OP - thankfully we had a nanny but friends used college aged kids (or older HS).

This year is much harder. We are taking younger cousins with us to the beach for 2 weeks to help out. My older nieces (college) are coming also for extra supervision. My mon and my aunt are watching their great nieces/nephews this summer to help out.

When I was growing up this was our family norm. We literally spent 2 weeks with our cousin cohort as various relatives throughout the summer. We are all dispersed farther geographically these days but looking forward to resurrecting the' family' camp.

Daycare center or in-home daycare for that age. We had a wonderful in-home that we loved and were lucky to find in my area.

Use daycare summer camp, it is not much fun, stay inside the building & schedule similar to regular school year, but it does the job.

It's a real pain when the kids are preschool aged because as you said, a lot of places don't offer preschool-aged camps. You will probably need to mix and match a little, but at least under normal circumstances, there are camps that usually run 8-10 weeks to cover most of the summer. August is always really hard to find coverage for.

As someone else said, your best bet might be a nanny or babysitter for the summer. College students are often looking for this type of work (at least under normal circumstances -- not sure how COVID will impact it).

I've seen a number of camps that usually offer before/aftercare to fill the total day saying that they aren't offering it, which limits options further. Many only go 9-3 or 4.

Are you in MD, VA, or DC? (By the way, it gets much easier after they are older than 5 because there are way more programs)

Your child is 3. You need daycare. Daycare sounds worse than it is.

I’m a SAHM now but my first 2 were in daycare. They called it summer camp in the summer. My kids were enrolled the entire summer minus a week we went on vacation.

I have an almost 4yo. There aren’t many 3 camps. Just preschools with camps. As mentioned above, you should find a daycare.

When my kids were in daycare, I always said my kids were in preschool with extended care and summer camp. This mattered to me back then that there was a difference.

Anonymous wrote:Where are you op? I know people who just sign up for the same camp all summer at that age. Becomes like school/daycare.

Are they open this summer? I normally sign up at this time but there is no information on 2021 summer camps at the school we used in the past.

Where are you op? I know people who just sign up for the same camp all summer at that age. Becomes like school/daycare.