My son (17 months old) attends a “Learning Center”. After he was born I tried a “regular” daycare in our area because it was less money and I hated it. We had an awful experience there that ended up with our baby in the hospital for 4 days. After this, he never went back. I immediately put him in the Learning Center that my older son attended until he started school.
Now I understand they are going to charge more because their child to staff ratio is low and they offer a lot of individualized care. I don’t mind paying for the service we are getting but it is starting to get a little nuts, IMHO.
When we enrolled J it was $625 a month for infants. No problem. Then they had a small rate increase that was going to make the infant room $650. About this time they moved him to the Toddler room and their rate was $625 so we ended up paying the same amount. No problem.
I get a letter today stating that effective 9/1 the Toddler Room rates are going up to $650. Okay…not a problem.
But then effective 1/1/04 the Toddler Room rates will be jumping to $700 a month.
The next level is for the Two’s Room but he won’t move up to that room until March. The rate for that room will be $650.
Is $700 a month really high for child care? Am I just not thinking clearly?
Up here in Quebec Canada it is the same rate at pretty much all the daycares $5/day this is a law or some sort and day care centres are not allowed to charge more. It is sometimes hard to get a spot for your child and I wouldn’t mind paying $10 if it meant more openings and more daycare workers. BTW that is canadian dollars so about 4-7 bucks US/day.
We pay $780 per month for the good old Golden Goose Academy for my 1 year old daughter. That is only for three days a week though. We live in Massachusetts so adjust that to Alabama dollars as you wish.
I live in San Diego and that’s more than twice what I am paying for a very experienced, licensed home daycare person. She has about 10 kids from about 1 year up to my daughter, who is 6. They are taken care of by her and two helpers in their 20s. She usually takes kids only from 8 months to the time they turn 4, but can make a few exceptions for temporary summer care. My son has been with her since he was 2. He is 4 now, and starting preschool in the fall. She doesn’t take really tiny infants, but, as far as I know she doesn’t charge any more for the younger children.
Anyway, we pay her $150 per week for each child. She is open from 7:00 to 5:30. The price includes snacks, drinks, and lunch, which is homemade soup every day.
I have to move I guess. Paying $900 for a very good facility that I am happy with. My 3 1/2 year old son is very happy there.
And, $900 is WITH some type of employee discount AND it’s $50 less because he was officially deemed “toilet trained” in that last few months. It WAS $950.
This is in Montvale, NJ. Northern New Jersey, on the border with NY.
So, no, $700 for good care is acceptable, in my humble oppinion.
Two kids, ages 3 and 4. $196 a week, each. $392 a week total. $1568 a month (or $784 each per month). Plus program fees (about $50 a kid four times a year).
Minnesota, Twin Cities Suburbs. Kindercare. Full time (center is open from 6:30 to 6:30 - our kids are in from 8 to 5).
There are cheaper options available - home day care is much cheaper, but I don’t like having someone elses sick days be my problem. There are some cheaper centers, but I’d “pay” for them in being out of the way.
Man, I want whatever jobs you all have that you can afford so much!
My wife was thinking of going back to work teaching. But after the cost for daycare for two kids, and after taxes, she’d bring home about $300/month. She makes that much teaching piano once a week to 8 kids.
I live in rural California, but my son goes to preschool full time in a smallish city. It works out to about $400/month, and it’s a major chain (La Petite Academy). I was paying slightly less for a home-based daycare while he was younger. My older son is about the same when he’s off-track from school at a Karate School/After School Care place.
I live in the Chicago area and it is rare to find a day care center that charges less than $150 per week per child, which is about $650 per month. You can find home care centers for less, but then they usually aren’t licensed. (If you watch 3 kids or less, you don’t have to be licensed in Illinois.)
$160 per 4 day week for my approx. 3.293 year old. In a center (I like the fact that they teach him, and that there are more eyes on not just the children) About twenty a month for the music class they have. Saint Paul, MN.
Ha ha! I’ve got you all beat! But in the wrong direction…
I’ll be paying $1260 per month once everybody goes back to their full time schedules after Labor Day.
