How to Choose an Infant Day Care

For mothers whose careers will not allow them to stay at home with their baby after maternity leave is over, finding a good infant day care is a necessity. Infants need lots of attention, touch, care and love, not to mention a safe environment with all the supplies they require during the day.

Types
There are three major types of infant day care, each with its own benefits and disadvantages. With in-home care, a caregiver is in your home during the day to care for your child only. The caregiver can live either in your home or elsewhere. In family day care, you take your infant to a caregiver's home, where there can be up to a dozen other children. In a child care center, a number of employees come during the day to take care of the children who attend the child care center. Child care centers include national chains, independent for-profit centers and nonprofit centers through churches or community centers.

Finding Day Care
The best way to find good infant day care is to ask those in your area who have infants who have been in day care. They will be able to give recommendations and advice both from their experiences and the experiences of others they know. Other places to look for day care are in the newspaper classifieds, online at a search engine and through nanny websites.

Time Frame
Especially with child care centers, it is important to start looking for infant day care very early. In fact, as soon as you know you are pregnant and will be needing child care, it does not hurt to do some research and get on waiting lists for your top choices. It can take years to get into some of the best child care centers. Family day care and in-home child care settings require less advance notice, especially with an in-home caregiver who will probably have other employment preceding working with your infant.

Considerations
As your infant grows up, his day care needs may change. Young infants have many specific needs that are hard for caregivers to meet in a setting in which there are multiple children, whereas in-home day care will provide your child with a dedicated caregiver. As infants grow, they benefit from interaction with other children their age in a family day care or a child care center. You should also take into account the time and effort of transporting your child to a day care every day, and the time and effort of properly doing payroll and taxes for an in-home caregiver.

Cost
The cost of quality infant day care can be far more than the average family is able to afford. If you have a caregiver coming to your home to take care of your infant, you will be paying the entirety of that caregiver's salary. Expect to pay at least minimum wage, and often a few dollars more per hour for a caregiver with good experience and references. Family day care and commercial child care centers are less expensive because there are more paying children per employee.