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BR: day care
For those of you work full time and take your children to day care outside your home (and outside of a relative's), at what point did you start looking for a center? I know that many places have waiting lists, so I want to get started, but I don't know when is too soon. We'll need it starting in October 2010. I know it's really early now, but I'm also interested in finding out how much they even cost near me. I have two centers I'm interested in, but they don't post their rates on their websites. I'd like to at least get an idea of what each place looks/feels like and have an idea of rates so we can start a budget for next year.
What do you think? Is it too early (maybe in February) to go and and see the place and inquire about rates/waiting lists?
Re: BR: day care
I don't think that is too early to start asking about the cost and all that - you need to know what to expect!
I don't live in a big city and from what I have encountered around here the waiting lists are not crazy long - nor did the few places I called require any type of deposit to hold a waiting list spot (once a spot opens you have to put money down) so I think the waiting lists that are out there for my area are not really a good indication of probability of getting in, also I called to be put on the waiting list way before going in to visit just because I didn't have time and there was no penalty for just getting on the list and later declining.
I also put this off for a long time (seriously visited 3 centers at about week 27-30) because I do have the option of getting daycare at work. But it's not a normal program for employees - I work for a government and the daycare is run by them for their community members and I just found out that I would be the second employee (not community member) to use that daycare. In fact they still haven't been able to tell me the cost of the program (which is totally annoying MH - since he kind of does our budgeting) since everyone else has some type of subsidy, be it economic or community member discounts. Soooo, I guess I don't really have anything worked out yet! Eek! I will need care starting in Mid-May.
We started researching our options as soon as we decided we were going to TTC. I wanted to be sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into, financially, especially since my DH only works part-time and is a full-time student.
Once I got my BFP we visited a few places, compared our options, the costs, etc. and made our decision. We did all of this before I was 20 weeks.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
The centers here have insane waiting lists. We also won't need one until Oct 2010, and I put our names down at several literally the week after I got a BFP. Even so, we may not get a place - and that was even if we were just having one!
With twins I think it will be virtually impossible, so now we're looking at people who offer in-home daycare - it's a regulated industry here, with a local central office that organizes it, so we may still need to go on a waiting list but it's not nearly as long and we stand a better chance of getting two places. I'd prefer for them to be in a regular day care center for the socializing aspects (at the in-home places, there would only be another 2-3 kids), but I suppose that isn't really important until they're a couple of years old anyway.
Anyway, all of this is to say - if you live in a high demand area, I'd absolutely put your name down on some lists now!
Crazy lady? No way... Crazy is the couple who were on the daycare tour with us, asked all these specific questions, then got on the wait list..... And they werent' even pregnant yet! Doh!
We got on the wait list when I was 13 weeks, so right out of the 1st Tri. We got offered a spot in Nov but turned it down. We got offered a second spot starting this week that we took. I go back to work next month.
HTH!
Malia & Dave & Alexa
Happily married since 2-17-08! Three since 9-9-09!
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