More on Child Care

Thanks for everyone's thoughtful comments! Since there seems to be some interest in this topic, I'd thought I share a little more. When D and I were thinking about what we wanted, we decided we like the home-based care because of the smaller number of children (less illness) and because it seems, well more homey. For an infant, I'm less concerned about structured day activities, than just having a good, happy place to stay. I have heard more stories about of problems at centers too, although Kate's seems particularly egregious! The disadvantage of home-based care is that one person is basically responsible, so if they're terrible, they're it, and there are more days where care won't be available (holidays, vacations) and there's no back-up for illness.

In Illinois, there are a number of state regulations that cover daycares. The state sets provider/child ratio: for home-based care it is one provider for eight children, with a maximum of 3 children under 2 and of those, only two can be under one. If a provider has an assistant, then there can be 12 children total. For centers, the staff/child ratio varies based on age: for infants, it's 4:1, and goes up from there. Regulations also cover CPR/first aid. The providers I've been talking to have all been licensed, so they've been through some training and have to do 15 hours of continuing education each year. They also all seem to have contracts, standard late fees, policies for children's illnesses, and even policies for food. You provide the milk/formula and baby food, they provide table food once kids are old enough. Childcare comes at a price: so far, we've talked to three providers and rates vary from $200-$300 a week. I think centers are more expensive for infants. D and I anticipated childcare costs to be about $14,000 a year, so that falls within that range. I had also anticipated prices going down as MC got older, but that may not be the case. On the one hand, it's a lot of money, but on the other hand, it's going to be my child's care, and hopefully the regulations and higher rates will mean interested, caring people are willing to get into the business.

We went spoke to another provider today, and I liked her a lot, but she's going to have more children, as she's going to have an assistant (her daughter) stay in January, so will be eligible for up to 12 children (I'm actually not sure what the under 2 ratio will be with 12). She was a little more straightforward about how she handles her own illness and seemed to have a better ability to talk about her method of care. Of course, she was just loquacious in general, so it's hard to say. Her rates are also $200 versus the $300 a week of the other two providers, which is a pretty big difference. Her day is shorter (not really a problem for us, because we didn't need that long of a day), but she does also have more holidays and time off than the other providers, so a lot of my vacation time would be used for that. I'm not sure what I feel about the higher number of children. The other two places we looked only had three children at the time (although they could have more by next summer and there was also some talk about an assistant, so maybe no difference at all). All three places are within walking distance of home, and on the way to the train, which nice. I did think about finding a place near work (visiting at lunch seemed quite appealing), but logically it was easier to be close to home (kind of a suburb vs. downtown thing). So, no decisions yet. I'm hoping after I check some references and maybe spend some time during the day, I'll get a better idea. And we still have one more woman to talk to... As Elizabeth said, researching child care may not be the most touchy-feeling or fun thing to do, but it does definitely feel like a good concrete step toward planning for this baby.

By the way, we turned on the heat, and it works! I'm still waiting for that upped metabolism to make me feel less cold, but so far, I'm already chilled, and it's not yet November! Going to be a long winter for me! The wonderful thing that I did find out this week is that the public transit system is installs outdoor heat lamps at the train stations, which I'm absolutely thrilled about! I was imagining waiting for the train in January and February, and it was seeming pretty damn cold, so it's good to know I'll be able to get a little warmth. In fact, the heat felt pretty good today!