Reply to The Research on Various Childcare Options

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Reply to "The Research on Various Childcare Options"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The research summary literally says the cheap in-home daycare are better for kids than the expensive large centers lol

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Anecdotally, the quality of in-home daycare varies enormously, and it would be really hard to draw specific conclusions about how YOUR kid would do in a specific in-home daycare based on a study. We really wanted to find an in-home daycare when we were looking but the best in-home programs are really hard to get spots at because people know what they have with them and don't leave, and since they take fewer kids overall (and often take on siblings), you just don't get spots opening up that frequently.

An in-home program that always seems to have spots available is, sadly, a red flag, and you discover this quickly when you research the center's history of citations or talk to parents who used to be at the center. We looked at a bunch of facilities that had been cited for really egregious problems (including one where a child had died and was under investigation for that but, inexplicably, was still open and running while that investigation was pending). We also would reach out to the neighborhood list serve about places and got some really rough reviews from parents who told us that they'd had experiences like showing up a bit early for pickup one day only to discover all the babies camped out on the floor with no minder in the room and the TV on.

Again, there are phenomenal in-home programs out there, but it's not the majority of centers. One major advantage of the larger, expensive centers is that they have bigger regulatory exposure (more kids, more families, more oversight, more to lose from breaking rules or being negligent) and therefore they are less likely to have truly frightening practices that could endanger a child. That doesn't mean that a big center is automatically the best environment for your kid, especially your kid under age 1, but when you are trying to mitigate certain risks, there is more peace of mind with the larger centers.[/quote]

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