Choosing the Right Daycare for Your Family

I have found the most difficult parenting choice we’ve made in our two and half years as parents, was choosing the correct childcare for our family. Not only is it important because it helps shape my children’s future and well-being, but also because it is the single most expensive bill we pay each month. Yes, that’s right – our part time daycare bill for two kids is more than our mortgage.

Families all have different needs and desires when considering their daycare options but here are the factors that we considered when making our decision.

  1. Reputation – Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services is in charge of regulating childcare centers in Pennsylvania. They have an online portal called COMPASS, on which you can search for childcare centers by name and view their inspections, violations, and their Keystone STARS When doing your research for a daycare in Pennsylvania, I highly recommend searching the centers in the COMPASS database. This was our starting point in the decision making process. 

We wanted a well-established school that could give us positive references/referrals, or one that we knew people who had good experiences. In the end, we chose a school that was brand new, but had other schools in the area and was part of a well-known brand. They were happy to give us references from their other locations that were owned and run by the same people.

  1. Cleanliness and Safety – Obviously when searching the COMPASS website you will have a good idea of how the daycare performs in this area, but I also like to do my own inspection after narrowing down the list with the help of COMPASS. While visiting potential schools I always paid attention to how clean the school was and asked how often the toys, floors, tables, highchairs, etc. were cleaned. We also looked for how safe the environment was. Nothing hazardous should be in reach of the kids, and the infant areas need to be basically baby proofed where our little one could not get hurt. The “classes” should have a definitive division between them. Our personal preference was that each class had its own room with a door that was closed at all times. You would be surprised at how many daycares we visited where it was just one big room with baby gates dividing the areas, not an ideal situation when the infants are screaming and the preschoolers are trying learn.
  1. Staff Comfort Level – It was important that the stuff be adequately trained to not only care for but also educate our children. Maybe we have high standards but we wanted every teacher to have a college degree in some form of education field. CPR certification by every single staff member was also huge to us. In our opinion these teachers were going to be spending more time with our kids than us so we needed to fully trust their expertise and experience. They also needed to be personable and approachable. We went to meet the teachers of a few centers and spoke to various staff members. We not only met with the potential current teachers, but also future classrooms and classrooms below because we intended (and did!) have another child enroll a little while later. I also stayed to watch them interact with the kids and paid close attention to how the kids responded to the teachers.

  1. Educational Aspect — My husband and I knew that we didn’t just want our boys to be cared for and loved, but also that they would be getting some educational benefit. This goes hand and hand with our staff expectations, but I wanted a clear curriculum and objectives set for our children to be following. It was really important to us because we wanted to know if there were any areas we needed to work on at home with our children and to be informed of any developmental delays. I think a daycare setting is one of the better ways to spot a delay because you have outside caregivers who are with your child day in and day out and see how they are doing in a social environment. I ask our kids teachers ALL THE TIME if they think there are any areas of concern for our boys. They probably think I am crazy, but it’s especially important because of how successful early intervention programs are to helping kids succeed.

We also thought ahead with the educational aspect and knew that we would prefer to not move daycares/preschools/kindergartens if at all possible. We chose a school that offered all these programs and will allow us to keep both children at the same school for years to come.

  1. Convenience – Consider not only convenience to your home but also to your work. We scouted out several locations close to our home and then looked at one downtown, several blocks from our work locations. We ultimately decided that if they were downtown we could spend more time with them going to holiday parties, meeting them for lunch, popping in to nurse, and even having them in the car with us during our commute! It’s all precious time and adds up.
  1. Daily Reports/Pictures/Video – It was crucial to us that we get daily reports on our children’s sleeping, eating, and bowel movements throughout the day. We loved the idea of the center sending us pictures throughout the day and even visited one school that had a video system that you could log in throughout the day and see what your kids were up to. Our school uses the Tadpoles app and I love that I am able to see their daily reports, pictures, and educational objectives from the day.

  1. Play areas – I know I’ve harped a lot on how important education was to us, but we really wanted the boys to have fun too. With the amount of energy our toddler has, we NEEDED a school that had a space for him to run around and be a kid. Our current school has a large gymnasium with activities such as a climbing wall, basketball hoop, and even has a garage door style window that opens up to let fresh air in. The classrooms all have plenty of toys, books, art supplies, and kids’ artwork on the walls indicating that fun is a part of their daily routine. Some of my favorite pictures we have received from the school are of our 8 month old having the time of his life finger painting! When our younger son’s teacher told me how much he loves to finger paint all I could think was, “YES! Please do this at school and make the biggest mess there.”

   

 

Making the right choice is not easy and we don’t always know how things are going to work out. Don’t be afraid to leave and find a different center if you feel something isn’t right. We had our first son at a daycare close to our house and after a few months of me feeling like things were off we pulled him out. After we started at our new school ALL of us were so much happier. There are no longer tears at drop off and when we walk out each evening our toddler says, “I want more school,” which is basically the best thing a working parent could hear.

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Lindsey Lynch
Lindsey was born and raised in Pittsburgh. She met her husband, Andrew, on her 16th birthday. A graduate of Elon University, she currently works part time as a tax consultant. She loves traveling and spent a year living in Costa Rica with her husband. They currently reside in Hampton Township with their two boys Jackson (June 2014) and Owen (June 2016), and love taking their boys on traveling adventures. Besides traveling, Lindsey enjoys starting her mornings with a Starbucks chai tea latte, yoga, boxing, getting a massage when she can, margaritas, and having dance parties to Katy Perry with her boys. You can follow along with Lindsey’s family adventures on Instagram at @llynch41.