For those of you that have your little ones in daycare, any idea what the average cost is for full time daycare for infants and toddlers? any specific recs in Portland or NE/SE/NoPo?
We are toying with the idea of TTC later this year or early next and want to start budgeting some money now for childcare.
Re: Daycare costs for portland area
Judi! Aaaahhhh!! How exciting!!
Well there's several different kinds of daycares... nanny, nanny share, daycare center (like kindercare) and in-home daycare(which is my preference).
I never looked at full time infant care (because I only worked part time) but the center we started DD in was $600 per month for 3 days a week. We were unhappy with the center and pulled her out after a few weeks and started using an in-home daycare, and we paid $25/day (so at 4 days/week it was $500 ish a month).
The most expensive center I've found is $1800 a month for full time, and they don't offer a part time discount. But they do baby yoga and all kinds of other yuppie shiit that I wasn't interested in paying that much for, lol!
I would assume $750-$1000+ per month and factor that into your budget.
Okaaayyyyy...so, you joined yesterday and you're an expert on chikdcare prices because you used to work in a daycare? Do you have a kid? Do you currently have an infant in full time daycare? What do you pay?
And for what it's worth, I talked to about 10 different centers about infant care, and none of them were flexible in their pricing.
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Judi, how exciting! I agree with Jen in that there is a huge range. We checked out Kindercare in our area and it was $1100 a month or something like that. We didn't like how the people in the infant room were just sitting around and didn't seem engaged with the babies.
We then ended up with a lady who runs an in-home daycare (but with a professional daycare space) called Bee Bop's Little House. She charges us $750 a month for full-time care and now that Katie eats regular food, the food is included.
I know OHSU offers daycare to its employees and they charge around $1300 a month.
Check out childcareratingz.com for reviews on any center.
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HI, We are at Helen Gorden Center, with the student discount it's $840 a month, they are fantastic, BUT we were on the wait list for 2 years! I would suggest getting on waitlist as soon as you can if you are planning on a development center in the inner city.
ChildRoots is great, around $1200 a month, I also really liked Growing Seeds around $1300 a month.
Good luck.We went on a lot of tours and really liked the centers we went to. A little spendy, but to me, it's been worth it.
You can also reference Urban Mommas and Child Resource center (not recommendations, but more a listing of folks that have licenses etc.)
Well gee look at that. Looks like I was SPOT ON for rates. Where's the random expert now to prove me wrong? Huh? Huh.
Ugh.
Thanks ladies!
How exactly do you find in-home daycare providers? most of what I see come up in searches are centers
and Jen - you know everything.
lol
I found my provider on craigslist. I read about a million ads, and immediately eliminated anyone that had spelling or grammar issues. That made the list VERY small, lol...Then I called and talked to about 10 people, and from a basic phone conversation I was able to get my list down to 3. The first one I met I loved, and the other 2 were just ok. So I was thinking about it for a few days, and randomly it turned out that my DH's coworker was friends with the daycare lady's husband! So we chose them, and they are a great family, and we've been really happy with them for over 2 years! Now that I'm SAHM, I still send her to daycare 1-2 days a week so she can see her friends and play.
Try the following webstite for folks licensed. Note: These are not recommendations, just a listing of caregivers licensed etc.. It will inlclude both in home and centers and you can search by location. This is a good starting point to at least get a list going. Good luck.
https://ccrr-mc.org/referral.html
Being licensed matters if you want to take the tax credits for child care.. Keep that in mind You can't take the credit if your provider isn't licensed.
Not true! My DCP isn't licensed to do daycare (she was licensed for 7 years and just let it lapse right after she started watching DD), all you need to claim it on your taxes is their ss# or tax ID #. And they have to report it as income.
Good to know. I'm finding though that people that aren't licensed, aren't claiming it as income
Lame! I almost got burned by my first DCP that wouldn't give me their tax ID # after the center was closed down, so that is the first question I tell people to ask now!
That's the first question I do ask! It's hard finding part time care in my neighborhood Well, I did find one place, but it's $65 a day.. um, no thanks.