Anyone Else Freaking Out About Daycare?

Blonde1817 · March 2016

I would love to stay home with my little one when the time comes, but for financial and career reasons, I'll have to go back to work. As a former daycare/preschool teacher myself, I know how horribly bad some expensive and seemingly wonderful daycare staff and administrators can be, so I knew I would have my work cut out for me finding a place I like and trust.

What I was not expecting is that most of the places I've contacted today already have waitlists into February of next year! I live in the suburbs of a mid-sized midwestern city, I really didn't think this would be a problem here. I kind of expected how expensive it would be, but it's still pretty overwhelming to see the costs too. I'm also surprised at how hard it is to find reviews on any of these places. I want to look into in-home daycares too, but I would like to see some reviews or be referred by someone!

Anyone else struggling with finding a good daycare situation? Overwhelmed by the cost and lack of options?

wegme27 · March 2016

I already have two in daycare so I am getting sick at the thought of three! It will only be for 1 1/2 years then my oldest will be able to stay home alone. So expensive but not worth me retiring early to stay home plus I hold the family health insurance so I'm kind of stuck.

queen_frostine · March 2016

I have no helpful advice but I, too, am overwhelmed. I have no idea how to find daycare. I don't really have friends or anyone I talk to to get advice from, either. I'm really hoping my mom can take the baby full time for just one semester to give us more time to find daycare as well as help it get a little older before it has to be handed over.

jkmix21 · March 2016

Thankfully, I work in a school teaching Pre-K that also has an infant room. I will be able to bring my baby, and get 50% off. I have my bachelors degree and almost licensed to teach for the county, but I think I will wait a few more years till the baby is out of the expensive infant rooms (350 a week!)

kmalls · March 2016

@Blonde1817 are there any local parenting groups in your area? I have one for my town/surrounding towns and I posted on the group's Facebook page when we were looking for p/t daycare for DS. I got several great recommendations and we ended up going with a fantastic in-home daycare that the group suggested. Try starting there!

CopperBoom86 · March 2016

I haven't looked into it yet, so I'm blissfully unaware of the cost, but I am painfully aware of not being able to trust them. I worked at a daycare for years and I know exactly how you feel. The daycare I worked at employed mostly high school and college students. One of my good friends and I were in charge of 12 2 year olds. We were both 16/17 at the time and I can honestly say we were NOT qualified to take care of 12 2 year olds by ourselves! Whenever I look into it, I'll definitely be looking for a daycare with adult employees!

anna.oskar · March 2016

I'm one of the terribly lucky ones. There is a lovely and highly rated daycare 2 blocks from my work (for easy BF visits) that happens to currently have 2 openings in the infant room so I think we're set. Also, thanks to super-low cost of living in my area, I don't anticipate the $170 a week being too terrible.

SuperKristy85 · March 2016

Yup, the cost is insane. The cheapest I've found in my area is $250/ week. And that's just the cheapest not looking into ratings or anything about them. (I haven't done any of that yet).

ahohenadel · March 2016

I would recommend looking for local mom groups and recommendations for in home care. My son attends an in home daycare with kids his same age and we LOVE her! We toured her home first, got references and sh always sends pictures throughout the week. I will never take my kiddos to a center, just not enough personal attention in my opinion.

UponAStar16 · March 2016

Yep @ all of the above concerns mentioned and thanks for the suggestions too...the thought of having to leave our baby with anyone, much less strangers, when my maternity leave ends makes me sick

but for now I'll just tell myself it's my MS haha

nlane0723 · March 2016

My daughter has been on a wait list for my first choice since December. I currently have her enrolled at my second favorite and I pay $280/week.

mamaklee · March 2016

The cost IS nuts. I live in a large metro area where most costs are around $1200/mo with looooong wait lists. We were lucky to find a child development center through our local medical school that we absolutely ADORE and had access to because I work in the medical center as well. It's $800/mo per kid which is considered a steal in this area. If you can find a more creative solution like this, the price may be better!

Blonde1817 · March 2016

@UponAStar16 Yes! I definitely had a major breakdown sobbing to DH last night just thinking about having to leave our baby.

@kmalls How did you go about finding that group? I am really clueless! I only have one close friend with a baby and she stays home. I have another pregnant friend but her husband's work has child care.

