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North Carolina Babies
KatieBride06
member
time to start planning on a kiddo
KatieBride06
member
Dh and I are talking about a 2011 baby and starting to get a few things figured out. It's hard to know what will happen long term b/c you can't really anticipate all of the curves life will throw at you. But right now I'm wondering about childcare. I know its expensive, but how expensive?
I'm in Charlotte and I work full-time, planning to keep it that way too. How can I find some averages on childcare costs and types of daycare? How did you come to your current decision? I'm curious about in-home, but know that's probably a lot of $$. I'd like to get an idea for a future budget.
Can someone point me in the right direction?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: time to start planning on a kiddo
Hi there
I can't say about Charlotte, but I know here in the WS area in-home childcare (in someone else's home) is generally a little cheaper than a center. Not sure if the same is true in CLT. So don't rule it out just quite yet.
And it's good to have you here! Hopefully you will learn alot by lurking, but feel free to ask questions anytime. GL! We are also planning on having #2 sometime next year.
Hey Katie! Glad to see you over here!
I can't help much, since I'm in the triangle, and our DC is subsidized by my DH's company. The other ladies will correct me if I'm wrong, but I *think* in-home is often less costly than a highly rated center. They'll be able to give you a better idea of weekly/monthly cost.
GL!
Exciting!
The trying to get pregnant board is also really helpful.
I can't tell you much about Charlotte daycares. I used this site to help me find daycares in my area though.
There are a ton of options when it comes to childcare. You can use a nanny who comes to your house. You can use a sitter, who would be an unlicensed person who just watches one or two children. There are licensed in-home daycare centers and then there are licensed regular daycare centers. Each arrangement has its own benefits.
We ended up with a daycare center b/c it was affordable, we liked the staff there, we felt like they provided a loving environment for little babies and an educational environment (while still being fun & loving) for toddlers and older kids. It's also conveniently located for us. We did take DS to a sitter for awhile, but it didn't work out long-term for a variety of reasons.
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Hey!
Exciting! Thankfully, my sister will be watching our baby, so we didn't have to worry about daycare, but when trying to figure out what to charge us each month she called a few day cares around to get an estimate. I'm not sure which ones she called, but they averaged about $900 a month. Yikes. Obviously, if we needed daycare we would have shopped around and looked into other more affordable options.
And I only answered part of your question.
Check out this site for info on daycares. It's a good start, and also a place to look up centers that have been recommended to you. Honestly, I'd start with personal suggestions of friends, family, and coworkers on centers near you.
I really don't know CLT figures, so I don't think it would do you much good to know what we pay. But I'm sure there are plenty of others who can help with that. Personally, I like DS being in a public center. But as an infant, I was going to put him in an in-home situation. Unfortunately that didn't work out for us, but I am going to try to find an in-home place when we have #2, probably for the first year or 2. For me, I'd rather have an older baby/toddler in a public center where they're around other kids their age. Also, we don't have backup childcare, so we don't have to worry about our provider being sick, going on vacation, etc. Just some things to think about. Childcare is definitely one of those things that depends on your family and your child.
Yay! It will be great having you over here. As for daycare it varies. We have really looked into it all and are still not 100% what we are going to do.
Good luck with everything!
In response to H&W's comment on $900/month for a daycare center, just wanted to say that is a VERY common price for the RTP and Charlotte area, if not a little on the lower end!!!
4 and 5 star centers are generally going to be at least 1k/month (for the larger NC metro areas), and most are definitely more than that.
How exciting!! I did think you were posting a BFP though.
I live in Concord and daycares here are around $160-250 a week. We were planning to use The Sunshine House which was $191 a week. I think in Charlotte, they are a good $50 more a week. I know when I used to work in Charlotte, the closest one was about $220 a week. I would budget for $1000 a month. You can call around places too. I also used the site ECU and Mikey suggested to get numbers.
An in home center will likely be a little less. That site also has the licensed in home places on it.
Good luck!!!
Well, I live in the middle of no where so I'm not much daycare help for you! I just wanted to say it was good to see you and good luck!
I've used both an large daycare center and now Ella is in an in-home daycare situation. For the daycare center we paid $1100 / month and the in-home is less expensive.
Catching up on sports news...
Hi Katie!!! So excited to see you here!
I dont have any answers to your questions bc we have DC at work so it was never an option for me to shop around it was worth it for AT to be here with me on campus. But I do want to wish you GL and keep us posted!!!
I have Ben at a center, and we pay $245/week which seems to be on the higher end of what we were looking at. I'm on the waiting list for a place I really want, it is $185ish a week. We chose a center b/c I like the accountability- it is never just one person. Also, they are always open (no vacation/sick days, etc).
I would recommend getting on the waiting list ASAP as soon as you find out you are pg, and get on a few lists. Most daycares are on a wait, and you never know how long it will take. I was on the wait list with my prior pg (that ended in m/c) , got pg shortly after with Ben, and he is now 4 months and i'm still waiting for a spot to open!