Is an in home daycare right for you? When you are a working parent and have kid you have to worry about finding the right care. That decision is not easy for most. I am a mama bear and I am very protective over my kids. I make sure they have the right care for them. Suzy down the street might watch kids, but she might not be right for me. She might likes to talk on the phone while watching kids and not really pay attention. So, in my opinion she wouldn’t be right for me.

You have many options and forms of daycares that you can choose for your child and/or children. There are: centers (large and small), an au pair, nanny, church daycares, in home daycare (type A or type B), or having family watching your children. What it really comes down to is the cost or amount of attention spent on your child. I’ll explain that part a little more. We all know that a daycare center like Goddard is going to cost way more each week or month, than having an in home daycare provider watching your child.

Now, when I say attention, I really do mean how much attention will your child get. When you enroll your child at a large, corporate or family owned daycare, your child may have 5,10, 15 other kids in their room to only one or two teachers (all depends on the room enrolled and ratio). If you enroll into an in home daycare, we (here in OH) can only have up to 6 kids enrolled at one time. It doesn’t matter what ate your child is. So, if your child is in preschool and you enroll into a center based daycare where the ratio is 1:12 or 2:24. Having a 1:6 ratio in an in home daycare setting defiantly gives your child a lot more attention.

Cost is another HUGE factor in deciding to enroll your child. A nanny is solely relying on their income from you. That means they will need to charge per hour or day the amount they will need to make to pay all of their bills. So you can be looking at paying up to $2000 a month to watch your child. Grandparents usually don’t want to charge anyone to watch their grandkids so that is probably your cheapest route. I have worked at a corporate daycare and I know for a fact that an infant room ranges from $365-$1000 a WEEK depending on where you go and you do see a yearly increase too! An in home daycare can range anywhere from $200-$300 a week depending on where you go. Some areas cost more than others.

A third factor in choosing either in home, center based, grandma and grandpa’s house, etc. is the amount of interaction, play space, or educational piece will your child get. When it comes to a center base, they have a lot more over head to put into their program where they can budget a certain amount each month to put into their program. They can have a huge playcenter outside for each of the different age groups on their designated playgrounds. Where an in home daycare can only provide smaller activities for outside time. Grandma and grandpa can drive and take them to the near by park if they want to. When it comes to interacting, centers do have a larger attendance in their classrooms. An in home daycare can only have up to 6 kids at one time so attention isn’t a problem.

So, if you are wanting to have more attention on your child, but trying to save a little money each month, an in home daycare is the perfect choice. Just do your research with the provider. Ask for references or word of mouth. Do a trial period where you drop off for a couple of hours and see how your children react.

What kind of area do they live in? Do they have kids of their own? We did enroll my oldest into an in home daycare when she was an infant. I did this because of cost. I was fortunate enough to work with a lady that already was taking her daughter to this provider. Than I myself decided to work at a corporate daycare and my kids came with me for the discount. And now I have found myself running my own in home daycare (type b).