Childcare Options

[sj_quakes_fan]

Well, I'm having a hell of a time finding quality childcare that I can afford. And I'm curious what options others went with and why....

I chose to take Emily to the daycare center at my work. It certainly seemed like a great place, but it turns out to be no more than bodies in a room to meet licensing requirements. Sometimes they don't change her promptly or even feed her enough. It's really just not a good situation.

I have to work, so the way I see it, I have three options....

Daycare center - This is what I would prefer for Emily. She's really social and loves to have lots of babies and adults around her. So the large group setting is what I'd like. But I am worried that the larger group might mean less personalize attention (as is happening now).

Home Daycare - This is more affordable and the smaller group means Emily gets prompt attention. But I'm worried that I can't find one with enough babies around her age for her to be with.

Nanny - Well, there's no way in heck I could afford this..... But it is one on one attention. However, I think Emily really benefits from being with more people during the day.



Anyway, what option did you chose and what do you feel are the pros and cons of your choice?

[Boundzy]

We went with a daycare center for my daughter, who is now 3. My wife and I visited numerous daycare centers, looked at the facilities, asked about credentials, etc. In the end we narrowed it down to about 3 centers that we were comfortable with. I think any of the 3 would have been fine, but we chose one based on feedback from parents who had children there.

Pros: socialization, various age appropriate activities
Cons: limited one-to-one interactions, a bit expensive, somewhat out of the way.

A nanny was never an option, and we preferred a Daycare Center over a Home Daycare - essentially for the reasons you stated. No option, or daycare center, is perfect but we are happy with our choice, and so is our daughter.

[bojendyk]

We take our son to in-home daycare with a woman we trust and like a great deal. Our son loves it, and he's really thrived there. But we're switching to a daycare center--Kindercare--closer to home when our second is born in a month or two.

My wife visited several centers and nanny-share homes and was really pleased with Kindercare. You should look up local branches in San Jose.

[bigredfutbol]

My wife invited her mother to come back from Bulgaria to live with us for a couple of years.

Oddly enough, we're still married.

***************
Childcare is really tough; "ideal" situations are next to impossible to find. Apart from the years living with the in-law, we tried different providers--in-house with a stay-at-home Mom and some other kids; a chain daycare provider, an after-school program at his school, and a daycare at one of the county park dept. rec centers. None of them were terrible, some were better than others.

The Mom--a former neighbor, who's child was, at one time, friends with our son--was the worst, simply because she was very unprofessional and sometimes thoughtless. If she had errands to run, that's what the kids did. She would take the kids with her while running her older kids to their activities, so sometimes we wouldn't be able to pick up our son because he was halfway across the county at a track meet. So you need to really check the person out.

Good luck--it's doable, and there should be plenty of good options, but I understand your frustration with your current setup.

[sj_quakes_fan]

We take our son to in-home daycare with a woman we trust and like a great deal. Our son loves it, and he's really thrived there. But we're switching to a daycare center--Kindercare--closer to home when our second is born in a month or two.

My wife visited several centers and nanny-share homes and was really pleased with Kindercare. You should look up local branches in San Jose.


This one is on my list. I really like what they have to offer. And I talked with another parent at work who took her two sons out of our daycare here for the same reasons I'm going to take Emily out. Kindercare was her choice too. Interestingly enough, she went with one quite a distance away, rather than the one near here. She says they are setup differently, and she liked the other one better. But, yeah, I've only checked out the printed information, no visit yet. Looks good so far.

[Ian Lozada]

Our kids go to a family friend who I've known for 20 years. She has 5 of her own who are nearly grown, and two other families we knew were also using her. This year is the most kids she's had to handle-- 6 including our twins, although Caroline is only there when I'm out of town, and when she isn't in preschool.

Gets expensive though-- we spend nearly as much on childcare for 3 as we do for housing. Hopefully by next year, our out of state move is complete and Kristina can finally be a stay at home mom.

[billreeves]

We got ours in a day care center -- we like it a lot, although it's not perfect. Pros: the owners and staff are really great, and you can tell that they love all the kids; the interaction with his classmates is great, he gets invited to their birthday parties and sometimes we see them at the park or around town and they wave to each other.

Cons: the facilities are not super awesome; his classmates' food allergies make it difficult to provide easy lunches for him (e.g. nothing with nuts including peanut butter, no fish or shellfish, no eggs, etc. because other kids are allergic to that stuff); it's really friggin' expensive.

The home-based child care centers I saw, I didn't like. There were child care centers available through work but they didn't work out -- I have since changed jobs and my new company has really good child care available, but the waiting list for a two year old is too long (as in, they'll be in kindergarten by the time you get off the waiting list). We considered a nanny but with only one child (so far) we thought the interaction would be lacking -- if we are blessed with more children or twins or something, then we'll revisit that. So we got a spot in one of the child care centers in the town where we live, which happened to have a spot available for a child of Peter's age when we signed up, and it's worked out really well.

It was either that, or one of us stops working, which would probably mean we would need to move out of the area because we can't afford a house on one salary in the Bay Area. We're considering that for the future.

[Matt in the Hat]

Can one of you work part time and go with the daycare center 2 or 3 days per week? That's worked for us.

