Out of curiosity, have you considered a nanny?

We are a couple with 2 full-time working parents, and 3 kids.

We pay a lot for our nanny ($25/hour), plus bonus, but it's actually a little less than what you pay per month.

We tried day care, but having a nanny is so much less stressful (no drop-offs, pick-ups, etc). Also, a nanny is often willing to stay with the kids if the kids are sick, allowing the parents to go to work if needed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at roughly $6500 per month for an almost 5 year old and a 3 year old. We have a nanny who works 55 hours a week and is paid overtime for anything over 40 hours. And we pay one private preschool bill for the three year old. Luckily, the five year old is entering public pre-K this fall and our three year is starting half-day preschool, so our nanny will drop down to 40 hours a week starting in September.

What hours does your nanny usually work?

She’s worked 8am-7pm for us for the past three years. Starting September she’ll work four days a week 12-7pm and the fifth day will be her longer day from 730am-7pm.

We were paying $4600 at Bright Horizons Rosslyn for an infant and a 2yr old. Now we pay $2600 for a toddler and a 4ur old at a full day church daycare.

OP to answer your question that's a lot more than we pay. Our daycare center (nice, in NW DC) is $1874/mo. for infants and $1607 for 2s. 5% sibling discount is applied to the older child's rate. So, your kids at my center would cost about $3400/mo.

Our last year of hiring a full time nanny we spent over 52k. The 12k was for the part time preschool for older one and once a week for youngest one. Nanny worked 40 hrs a week. This doesn't include extra classes our youngest atttended or summer camps my older child went to or bonuses we gave the nanny. So probably 57k.