Child-Care Options for Working Parents

Finding suitable child care for your child while both parents work outside the home is one of parenting most important and most difficult tasks. All parents want the best for their children and competent, loving caregivers top the list. There are several options when looking for quality, affordable child care. In this article, I plan to list the options and a few pros and cons for each. Hopefully my comments will aid to success in the child care search. Parents working part time or different shifts in order to care for their children options are available options as well-these options are, of course, most ideal. That being said, let's talk about child care options when neither parent can be home to care for the child/children.

Commercial Daycare- This child care option is by far the most popular in that it is often the easiest child care option found. Daycare centers where many children are housed and cared in groups arranged by age are abundant in most cities and towns. This option, while the most popular, also seems to be the most impersonal when it comes to the child/caregiver relationship. Your child will be one of many children the caregiver is responsible for throughout the day, making one-on-one connections difficult. Some consider it an upside that a day in daycare mimics a school schedule and therefore the children are used to how things go in a group at an early age. Flexibility is not usually a perk at daycares, with parents often having to pay a set rate no matter how many hours or days the child is present in the facility. A good quality, well-reputed daycare is often expensive, costing parents upwards of $100 per child for young children.

In-Home Daycare-This option for child care is often a bit more personal in that the in-home daycare provider will usually not have nearly as many children to care for as a commercial daycare center will. The care is offered from the provider's home, sometimes in a room set aside for daycare, other times just in the home itself. This child care option is definitely more personal when it comes to the relationship between the child and the caregiver, even as the provider is licensed and bound by certain guidelines. Often children who are cared for at in-home daycares seem to have less sickness in that there are less children to share the germs with. This is not scientific, by any means, merely observation by parents over time. Flexibility, while better than commercial daycares, is still dicey in that the daycare provider will often require payment to reserve your child's place in their home, whether the child is present every day or not. That being said, the cost for this in-home daycare option is often cheaper than a commercial daycare and depends on the provider's needs/rates.

Going To The Babysitter's House-This is by far the often preferred choice in child care in that the babysitter, while often not licensed and therefore held to no official standards, usually only has a handful of children to care for in their-often less than five in order to not be licensed. The one-on-one relationship with the child and the caregiver is much richer in this case. Children who stay with a babysitter often has more choices in what activities to do during the day since there are less children and it's a less institutional environment. Illnesses are often decreased, again,due to the lesser number of children confined together in one space. Costs for child care with a babysitter are often less in that the sitter does not have high operating costs due to being in their own home with less children to provide for. Flexibility is also a perk that often comes with having a babysitter for your child.

In-Home Babysitter or Nanny-There are those who manage to find a good in home babysitter to come to the child's home and provide care. This bonds the caregiver and the child most of all, as the caregiver is responsible only for your family's child/children and can do things the way the child and parents like. This option is not used as much as the others in full-time child care because there are not many babysitters willing to care for just one family in the family's home as much as there used to be in times past-except in the case of a nanny. Nannies may come for the day or may be live-in caretakers. The cost for nannies is much higher than the other child care options because you are paying for individual specialized care as well as possibly paying for the nanny's living expenses and sometimes other perks.

It takes a lot of time and effort to find good, quality and affordable child care for your children. It's the most important part of a working parent's job.