[Red&Black]

i am a single parent and faced the same problems you are facing, except i could afford any of the options including the nanny. i eventually decided on the home daycare route for some variety of reasons. the first was simply that no corporate or "center" daycare was available near me to take a 6 week old. that left nanny or home daycare. i thought long and hard about the nanny but in the end decided a well-run home daycare was better--i didn't want to be dependent on one person so if she/he got ill or quit or whatever i wasn't as stuck.

i recently switched from my orginal provider to my next-door neighbor who just opened up a licensed home daycare. my first place gave good care but was 12 miles away so the 24 miles ate up over an hour of my day i could be hanging with the boy. my first daycare also had subsitute problems, either she didn't have one or she had one who was frankly too old to care for really young children, she couldn't even bend down and pick a kid off the floor.

i am very pleased with both homecare options i've tried. i am going to move him to a "center" in a year or two (he's about 16 months now) but i really like the home daycare. if they are state licensed they are likely to be good.

[Boundzy]

if they are state licensed they are likely to be good.

My apologies for snipping one small section of an otherwise good post, but . . .

I will respectfully disagree with this statement. I think the quality of state licensure and oversight varies from state-to-state, and that state licensure should be viewed by parents as a minimum qualification, rather than as an assurance of quality.

Selecting the appropiate daycare option is an important process, which should involve a visit to the facility and feedback from parents who have (or recently had) children there. Some states (maybe all, IDK) give the public access via the internet to the most recent reviews/visits to the daycare provider.

[Red&Black]

My apologies for snipping one small section of an otherwise good post, but . . .

I will respectfully disagree with this statement. I think the quality of state licensure and oversight varies from state-to-state, and that state licensure should be viewed by parents as a minimum qualification, rather than as an assurance of quality.

Selecting the appropiate daycare option is an important process, which should involve a visit to the facility and feedback from parents who have (or recently had) children there. Some states (maybe all, IDK) give the public access via the internet to the most recent reviews/visits to the daycare provider.

i agree. i went to a couple of licensed places that just didn't work for me--however the bulk of the 20 or so places i've visited seemed fine, at least in terms of organization, cleanliness and parental references. i agree its a minimum not an assurance of quality, but at least in my part of maryland its a pretty good guide.

[sj_quakes_fan]

My apologies for snipping one small section of an otherwise good post, but . . .

I will respectfully disagree with this statement. I think the quality of state licensure and oversight varies from state-to-state, and that state licensure should be viewed by parents as a minimum qualification, rather than as an assurance of quality.

Selecting the appropiate daycare option is an important process, which should involve a visit to the facility and feedback from parents who have (or recently had) children there. Some states (maybe all, IDK) give the public access via the internet to the most recent reviews/visits to the daycare provider.



I have to strongly agree with this post. In fact, I could care less if they are obeying licensing, if my daughter's care is not up to the standard I require, then it's no good...end of discussion. And I told her daycare center that when they said to me, "Well per licensing we need to have one caregiver per four infants." They had that, but the care wasn't good enough. And if that's all they have to say when I discuss her care, then it means nothing to me. I'm sounding kinda harsh here, and I'm not meaning it toward any posters here. But I don't give an inch when it comes to requiring quality care for my daughter (especially if I'm paying half my income for it).

Also, licensing only knows what they are told. If parents are just pulling their kids out and not going to licensing, there's a small chance licensing will even know something's up. In my daughter's case I talked to so many parents who had pulled their children out. One incident was really, really bad. Licensing has nothing on file. It's too bad the parents in this case didn't feel an obligation to report it so other parents could be aware. I certainly would. We have to look out for each other and each other's children as far as I'm concerned.

Another point.... I visited a licensed home daycare. Some parent intuition went off in my head. I can't even tell you what it was. They had no reports on file with licensing. They said great things. But I knew something was wrong. I didn't choose this place. And a few months later their internet posting had links to some very disturbing photos. I clicked on a link thinking I'd be seeing pics of their daycare. My daughter (who was just months old at the time, thank goodness) was right next to me. The pictures were very disturbing. Thank goodness she didn't understand any of it. Thank goodness for my intuition.

However, all that said, I think I would still lean towards a place that was licensed. It gives me a little tiny bit of security to know they might be monitored.

Though in my experience organizations that claim to be "protective" of our children don't have a clue and certainly aren't protecting my daughter's best interest. I really think our best protection comes from parents watching out for each other and each other's children.... But I'll save this rant for some other forum.

[sj_quakes_fan]

After that last rant, I also wanted to update you all.

I've kept my daughter in her daycare center...at least for now. I'm still really cautious. But things did change. The director finally acknowledged that they had to change the way they were doing certain things. And she acknowledged that she felt that way because their families have evolved into a more demanding, educated group that requires more from them. So it really paid off to speak up and let them know that I insist on the best care. Also, I made contacts with other parents, spoke to more people.... So I have a support network to go to and people to ask questions of if things seem not right. I'd strongly encourage parents to do these things with your daycares too. Ask questions, let them know you want to know what goes on, pop in unanounced if you can, and get to know the other parents. All these things will make you more involved and most importantly more aware. And being more aware is what will give you the quality care your child deserves. This really made a huge difference for me and, most importantly, for my daughter