Hello ladies,
I am sneaking over from the second tri to seek your help on daycare costs. My apologies if this question has been asked in the past, I am new to the Bump. My close friend?s mother has been kind enough to agree to watch our LO when I go back to work. Our LO would be with her from 7:45 a.m.- 3:30 p.m. M-F. Although the subject has not come up yet, we need to establish a pay rate for her services. She wants to make sure that it saves us money so we do not have to pay daycare costs, but we still need to pay her for her services. What is the going rate for child care? Since I am asking, what is the going rate for a babysitter as well? Thank you so much for the information. I need to start budgeting for this LO nowJ
Re: Childcare costs?
I pay $15/ hour for our sitter now for 2 kids, with 1 I paid $10/hr.
I pay $185/week for infant care, but it varies SO Much by area. I'd call some centers in your area to get a cost estimate and base your budget on that.
It varies SO much by region. I live in Oregn and pay $50/day for our daycare center. For 3 days/wk, the whole month is $530. For an in-home daycare, the rate is around $25/day.
We pay our babysitter $3/hr during the day and $4/hr at night. She's a 19 year old friend of the family, in nursnig school.
I would look on craigslist for your area to get some realistic rates.
Like the PP said it varies so much in our area too. But we pay $263 a week for daycare. He goes from 7am and I pick him up at 3:30 M-F
I don't have any advice on the babysitters because the grandma's always watch DS but if when I get a paid babysitter I would also pay $10 an hour.
It does vary a lot from region to region. You might price out some daycare centers and in-home daycares in your area (even if you don't plan to use them), just to get an idea of where your area falls on the price spectrum.
DD has been in a very similar situation, where we took her to a SAHM who watched only her (no other babies). We paid $200/week for full-time care... M-F, roughly 9:30-5:30. To give you something to compare to, most daycare centers in my area charge around $225-$250/week for infants/young toddlers, and most good in-home daycares are in the $150-$175/week range.
As for babysitters, our normal babysitter is 23 years old and we pay her $10/hour + tip. If you use a younger babysitter, you can likely pay them less, although you have to think about whether you'd trust a teenager with an infant. (I wouldn't -- although I would trust a teenager who I know with DD now, at almost 2 years old.)
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
It really all depends on the area. Ditto pp that said to call centers around the area to get a feel for what the going rate is.
I am in the midwest, where apparently daycare costs are relatively low. I pay about $125 per week for each of my children, 13 month old and a 3 year old preschooler. So it ends up costing us about $1000 a month for both. The daycare and preschool program is actually quite excellent and better than many I have seen in our area.
We pay $56 a day at Daycare and $50 daily for friends. This is from 8am-4pm/5pm.
WhereI live- it's $1600 a month for a daycare center. It have an in home nanny (above baord- paying taxes) can be close to $3000.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
My girls are in a daycare center full time and they ahve all food (formula and baby, table food, drinks, snacks) inlcuded plus wipes. I provide the diapers and cream and any thing else special that I want used (lotion or stuff like that ) plus I provide sunscreen in the summer. All of the teachers are college educated and the aides are typically in school. We get a 10% corp discount through my company. My youger DD is in the infant program and with my discount, her weekly rate is $309 and my older DD is in the preschool program and her weekly rate is $220. My younger DD is moving the toddler program in mid-July and her rate will go down around $40 a week.
I know rates at home daycares tends to be less and places that do not provide food also tends to be less.
It is sooo dependent on where you live and what kind of childcare you are securing. But I'm sure you've seen that from the responses so far.
FWIW, I pay my sister (who moved in with us just to look after DD) $120 for 4 days a week. My other sister pays an in-home day care provider $90 for four days a week. I live in a metro area, my sister lives in a small city in the midwest.