How did you find your childcare provider?

[juneboymum]

Hi. I'm about to go back to work part-time and I'm having trouble finding consistent childcare due to my irregular, part-time schedule. We recently moved so I don't know many people here but I've posted on local AP/natural living groups as well as a general mommies group. Daycare centers that I've called don't accept children < 2 yrs old on a part-time basis so I'm probably going to have to go with in-home daycare, a nanny, or SAHM who wants to babysit. Are there any other avenues I haven't thought of for finding a loving, nurturing childcare provider. I'm a little leary of craigslist or the nanny websites, but maybe it's because I don't know anyone who's had good experience with this.
Thanks!

[hollytheteacher]

in my state we have a thing called Child Care Resource, where you can call and find out what is available at your state (home daycares, centers, pre-k, etc) and it's all broken down by if it is accredited, licensed, etc. and what age kids they will take, schedule, etc. i wonder if there is something like that where you live?

I lucked out because i'm a pre-k teacher and the teachers at my school are allowed to bring our babies to work with us My ds got to start at 6 months ( i took a 6 month maternity leave) even though most kids cannot start until age two :P

[Alyantavid]

We have the same thing in our state that the pp mentioned.

I found our small, in-home daycare just from asking around.

[lyterae]

We have the same resource that the previous posters mentioned, it pulls up all of the licensed providers in my area. It has things on there with hours, if they participate in the food program, if thier yard is fenced.. I initially went through and marked off all the ones that I was interested in and started calling around. Some of them were nixed because they were full, some were simply too expensive.

Then I started visiting.. I visited about 5 or 6 different daycares, two were centers, the rest were home daycares. Most of them I knew within about 5 minutes of arriving if I was comfortable there or not. When we found our current daycare I knew as soon as we'd arrived that it was the place, I just had the right "feeling". I did of course interview and ask question regardless.

DD has been at the same daycare for 2 years now, and will continue going part-time his fall when she starts preschool.

[sewchris2642]

Start with the Maryland Child Care Resource Network http://www.mdchildcare.org/mdcfc/network/network.html

[Quinalla]

Yeah, I think all states have a list somewhere (online for most now I would imagine) of all licensed childcare providers with some basic information. I started with that list immediately striking off some that didn't fit some basic requirements and just started calling with a short list of questions so I could narrow down further. After that, I still had ~5 places in a small geographical area that was ideal, so I went and visited each one with more questions and wanting to get a feel for the place and people. I ended up finding 2 I really liked, one a little more than the other, so I went with that one. If none had felt right, I would have moved out further from my ideal geographical area.

For the questions, I found it useful to have open ended questions, basically ones where you aren't telling them by your question what answer you want so you are more likely to get the honest answer, not just what they think you want to hear. For example, instead of "Do you use a gentle discipline approach?" ask "What discipline approach do you use?" Also, I found asking at least one or two questions not related to the child care directly also got some good insights.

You may want to dig deeper on parttime for centers. There aren't a lot that offer it for younger kids, but I did find a couple that did in my area, but yes I think you will have better luck looking outside of centers.

[poppan]

I found my first nanny through a friend's referral, and the subsequent ones (we're on our third, although I'm not sure I should count the second one, it was such a short time) through Craigslist.

I think referrals are best/easiest/safest, so if you have a local mothers group with an online message board, that is a good place to ask around. Maybe a nanny share to make it more affordable.

Craigslist turned up a ton of candidates but it was hard work sifting through them all. I had a truly awful time hiring and ended up with someone who didn't work out (despite how great she sounded and how much her prior family recommended her). The second time around I got lucky and I guess I had learned from my mistakes too. So IMHO craigslist can work, but you need to do a lot more legwork.

[momofmine]

Do you have any colleges or universities? We have had wonderful student child care for part-time care. One student worked for us for her junior and senior years and my kids adored her. We had a regular schedule, she came twice a week, and it worked out really well. We have had others too. Usually the colleges have online bulletin boards for posting ads that anyone in the community can post to, or they might have a student paper. At one of our local colleges, the secretary of the Education Dept will send an email to all the Education majors if you send her the info on what you are looking for. This has worked well for us, because I wanted someone to come to my house, especially when my youngest was still very young and napping, etc. Often my youngest would be napping when she got here, so she would play games and read stories with my oldest until the younger one woke up. Having someone come to your house is so much easier that way. You don't have to get them AND you ready and out the door.