Sorry, this is long, and I know it's probably the hundredth version of this question. Feel free to skip me!
FTM. LO was born January 29, so she's just under five weeks old. She has been to all six of these tours in a car seat. I go back April 27. I'm a dental hygienist, pediatric office, so there is no WFH version of my job, I can't clean a four-year-old's teeth over Zoom, and that's eight weeks from now.
Denver. Six tours, a spreadsheet with 14 columns, and I think I've made myself dumber rather than smarter. Here's what I've got:
Center A: big national chain, infant room 1:4, licensed, NAEYC accredited. $2,485/month. That is not a typo. That is more than our mortgage! Waitlist: I was told to get on it "ideally in the first trimester," and when I said the baby is already here, in this car seat, the woman did a face. She offered me October.
Center B: smaller, local, infant room 1:4 on paper. I counted while I was standing there and it was one adult and five babies at 10am. When I asked, she said someone was on break. $2,180/month. Available in September.
In-home C: licensed, six kids total, two of them infants, one provider plus her adult daughter part-time. $1,340/month. Spotless. She's done this 19 years and was the only person on any of six tours who asked me a question about my baby instead of about my billing preferences. Available April 20. Which is suspicious to me? Why is she available.
Nanny share: found a family through a neighborhood group, roughly $1,750/month each for two babies, but they want to start April 1 and we'd be paying most of a month for nothing.
My actual questions, and I apologize for how many there are:
1. Is 1:4 the real number for infants, or is that just Colorado? Everything I read gives a different figure and I can't tell what's law and what's a recommendation somebody wrote in a blog post in 2019.
2. Center B was over ratio while I was standing there, on a scheduled tour, when they knew a prospective parent was in the building. Is that a walk-away, or is that just what a break looks like and I'm being naive?
3. In-home vs center. Every center person implies in-homes are unregulated, every in-home person implies centers warehouse babies, and I have no way to referee that.
4. Is $2,485 normal?? I keep saying the number out loud to people and they don't react, and I can't tell if that means it's normal or if they're being polite. My take-home is $4,900. I've run the numbers on quitting and the math is close enough that it's frightening, and I don't want to quit, and I feel guilty for not wanting to quit.
5. Nobody warned me you're supposed to do this while pregnant. Nobody! My OB asked about car seats. Not one person in nine months said "call daycares at 10 weeks." How is that not on a list somewhere.
I know I'm spiraling. She's five weeks old, she's asleep on me right now, and I'm supposed to hand her to a stranger in eight weeks and I can't tell anymore whether I'm evaluating these places or just hunting for a reason that none of them are good enough.
Blunt answer on the number, since you asked twice and everyone's being kind about it.
$2,485 is normal and it is also insane, and both are true at once. The reason nobody reacts when you say it out loud is that everyone around you has already had the quitting conversation in their own kitchen at midnight and nobody wants to reopen it.
I go back in five weeks, mine's 13 weeks old, and I have run your exact math on my own kitchen table. The only useful thing I know: do not calculate daycare against your salary. Calculate it against your household....
I've read this about six times!
"Nobody makes your husband do that arithmetic about his paycheck." We literally did this on Sunday. Both of us, at the table, and we only ever put MY number over the daycare number. Not once did either of us say his, and it didn't occur to either of us to. Not because he's a jerk, he isn't, he's holding her right now, but because we both just... defaulted.
Went back to the in-home Thursday at 4:30, unannounced. Two toddlers doing a puzzle on the floor, my kind of chaos, and she was holding the other baby...
4mo. In-home, licensed, Portland. $1,250/month, four kids total. Six weeks in.
I toured two centers and one in-home and picked the in-home, and the only reason I'm posting is your line about center people implying in-homes are unregulated.
Mine is licensed by the state, inspected, background checked, CPR certified. I have her inspection reports because I asked, and she printed them without blinking. That's the test. Ask for the last two inspection reports. Anyone licensed has them and hands them over. Anyone who gets weird about it has just told you something.
What I get for $1,250: four kids, and mine is the...
Nanny share person here, 7mo, and you're getting the unglamorous version, because the internet sells nanny shares as the clever life hack and there's a reason people go quiet about the details.
Ours works and I'd do it again and it is the most socially exhausting thing I have ever done. You are not hiring a nanny. You're entering a marriage with another family about sleep philosophy, screen time, whether their kid comes when sick, whose house, who buys the wipes, and what happens the day the nanny quits. And she will, eventually, because it's one paycheck for two babies and...
You're not spiraling, you're doing this on the correct timeline for someone who was never told there was a timeline. Nobody tells you! My OB asked about car seats too.
STM, Sacramento, so my dollars won't map but the structure will. I've done this twice, once badly.
Ratios are state law, not a suggestion, and they vary a lot. The number that matters is your state's licensing regulation, and it's on the state licensing site, not in anyone's tour patter. Also ask for the maximum group size. That's the number everybody forgets! 1:4 with a group cap of 8 is a completely...
"You already know and you're asking permission." Oof. Yes. Okay.
I looked up the licensing reg while feeding her and Colorado infant ratio is 1:5, group max of 10. So Center B at 1:5 was legal and I was wrong about the exact thing I was upset about! And Center A's 1:4 is them doing better than required, which they did not mention once, and which I would absolutely have paid attention to.
So now I'm annoyed at myself for touring six places without knowing the number I was supposed to be measuring against. Six tours! With a spreadsheet! With 14 columns...