So far we've found 3 places we like, and two are pushing the budget a little bit. Our favorite has a reasonable cost but waitlists until February at the earliest and if you do three days a week, they have to be MWF, which doesn't really work with my schedule. We're looking at an in-home daycare tonight and I hope I like it! The other piece of this is that I haven't told anyone yet, so I can't talk to my boss about work flexibility or ask my friends for resources. Soon!

kmalls · March 2016

@Blonde1817 - I think I originally found the group by looking around on meetup.com. There are zillions of local parenting groups there and you just search by zip code. Also try doing a Facebook group search -- type in "[your town] moms." I'm sure you'll find something!

LizaKate1213 · March 2016

@wegme27, I am confused. How will your oldest go from daycare age to staying home alone in only a year and a half?

LauraPCOS · March 2016

My husband is freaking out already - because he feels he doesn't trust anyone but we can't afford to have one of us stay home and my mother isn't ready to retire yet. I started looking up home day cares in my area, but how do you make sure they're reliable when there are not reviews online?

coffee89 · March 2016

We couldn't afford for me to work and pay daycare so last time around there was no decision. I stayed home, went back to school and it was awesome. This time around I'm debating if 2 in daycare is an option, or if I want my almost toddler to go part time and baby stay home. My toddler needs some serious structure and interaction with other kids, he is strong willed and full of energy but half day preschool doesn't start here until they are 3.

The area we are moving to has a side group to their moms FB group for people to list their in home care with the license number and some info and people are able to leave reviews as well if they feel inclined.

MRSCORKER · March 2016

It looks like we might only need child care for one day a week. I know a lot of places require a minimum number of days. BTDT Moms... What would you suggest? Try to find an in home day care that will take baby for one day a week or go the care.com/babysitter/nanny route?

Tink112011 · March 2016

DS has been in a daycare center for 4 years. We've been very happy with it. We paid about $250/wk when he was 0-2, and now we pay $195/wk. There are no teenagers employed at his center. I appreciate that there are multiple adults providing oversight of the kids and of each other. I also appreciate that the center never closes, so I don't have to worry about teacher sick days. The center route is right for our family, and it has become part of our family.

LO2 and DS are going to be in daycare for about 7 months together, and that time period is going to be super expensive for us!

Tara0604 · March 2016

At the daycare my son is at it is $1900 a month for full time infant. We had to put our names in months and months in advanced (maybe 6). However, it is cheaper with each level that he moves up, age wise, and after 18 months, they supply all food (breakfast, lunch and snack). Another thing i like is that they hours are 7am-6:30pm and you don't have to choose the hours you will attend like many of the other places around here. Though he is never ever there that long, it is nice to know that if i need to run to a store, get stuck at work or there is an emergency, he is somewhere safe.

kmalls · March 2016

MRSCORKER said:

It looks like we might only need child care for one day a week. I know a lot of places require a minimum number of days. BTDT Moms... What would you suggest? Try to find an in home day care that will take baby for one day a week or go the care.com/babysitter/nanny route?

@MRSCORKER - for what it's worth, we ultimately went the in-home daycare route after trying the sitter/nanny thing. We only needed 2 days per week, three hours per day (smack in the middle of the day) and daycare centers could not accommodate that.

We hired a nanny, but it was disasterous. She was gung-go in the beginning, but quickly soured on the limited hours (which obviously we were totally upfront about). Long story short, she started cancelling all the time and that was a HUGE problem. We looked around and found a great in-home daycare that could accommodate our schedule, and actually added an extra day because DS is thriving there. We never have to worry about cancellations and the rates are super reasonable. You may want to give that a shot!

rebeccuh · March 2016

Yes and no. There's a chance my mom is retiring right about when I'll need to go back to work, and she claims she'd be happy to be our day care. That would be six kinds of fantastic for a few reasons, but it also might be too good to be true. I'm going to look for some day care providers, and we'll see how it all shakes out.

nsquaredlife13 · March 2016

We send DS to an in home daycare and pay $250/week for 3 days. I think full time was $350 and I have no idea how much a second child will be but I'm not looking forward to finding out. My mom watches DS twice a week and hopefully she will be ok watching both kids.

Most daycares in my area run from $1200-2000 per month. Just depends on the size and location. It's nuts!

simcal18 · March 2016

Yes. I am in the Boston area and day care is CRAZY expensive here. We are extremely fortunate in that my fantastic in-laws have provided child care 2 days a week for our 4 year old nephew since he was an infant and have indicated that they'd be willing to do the same for us, but I'm still not 100% counting on that until they've officially offered to do so, and that still leaves us with 3 day a week that we need to cover. I could potentially switch my work schedule from 5 8 hour days to 4 10 hour days to save one day of day care costs, but DH travels for work a lot so I'm not sure what we'd do when he's traveling since I commute to the city and I doubt we'd be able to find a day care that would take LO for 11-12 hours (nor would we want to put that on DH's parents).

