Introduction

Like many families, my wife and I are not fortunate enough financially to allow one of us to stay home with our daughter. After four months at home, we needed to find daycare for her so that I could return to my job. Though we dreaded the prospect of leaving our little angel in professional care, we also knew that there were a variety of care options available to our family. Since my wife had taken some early childhood coursework, we had basic ideas in what to look for in a quality day care provider. The purpose of this article is to share some of our experience in the hope of helping others make informed choices about child care.

Center vs. At-Home Care

The most basic distinction in the daycare world is between center-based daycare and at-home daycare. Daycare centers, by definition, have multiple care providers (often called teachers), and tend to care for large numbers of children. At-home daycare usually consists of one or two providers who care for children where they live. At-home daycare providers often have children of their own who the provider cares for along with your children. It is important to recognize that there are important advantages and disadvantages to each type of arrangement.

One of the key advantages of at-home daycare relative to center-based daycare is cost. Though it is not very pleasant to think about pinching pennies when our children our involved, daycare is very expensive. For many parents, the cost of daycare, especially for infants, will rival the monthly rent or mortgage payment. Full time infant daycare can cost well over 250 dollars per week, depending on where you live. At-home daycare usually costs approximately 20-30 percent less than the daycare center alternative. If your total daycare center bill for a single infant is 10-12 thousand dollars per year, a savings of 20-30 percent is significant. Keep in mind that as your child gets older, the weekly cost for full time daycare should decrease, even adjusting for overall childcare price increases.