what type of care well you be using?

what do you expect to pay?

why did you choose to use this type of care?

after being a nanny for the last 7 years i have decided that when we have children i would like to start a small in home child care program. It would be our child plus two other children. Im trying to get a feel for what a family would expect to pay or have budgeted to pay. i know its a sticky topic when it comes to money so dont feel obligated to answer , but for those who dont mind thank you for your feed back. 

Good questions! We are planning on me staying home so I will be the child care, lol. I still want to bring in income though and work from home so I was thinking of cyber teaching or possibly starting an in home child care program. I'm sorry I can't help with any dollar amounts but is there a listing somewhere that will show you what the average day care and average home care costs in your area? That might be a way to go to get a true feel for not only your competition, but also what people where you live would expect to pay. HTH!

We are still TTC but I looked into child care costs just to have an idea and a Church in our area will take infants at 8 weeks and it's $250.00 a week.  DH's mom is a teacher at that school so I'd feel comfortable with our baby being there.  Once I'm expecting I'd like to look into other options maybe at someone's home.  I'd prefer to keep the cost under $800/mo.

We plan on having the grandmas and a family friend watch our lil guy till he is about 7 to 8 months old, then we will put him in a daycare for some social skills etc. 

I would love to keep it at $125 to $150 a week when we do put him in daycare.

Just to give you some useful infromation, I live in CA and use to work for a county child care council. In Ca the state sets up a guideline for what to charge and its seperated out by child care in the home or center or by a relative the rates are different by county. most states should have this information and make it availible to you. The provider can charge more or less though.Heres a link so you can see what I am taking about.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/cd/ap/index.aspx

Also, the council where I worked taught the required classes to obtain a license and we dealt with issues concerning parents and child care providers. So see if you have one where you live they a great resource and can provide you with lots of information. All states or counties should have an agency similar to this.

Hope this was somewhat helpful.

I live in Missouri and I pay 90.00 for an in home daycare each week. When I am taking 2 children I will be paying 155.00

exactly Zeuster! that's what I was trying to get at, but you stated it much better!

The cost really depends on where you live.  I lvie in MN and we are paying $325/week ($1300/month) in a center.  I priced licensed in home providers and they were about $300/week so it wasn't a huge difference.  Our price might go down a little once LO is 18 months, but my guess is that this is what we'll pay until we either pull him out or he starts school.

Some things to think about and ask when you visit:

• What is their turnover rate and how long have the teachers been employed with the center (or the in home provider has been taking care of kids)?
• What is their experience with an EBF baby, if you are breastfeeding.
• What kinds of activities do they do each day?  What kind of reports should you expect?
• I tried to really observe how the director interacted with the staff and children.  I visited two places where it was subtle, but the things that I saw made me question if I would want to leave my child under their care.  The center that we are in has an awesome director and assistant director and my decision to go with them has been validated every time I've been there.  The director often is in the rooms interacting with the kids and knows more than just the names of each child.
• Hours, do they have a limit on how many hours you can be there per day (some in home providers will put an 8 hour max on the day- which doesn't work if you have much of a commute)
• We also considered the proximity of the center to our home.  Even though I work 40 min from our house, it made sense to have LO close to our house and not where one of us works.  
• We chose a center over an in home for a few reasons and one of the biggest was that we know the center will be there and open.  I didn't really want to deal with an in home person being sick or deciding to be on vacation and leaving us without daycare for the day or week.  We have a few days during the year that the center isn't open for staff development days, but those are pretty limited and we know well in advance.

We pay $125/week for an in home daycare provider.  It was by far the best deal I came across. 

It varies so much depending on the region.  I would call around, pretending you're sending your baby to a child care home and get an idea of the pricing.