We'll start seriously looking and planning once we've gotten to 12 weeks (fingers crossed), seen a heartbeat (fingers crossed again), and have told DH's parents we're expecting, but my hunch is that we will wind up with an in home day care at least part time. My BIL/SIL use one on the days that my nephew is not with the ILs and that seems to work well for them.

emmaaa · March 2016

We are freaking out too. We had always planned for FIL to keep our kids (he said he wanted to be the stay at home grandpa) but he passed away in January. So no we have to find a daycare. We both like the idea of in-home daycares because that's what we both did when we were babies until we went to pre-K, but at the same time, it's hard to know who you can trust.

ashleyp625 · March 2016

I'm stressed about the cost, but I know it's lower in my area than in a bigger city- $188/week til 18 months. I'm so lucky that we already have a spot- my mom's best friend is the manager of a great place, and she has offered to hold us a spot. I used to work there, so I am comfortable with their policies and how things are run. I'm also reassured by the fact that she will be there to keep an extra eye on LO when I'm not around.

annabenanna · March 2016

I'm in San Diego and already put our name down on the wait list for 3 daycares (they told me the waitlist was 1-2 years long!) For full time care, it looks like the rates are about $275/week. Inclusive of diapers and snacks. (I can't imagine the baby will need snacks till he/she is 12 mos +.

mrsman2018 · March 2016

I am moving to a small town where there are many home day cares that are affordable. My parents live there too and offered to take care of little ones a couple days a week. I am taking the full one year off I get when baby comes, so that will be great.

MRSCORKER · March 2016

littlewillie2016 said:

I am moving to a small town where there are many home day cares that are affordable. My parents live there too and offered to take care of little ones a couple days a week. I am taking the full one year off I get when baby comes, so that will be great.

So jealous of your full year of mat leave. Mat leave policy in the US is disgusting.

vanessa11411 · March 2016

I live in a small town and we only pay 140 a week for DS, he goes to a home daycare. DD is 12, so she stays home by herself. I believe we will get a discount for a second LO in daycare so it shouldn't be too bad for us.

We used to live in the Bay Area and I think we were paying $175 a week for a home day care.

JamieK1882 · March 2016

I love our daycare. It's highly reputable, I get daily pictures emailed to me, all of the teachers have teaching degrees, and I've liked almost all of them. I don't like the price--we pay $1300/month for 4 days a week, and we only get a 10% discount with baby #2. If we ever try for baby 3, we will definitely have to wait for the first to be in kindergarten.

Honestly, the thing I hate most about daycare is the constant sickness. I was never so sick in my entire life as I was her first year in daycare. Be forewarned--daycare loves to share!

JDMRS · March 2016

Ugh this is causing me so much anxiety! I am torn between the daycare in my building and finding a place closer to home. I'd love to be close by and be able to "pop in" once in awhile but it would mean a 45 minute train ride with a baby (file that under how to endear yourself to your fellow commuters next to loud cellphone conversations about your intimate medical health) and a 15 minute walk to the office, or navigating buses or the subway. I feel like most day cares around where we live open at 7 and close by 6- which would mean we'd need a sitter either early to do drop off, and I would have to rush home and never ever work late, or switch my hours, and hire a sitter for the evening. I am already having working mom guilt!

SuperNerd42 · March 2016

We did extensive research before picking dd's daycare and we love them. I love the structure she's had from the center, and the extra classes and special events they have. Dropping her off is so much easier knowing that she is well taken care of, plus she enjoys seeing her friends and teachers.

Blonde1817 · March 2016

So glad to know I'm not alone in this! I'm still holding out hope the the in laws will move closer and want to watch the baby at least one day a week. And I'm also hoping my SAHM cousin will want to make some (minimum wage) money and watch our little one. I'm not counting on either or those things happening though.

We met with a friend's in home daycare provider super close to her house yesterday and I was not super impressed. I'm so torn, because I know that in home providers are one consistent face for baby, which is great for attachment. However, this lady (and probably most in home providers) watches three infants and three toddlers by herself. Thats seems totally impossible to me! When I worked at a center, we were 3-1 with infants and that alone was a lot, so I can't imagine taking care of three mobile toddlers in addition to that.

kmalls · March 2016

@Blonde1817 - eeesh, I'm not sure what state you're in or what the regulations are, but in MA it's definitely illegal to be looking after that many kids at once. Even if it's legal where you are, I'd be looking elsewhere. 6 kids (including 3 infants) is WAY too much for one person. I would not assume most in-home care providers take on that many kids -- I've never seen that in my experience!

