Family Day Care
A family day-care provider takes care of just a few children in her or his own home. (The number of children, including those who live there, should not exceed five.) The small size of this kind of day care can make it feel like a family. Smallness also allows more excursions-to a local park or playground or, if necessary, even a grocery store. Because the caregiver is usually a parent, too, the home will almost always be well-babyproofed. Last but not least, family day care is usually the least expensive child care option available, which is no small consideration to many working parents. However, family day care, like in-home care, forces you to depend on just one person for care. If she or he can’t do it for any reason, you’ll need to cancel your own outside plans or commitments or find an alternative quickly. You cannot send your child when she gets sick either, and she will get sick because exposure to other children almost always means more colds, flus, and illness in general. Finally, most family day-care providers are not licensed-and therefore are not subject to any type of supervision or periodic review.
Day-Care Centers
Center-based day care has the advantage of being almost always available. Because daycare centers do not depend on just one person to provide care, they don’t shut down if one staff member gets sick. In addition, staff members are almost always trained and experienced. Because all day-care centers must be licensed, you’ll know that yours meets at least the safety requirements mandated by your state. Spaces in child-care centers are often designed for a specific age group of children. Finally, if your employer offers an onsite day-care center, you can probably visit your baby (and perhaps even nurse her) during lunch hours or coffee breaks. Unfortunately, finding a day-care program that even accepts kids under age one is difficult. (In fact, many day-care centers won’t accept children who are still in diapers.) Although center-based care doesn’t cost as much as in-home care, it does cost more than family day care. The biggest drawback of large day-care centers, however, is their rigidity. Programs are often very structured, an approach that isn’t suitable for most infants. Many large centers are also inflexible in terms of scheduling drop-off and pick-up times.
