starts in a little over two weeks. Mind you, we are paying for the best in Milwaukee, so we know what we are getting into.
1200 clams a month!!!!
That is the one cost that has me up thinking at night. Thank God my wife and I are in a position where that kind of hit will not have a major impact on how we live. We can hold the spot in the summer for a core fee, but still.....
$1200 a month!!!!!!
Depends on if you are doing daycare - someone that babysits your child - or preschool and what program the preschool is (Montessori, Goddard, etc).
In the Washington DC metro area, it starts at about 400/week for low-end institutional care and goes to 900/week for high-tier educational facilities - per infant child. As the child ages, the number of kid to caregiver allows less staff so the cost typically goes down although it's not much per year once you factor in yearly tuition hikes.
Our kids go to a school that offers 6 weeks to 2nd grade and all of the caregivers have masters degrees in early childhood education. The center is pretty new and its set up like a private school vs. a baby sitting institution. We pay 4200/month (after a 25% "sibling discount") for kids aged 4.5 and 2.
It's our third daycare since our eldest was born so I'd really recommend you keep in mind what you can afford but make sure you don't make your decision solely on money or neither of you will feel good about leaving baby while you're at work. Ask about staff turn over, child ratios, class sizes, lesson plans, and "teacher" qualifications. Also check the state records to see what kind of infractions the center has and speak with parents with older children in the center to hear about their experiences.
Kelly,
We're just starting to look here in St. Paul, but it is a lot more then I expected. We were hoping to keep it under 800, now we are hoping to keep it under 1k/month.
I wanted to add one more thing because it certainly played into our decision on where we decided to have Jacob go for daycare.
My wife is a child psychologist. You can only imagine what that means in terms of observing and measuring our childs development. I don't mind it at all, as I have learned more than I ever thought when it came to child development. But when it comes to daycare, it was all about how the organization approached and encouraged development at a high level.
Our daycare is a NAEYC accredited organization. My wife said that this accreditation is the gold standard. There are ten standards that organizations need to meet to get this accreditation, and they must meet all ten. They revolve around education, social and physical development and health. It is hardcore, and it shows in how our daycare helps develop children at a high level in all these areas. Our niece, at 3, has the social skills and educational attainment of a much older child it seems, at least in my delaings with her. From their website:
"In addition, we implement the high quality standards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) without adopting a commercial curriculum model. We trust in our creative, well-educated teachers to develop their own unique lesson plans which are based on NAEYC criteria and are designed to meet the individual needs of each child."
I was very aware of this when we visited the daycare. In other words, our young children's "work" is to play. when lesson plans revolve around that, socialization and other skills become fine tuned at a younger age.
Check out this accreditation. It is really impressive, and probably something any parent would want for their young kids.
https://families.naeyc.org/accredited-article/10-naeyc-program-standards
I'm in Greenville, SC. We'll be paying $125/week for full-time preschool. We only pay $40/week for son's afterschool care, so total childcare costs each month = $660. Can't beat that with a stick. I love where I live.
:-)
Meh...double post...internet hates me
WOW....
We really haven't started looking yet. My wife has 13 more weeks before she heads back to work, but I guess now is the time to start looking. We currently have a part-time nanny and the average rate in Southern California is $15-$20/hr. We were considering full-time nanny when she goes back, but that would run us well over $2000/month....so we are doing some research.
Get on that bro...seriously!! We have had our spot held at our DC since early summer.
Yep! Get on it man! We dropped the deposit on ours a couple weeks ago- and she isn't even born yet. The wait lists are insane here and if we would have waited until a couple months before my wife was even going back to work- we would be hosed.
Good luck!
Yeah, the wait lists here in the DC area are crazy. Some people get on the list before they are even pregnant. Some people get on a list with the 1st child, and the 2nd child is the one that gets in.
As for price, we're in the $1700/month area. Crazy.