How do I research and find the best childcare?

March 8, 2017 6:22 PM

Pregnant lady has many questions and no answers.

I am pregnant and clueless about how to find the best childcare. I'm in Seattle, where I'm guessing childcare is expensive and hard to find. How do you go about finding the best childcare. If you live in Seattle, what did you do? Who should i look into or avoid?

I'm leaning towards a nanny because both parents are commuters that will be back at work before child turns 1. On the other hand, I'm open to hearing about why this is a bad idea.

posted by emmatrotsky to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

I'm of the opinion that it is easier to find childcare in one's neighborhood. Your neighborhood has Facebook groups for parents. Join them. (There were email groups but they are dying out. I'm on Greenlake Moms and it is semi dying.) Also go to places working parents are at. Try your neighborhood library on Saturday morning. Then just ask people. They will have Opinions. This will be true for daycare centers or nannies.
If you're in North Seattle message me and I can give you some ideas.
posted by k8t at 7:05 PM on March 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Ask around your neighborhood, good nannies for the 0-18months range tend to be looking for a new job every... 18 months, and that means they network. Local social networks with moms, baby item shops, doulas all may know a few names. And you will invariably get offered lots of clothes because 1.) babies grow and 2.) baby clothes hardly wear out.
posted by nickggully at 7:28 PM on March 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

And start getting on waiting lists for preschools now.
posted by ShooBoo at 8:03 PM on March 8, 2017

One technique I hadn't thought of was talking to people who must visit all the childcare in the area. An example: audiologists. In California children are supposed to get their hearing checked before starting kindergarten. Ask the local audiologists for their recommendations.
posted by blob at 8:12 PM on March 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Look into a nanny share - it's less expensive and more fun for your baby to have a playmate.
posted by Toddles at 8:14 PM on March 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Department of Early Learning licenses all daycares in the state (centers and in-home) and you can look them up to see if they have any complaints or other issues. Definitely use Facebook to join a local moms group and search the archives to find info about daycares. Most in-home places don't have websites, but might have a FB page. A lot of people do nanny shares, which you can also find on your local group. To find a nanny, care.com is the big site and they can also handle payment. I've also seen the FB group Seattle Nanny Parent Connection recommended.

To give you an idea of costs for daycare centers, I've seen prices ranging from $1500-$2400/month for full time infant care.

(I'm just researching this myself -- If you happen to live in West Seattle, I might be looking for a nanny share in July!)
posted by wsquared at 8:30 PM on March 8, 2017

Seconding a nanny share, which we have and love. Cheaper, have a playmate, and together can afford to pay a real wage to a quality nanny, which is excellent. I would find some ways of communicating with other pregnant people in your area. Birth classes? Facebook groups? Putting a little slip of paper on the board in a coffee shop?
posted by EtTuHealy at 3:27 AM on March 9, 2017

We were lucky in that my wife worked with a woman who had a kid a little older than ours. She was assays raving about her daycare, so we checked it out, and she was right. It's a great place and we love it. Without that recommendation, though, we probably never would have heard of it. So ask friends, neighbors. Word of mouth is pretty powerful in this particular industry.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:36 AM on March 9, 2017

Recommendation: when you're looking at places, have the directors put you in touch with current parents so you can chat with them and ask them questions. We didn't do this at our first daycare and I wish we had (we ended up leaving for a MUCH better place).
posted by ethorson at 4:48 AM on March 9, 2017

I agree that, annoyingly, finding good childcare is still mostly word-of-mouth. (We did a pretty extensive search, and we still missed one place that other local parents later recommended; if we'd known about it earlier it would have been a strong contender.) Dig around local parents' groups; if you can't easily find them, your other networks may be able to point you towards them (coworkers? local alumni? hobby/meetup groups?). Interview as many potential nannies/tour as many centers/check as many references as you can.

In a very general sense, childcare options tend to be more personalized when smaller but allow more flexibility and accountability at larger places. Nannies and nanny shares are awesome for personalized care and really getting to know your child's caretaker, but you'll need to have a backup care plan in case your nanny is sick or has a personal emergency or suddenly quits. Daycare centers will be open more days and for longer hours, and you'll have both management and a network of other parents to talk to about concerns. Home daycares are sort of in the middle. There's no one type of childcare that is definitely best; they all have pros and cons.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:21 AM on March 9, 2017

When looking at preschools, go in at different times of day, and most importantly observe the classes and how the teachers interact with the kids. Talk to the teachers themselves, not just the director. As an example, we heard rave reviews about one particular school near us, but when I went in at 9 in the morning already the teachers all looked unhappy and were grumping at the kids. For the daycare that we finally selected, we chose them because all of the teachers seemed happy.

I was in a mommy & me class so we made it a class project to divide up and then interview ALL of the local schools and then report back. That was useful in helping me to narrow down my choices to about five, interview them personally, and then choose two or three to go back and do a second visit. Consistent results on the second visit nailed the winner for me.

I interviewed a few at-home daycares and for me the school environment just felt more comfortable; there were more eyes on all of the kids and less opportunity for any one person to be alone with them. Your comfort level may be somewhere else.

But as commented above, even if you are not up to interviewing right now, make some calls and see who has waitlists and get on them now. We kept each of our kids home for the first year (with family) but at our daycare, which takes babies as young as 6 weeks, the waitlist for 6 weeks to two years is about six months. The waitlist for over 2yo drops sharply because there are many more daycares in the area who only take kids after 2yrs and potty-trained.
posted by vignettist at 8:22 AM on March 9, 2017