Please Help!

[mamichulo24]

Is it just me or is finding a child care provider like finding a penny in a poor house? When my first child was born I had the most difficult time finding child care centers that: Had accomodating hours, provided quality structured interactions with children, and whose wait list wasn't 100 years long? Ultimately, I became a stay at home mom until my son entered school. We recently had our second son and I am now faced with this problem again, and the additional problem of finding quality before and after care. Any suggestions or thoughts?

[Anonymous]

You may want to be more specific as to where you are looking for care (NW DC., Alexandria, Arlington, Bethesda, Germantown etc.)

[mamichulo24]

We live in Dupont Circle, but I work in Rockville. My husband works on Andrews Base. Virginia is a stretch for us so I guess anywhere between home and Rockville. We are not from the area, but have been here for approx. 4 years. It seems that centers in PG are out of the question, although this would be most convenient due to our schedules.

[Anonymous]

What about the CDC on base?

[Anonymous]

As far as before and/or aftercare for your older child, you might want to call his school and find out what providers drop off and pick up there. At our school, there are only two or three, so options are quite limited unless you can do the drop off and pick up yourself. When you check out providers, another thing to think about is that your child is likely to have many days off from school that don't correspond to your work days off. So, if you need care on those days, you might want to find a before and aftercare provider that will provide care on most if not all of those days. Also, some schools provide before and aftercare, but then you are on your own for all of the teacher inservice and other days the kids have off from school.

As to young child care, awhile back on one of the threads in the forum section, someone posted a link to a website that lists licensed in home child care providers in Maryland. If you can find that website, that might be helpful.