Philadelphia Babies

signing up for daycare?

Does anyone know how early people sign up for daycare in Philadelphia? I live in the northwest (Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill) and I know we have a lot of daycares. I'm just not sure how quickly they are booked. 

 (I'm from NY where people book them around 8 weeks, so maybe I'm just paranoid . . .)

  

Re: signing up for daycare?

  • I'm in the subs so it may be different but we signed our daughter up the day before she started (not expectantly). 
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  • Our LO will be starting daycare in January and the daycare we wanted only had 2 spots open for January back in July, and now its full!!  I think it all depends on how picky you are about the daycare you are choosing.  Somtimes the good ones will fill up fast and sometimes the cheap ones fill up fast.  I was told by one of the daycares that I should be decided on a place in August for our LO to go to daycare in January.  I thought that was a little extreme but she was right.  However I have had friends find a daycare the day before they needed to start...I think it comes down to how picky you are going to be about the daycare.

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  • You will find some with immediate openings in your area but others with really long waits (over a year).  It just depends.  I would call around now to those you are interested in and get a feel for everything.

    For example, we looked in the University City area and most were 16 month waits.  Then we expanded our search to Bala Cynwyd and found some with waits and some with immediate openings. 

  • Thanks so much, everyone. I think I'll start looking around december/january for an August start date.
  • I feel like its just like wedding planning.... Sometimes photographers are booked 2 years in advance and sometimes you can find one the week of the wedding, same applies here. I was picky and anxiety ridden about daycare so I handled it all in my first trimester just to have it off my mind and settled, but you dont HAVE to do it that way.
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  • We live in Springfield and moved out there when I was 7 months pg, so I didn't want to look for DC before I moved out there.  We had no problem finding a place.  They told me to call them after I delivered and we could get her start date all set up.  Well, I did call when she was 2 weeks old and then the center stopped returning my calls.  We were able to find another place to take her and she started at 7 weeks.  Lesson learned--please put down a deposit to secure your spot (this place wouldn't accept one) and if the place doesn't take a depost then you shoud go somewhere else. 

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