How to Choose a Childcare Option: Nanny vs. Daycare
For many parents, the decision of who should watch their baby can be stressful, emotional, and confusing.
Aside from being a stay-at-home parent or having relatives help take care of your kids, the two most popular childcare choices are hiring a nanny or enrolling your child in daycare. Which is the right option for your family and your budget? We’ve put together some things to consider when choosing child care for your little one.
Just like many other decisions you and your family will make, the first step is to decide together — What do value as a family?
Is it time together? Time alone?
Ample developmental opportunities?
To launch a business, side job, or go back to work full-time postpartum?
Have the discussion with your family, (or yourself!), and decide what do we VALUE and what are our priorities for this season of life.
Other important things to consider:
Expectations - What do you expect from the childcare? One-on-one attention with familiar surroundings? Those are things a nanny could offer. Regular and consistent social playtime? That is something a daycare can provide.
Flexibility - You need to make sure your childcare option fits your schedule. Daycare centers do not offer 24-hour care and sometimes have limited hours. However, relying on a nanny can lead to a conflict in your schedule if your nanny gets sick, do you have a backup plan or enough sick days to cover?
Cost - What is your budget for childcare? Is it limitless? Is there a budget? If so what is it? If you’re working, how many hours do you need to work to pay for childcare? (ex. If I work 20 hours a week I can afford 25 of childcare and still contribute $x.xx towards our bills, etc.)
Once you have clarity around what you do want, what you don’t want, and what you value — the decision will not only be more clear, but the process of finding care will be more streamlined.
Nurtured Pediatrics Owner, and new mama, Leah, shared this:
“I love that we’re talking values here. But also, my family really had to weigh what we could afford with what we wanted and valued. We valued that Otis be able to spend time with peers so we wanted some sort of group option. We also wanted a childcare situation where the caregiver valued what we value as parents, including Montessori, Baby-led Weaning and Respectful Parenting philosophies. Like I said though, we wanted all of this at a price that was approachable for us and made financial sense for me to go back to work. I also valued spending 4 days a week with Otis and only needed 3 days of care, so we needed something flexible and part-time. I quickly realized we had a lot of needs and I was nervous we wouldn’t find it. We started with 1:1 nanny care with someone from care.com who used to be a Montessori teacher. She was available for part-time care and at only 3 days a week, was within our budget. A quick tip: write out what you DO WANT and what you DO NOT want in a nanny — this will make the interview and decision process more clear and help with decision making. As soon as we were settled in our plan, I was ready to take on more hours at work and needed 3.5/4 days instead of 3. I realized I could not afford our nanny whom we had grown to love full-time! So, we sought out another family to nanny share with which met our value of peer/social time AND cut the cost for us by $6/hour. I will say that being clear on what we needed and wanted helped take (most of) the stress out of it all for sure.
No matter what you decide, your little one grows and your needs evolve - choose what is best for you, your little one, and the entire family for right now — and know when your family’s needs evolve, you can shift your childcare plan as well.
Drop questions and your experience in the comments for a resource for fellow parents and caregivers! We can’t wait to hear your story and how you made childcare work for you!
If you need assistance finding and paying for childcare - please use this resource for support.