Daycare

[Speedybruin4]

Due to changing circumstances, my wife and I have begun the search for a daycare in the NW part of town. (Pike Township) I have emailed Kindercare, Abacus, and La Petite and am waiting to hear back for availability for our 4 month old and also tuition rate. Are there any other daycares, in home or a facility are fine, that I should look into? We tried care.com and didn't have good luck the first go around, but we are trying there again.

Thanks for any advice,

Chris

 

[CHCRandy]

Good luck....seems it is hard to find daycare anymore for infants. My oldest daughter had her first child, and our first grandchild about 6 months ago. We are lucky that our youngest daughter don't mind doing the babysitting. So between my youngest daughter/my wife and I....we make it work. It is so expensive for daycare.....I really feel sorry for you young guys and gals with kids and no family to babysit. You can easily spend as much as a house payment a month, or more, on daycare.

My daughter just started a new job for a big company that provides daycare on site...but they don't take children under 1 or 1 1/2 years old........and they still have a wait list. Seems like an infant care would be a good business to start.

Do you guys both work on NW side? Best of luck and congrats on the little one.....enjoy them while you can, you'll blink and they will be grown.

 

[squidvt]

Daycare is very hard to find no matter were you are at. I would expect to pay between 100-150 for good daycare. Kindercare is pretty good. My son is there for afterschool/summer care. Care.com is ok for babysitters. Also check out the pages and make sure you go and interview the place.

 

[Dirtebiker]

Jmo, but we always preferred home based child care.
Much more personal!

 

[Speedybruin4]

Good luck....seems it is hard to find daycare anymore for infants. My oldest daughter had her first child, and our first grandchild about 6 months ago. We are lucky that our youngest daughter don't mind doing the babysitting. So between my youngest daughter/my wife and I....we make it work. It is so expensive for daycare.....I really feel sorry for you young guys and gals with kids and no family to babysit. You can easily spend as much as a house payment a month, or more, on daycare.

My daughter just started a new job for a big company that provides daycare on site...but they don't take children under 1 or 1 1/2 years old........and they still have a wait list. Seems like an infant care would be a good business to start.

Do you guys both work on NW side? Best of luck and congrats on the little one.....enjoy them while you can, you'll blink and they will be grown.

I work just north of the NW side (Boone Co.) and she goes on Clinical rotations all over the city. We live on the NW side.

As far as the infant daycare, my wife and I often joke about starting one as it seems we have several friends in the same boat as us.

 

[Speedybruin4]

Daycare is very hard to find no matter were you are at. I would expect to pay between 100-150 for good daycare. Kindercare is pretty good. My son is there for afterschool/summer care. Care.com is ok for babysitters. Also check out the pages and make sure you go and interview the place.

The best we have been able to find is $240 for 5 day a week care. Kindercare was between $290 and $330 depending on the location in the city. We really liked IUPUI's on site daycare due to the fact my wife has clinicals down there frequently, but they make you sign a year contract. The other places we have checked out have not asked us to sign one.

 

[Speedybruin4]

Jmo, but we always preferred home based child care.
Much more personal!

I totally agree and would like to find home based care, but as I mentioned before we didn't have luck going through care.com. Most in our area didn't have CPR or first aid or both. The cheapest one that we found that would work would be over 2x what daycare will cost. ($500+) I'm not saying it wouldn't have its benefits, but I can't justify that cost right now.

 

[squidvt]

The best we have been able to find is $240 for 5 day a week care. Kindercare was between $290 and $330 depending on the location in the city. We really liked IUPUI's on site daycare due to the fact my wife has clinicals down there frequently, but they make you sign a year contract. The other places we have checked out have not asked us to sign one.

If you are expecting to be down there for the year I don't see an issue with the contract.
You are talking infant daycare.. yes that is going to be quite a bit more expensive.

 

[Speedybruin4]

I am ok with the $250-$350 range that we have found. I am just not sure about the year commitment, as my wife may not be downtown or anywhere near downtown for months at a time. She also doesn't get her schedule that far in advance. For example, she could be in Muncie one month and the next Lafayette.

 

[bradmedic04]

Be very careful with care.com. When our eldest (now 4 y.o.) was 3 months old we took her to a regular daycare one time. When I picked her up at the end of the day, I told my wife there was no way I'd take her back. We used care.com and interviewed several college kids with zero experience looking for $20/hr. We even had one lady come out who was, a, uh....burden of the state as it turned out. While they do criminal background checks, there are holes in their vetting process. It's also damn near impossible to get them to stop charging your credit card for the monthly fee.

We ended up finding a sweet Mexican lady through a neighbor who was an absolute godsend. We paid her something like $12/hr. She genuinely grew to love our child, and kept the house spotless, though she didn't speak two words of English. We mitigated the cost by staggering work schedules a bit. I started at 7am, came home at 2 and worked remotely for a couple hours while taking care of the baby. I think we paid her for 6 hours each day. It was a weird setup, but our employees both worked with us to figure out a solution.

Best of luck working something out.

 

[TB1999]

We were extremely happy with in home "blessed assurance " childcare.

 

[dprimm]

I would recommend ours, but she is maxed out. Sorry... I know the pain you are going throguh.

did you have daycare before? If not, look into flexibke spending for it. Makes the $ pre-tax.

 

[eldirector]

Our little one is going to Goddard (in Brownsburg) for pre-school. We did not use them for daycare. That said, they have been fantastic. Not the cheapest. But, like anything, you get what you pay for (for the most part).

 

[Speedybruin4]

I would recommend ours, but she is maxed out. Sorry... I know the pain you are going throguh.

did you have daycare before? If not, look into flexibke spending for it. Makes the $ pre-tax.

No, up until now I have been working 3rd shift and my wife goes to school during the day and it has worked out pretty well. Lately I have been working more 1st shift hours and traveling so that is the reason we are starting to look. I will definitely look into flexible spending, thanks for the heads up!

 

[Speedybruin4]

Our little one is going to Goddard (in Brownsburg) for pre-school. We did not use them for daycare. That said, they have been fantastic. Not the cheapest. But, like anything, you get what you pay for (for the most part).

I agree as well, but some of the ones that we looked at seemed over the top, especially for a 4 month old that can barely roll over. They made us feel that if our kid wasn't able to do XYZ by the age of __, then basically our kid was behind and going to fail at life. I wasn't a fan of that.

 

[Denny347]

I totally agree and would like to find home based care, but as I mentioned before we didn't have luck going through care.com. Most in our area didn't have CPR or first aid or both. The cheapest one that we found that would work would be over 2x what daycare will cost. ($500+) I'm not saying it wouldn't have its benefits, but I can't justify that cost right now.

Both of my kids used IUPUI Center for Young Children from when they were 2 to 5, they are 10 and 13 now. It was expensive at $150 or so each week but they were worth every penny.

 

[Speedybruin4]

Both of my kids used IUPUI Center for Young Children from when they were 2 to 5, they are 10 and 13 now. It was expensive at $150 or so each week but they were worth every penny.

The place looks ideal, but with them wanting us to sign a 1 year contract and us not knowing where my wife will be for rotations more than a month out it could put a strain on us as far as getting our son down there.

 

[Denny347]

The place looks ideal, but with them wanting us to sign a 1 year contract and us not knowing where my wife will be for rotations more than a month out it could put a strain on us as far as getting our son down there.

True. My wife works there so I see your predicament.