My provider is my next-door-neighbor, who has been running a home child care center for over 20 years. She’s absolutely wonderful, and provides terrific care. She usually only has 3-4 kids at a time and she’s highly in demand, so she doesn’t take kids with behavioral problems. I’m paying a premium price, but I’m definitely getting premium service. And the location is great!
But after reading this thread, I’ve changed my mind about one thing–My babysitter provides snacks for the kids. I kind of felt bad about that, and I’ve been making sure to send snacks. But I think I’ll just go ahead and let her spring for the graham crackers!
We live in the Chicago suburbs. When my daughter started daycare at 18 mos. we paid $1200 per mo. There were much cheaper places but my wife is quite particular (in all fairness it was a really nice place).
She is now in kindergarten and we pay $900 per mo. (again it’s a unique school with an excellent full-imersion Japanese language program).
She’ll be starting first grade at the local Catholic school in a few weeks and it will drop to about $400 per mo.
Well, I certainly don’t, seeing as how I don’t have kids, and from the way this thread is looking, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that I ever will. Oh dear.
Wow! Something that is cheaper in Japan, apart from cameras and computers!
Daycare here from my experience - in a public daycare centre with 6 babies over 6 months up to a year per carer/ 8 toddlers 1 - 3 years per carer or (eek!) 25 3 year olds per two carers was dependent on last years tax paid by the FATHER (despite it being daycare because the wives were working, grrr). We were average public-servant-in-late-thirties salary and paid about 300 US dollars a month for 8.30am to 4.30pm care. My friends paid about 80 dollars because they were graduate students and had no income beyond their grants. Daycare was available for 12 hours a day but you had to pay a bit more (not a lot, about 30 dollars a month!) Lunch and afternoon snacks were included in the price.
At this place there was a “no teaching” policy up till school age that was misleading. They didn’t actively sit the kids down and make them read, write or count, but there was a tremendous lot of kid-led stuff that was brilliant. Like the kids in my boy’s class making a huge yellow elephant out of empty milk cartons and then deciding to take it out into the playground when it was complete. It wouldn’t fit out the door so the teachers took the door apart to get it out!!! They flooded the dirt playground for a week each summer in the rainy season, stripped the kids to underpants and turned them gloriously, stickily, filthily loose. Kids were in heaven! Add to that growing veg, harvesting and cooking them, sports days, trips around the town, endless festivals, and more exercise than my kid could cope with. It was brilliant, despite the lax security (my kid escaped and made it home before they found him - ARRRGH) and high kid to teacher ratio.
I did briefly try a private nursery which charged 35 dollars for each four hours the kid was there up to a maximum of 12 times a month. But it was a baby farm and THEY HIT MY KID. I was livid. (I have since heard that this is very unusual.)
Kindergarten is available to all from the April after a kid turns three. It is about 200 dollars a month on average, a bit more or less depending on the extras the place offers and the types of lunches they provide. Private and public seem to be similarly priced.
Of course this is all outside Tokyo where there are gold-plated acadamies with gold-plated prices to match.
I have never used daycare for my second kid because a) we moved to No Jobs Land, so I only teach in my home and at a couple of community centres, and b) second kid is very placid and is happy to join in or just play by himself while I get on with my job. First son got me sacked a few times before he was banished to daycare…
I’m working in Germany; put my daughter in German Kindergarten (e.g., daycare) from 7:30 am to 1:45 pm 5 days/week, including luch; it’s about $200/month. They care for kids age 3 to 6, when they enter 1st grade. “Teaching” philosophy sounds like that in Japan; no formal teaching, but there’s a lot to learn. Bonus was that she is fluent in German now; I love to hear her sing the little songs. I just put this out there for general information.
SG
Boy! These daycare costs sound very expensive. Who’s making all this money? I have a feeling the people who interact directly with the children aren’t making $50,000 a year.
Well, Medstar, my daycare person gets approximately 144,000 to 172,000 per year. (She can have up to 12 kids.) She runs the daycare out of her house, so out of this money she has to pay herself, two full-time assistants, insurance, and supplies. There may licensing fees, as well. Against this she can probably balance some deductions based on using her home as a place of business. So, yes, she very possibly is making something like that much.