Blonde1817 · March 2016

@kmalls, yeah it's really weird because in daycare centers the legal ratio of staff to infants is 1-3. So I'm not sure why you can add extra kids onto that in in-home care. She had a sheet of state regulations explaining the legal ratios, but it still seems like too much to me. According to the state she actually could've had more toddlers! Crazy!

We're meeting with another in-home provider next week who has a degree in early childhood ed and worked at the daycare/preschool we're interested in for 10 years. I think I'm just going to come out and ask her about how she manages to watch that amount of kids (I believe she watches infants and toddlers too, not sure how many or if she has help though).

wegme27 · March 2016

LizaKate1213 said:

@wegme27, I am confused. How will your oldest go from daycare age to staying home alone in only a year and a half?

Sorry just saw this, I'm usually mobile. He just goes there to get on the bus right now and then gets off at our house in the afternoons. I wouldn't make it to work in time if I had to put him on the bus in the mornings.

mothernorth · March 2016

I worked at a daycare as a homeschool teacher for the junior high and high school aged kids there but I did see how the baby and toddler rooms were ran and I didn't like it, it was a private Christian homeschool study group and daycare that people paid extra for and was supposed to be the "best" in my area, and even though alL the staff was certified and supposed to excellent, some just did not give a f*** and it was a bit unsettling. On the flip side, MOST of the staff was great. But I see where you're coming from there.
Once DD starts school in August, we will be planning to put DS and LO in daycare because I can't find anyone who will babysit 2 under 2 while I am in school so the hunt is on and I have the same worries =/
I'm also going to check out care.com for local nannies later on as well. I think I'd be more comfortable with that.

nlane0723 · March 2016

DH and I decided we will be going the nanny route once the twins arrive. Two babies in daycare + preschool is too costly in Sin City.

gatorMom2014 · March 2016

@Blonde1817
We met with a friend's in home daycare provider super close to her house yesterday and I was not super impressed. I'm so torn, because I know that in home providers are one consistent face for baby, which is great for attachment. However, this lady (and probably most in home providers) watches three infants and three toddlers by herself. Thats seems totally impossible to me! When I worked at a center, we were 3-1 with infants and that alone was a lot, so I can't imagine taking care of three mobile toddlers in addition to that.

oh my gosh I totally agree. My one year old is actually with an amazing nanny now (part time since I was able to work that out with my boss), but we had him signed up to start at an in home daycare until the lady had a kitchen fire the week before our start date, closing down the daycare for over a month. When I put down my deposit, my son was going to be the only "baby" at 8 or 9 months, while the other kids were all 2 or 3, and played well with supervision. Right before we were supposed to start she told me she had accepted another, younger infant. Well I made the mistake of telling her I had been happy that DD was going to get so much one on one attention as the only baby at least as he transitioned the first few months. She got really defensive and mean, telling me I may lose my spot if I continued to worry and question her. It was totally bizarre and stressful! That being said, I had a friend whose 2 kids both went through her facility, and did wonderfully (the mom warned me that the provider did well with kids, but was awkward with adults).

one question I had, but never did ask is this--what do they do with all the babies while going to the bathroom? Even little details seem like they would be difficult to manage, but apparently some people can do it!!

suggestion--before you make a decision, ask to go over during open hours and see how things work. If you can see how things are actually working, your gut will tell you whether you are comfortable with it or not. Make sure it's not nap time when you go.

Blonde1817 · March 2016

@gatorMom2014 I did ask that, not bathroom specifically but the place where she washes the dishes and does laundry, while only a few feet away, is totally out of sight of the kids. She said she chooses a time when most are napping or quiet, but still, anything can happen.

At this point, we've ruled out in home daycares. I'm sure there are some great ones, I know I was watched by a wonderful neighborhood lady when I was a baby until preschool and I loved her! But I think that is just too many kids for one person, and with no other staff you never get a break! Plus I like the idea of having a boss and coworkers to keep you accountable.

I'm still in a holding pattern here, because 3 out of the 4 places we're still considering will be moving or opening up a new location in May or June, so we won't be able to tour or know if we have a spot until at least that time. Did I mention we're on the waitlist for all of them?! So far I'm had some mediocre to just plain awful tours of daycares, and I've learned that just because a place has lots of good reviews doesn't mean it's not a piece of shit. There were times that after being at the center for 2 minutes, I wish I could've just said "fuck no" and left, rather than nodding politely, internally horrified. And we live in a very nice, suburban area. What constitutes for childcare at some places is appalling.

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