We’re starting our first week of childcare this week. It’s in an accredited (or evaluated by the Health Board) private day care in a residential setting. No one actually lives in the house, though.
There are about 8 or 9 kids, two full time teachers and one helper (part time, I think she comes for meals and pick up). They get a morning snack (juice, toast, fruit), a hot lunch and a snack in the afternoon. We have to provide diapers and wipes.
It’s costing us 115Euros a week. That’s about 115USDollars. It’s open from 9-5.30pm, Mondays through Fridays. It’s the same price no matter what age the children are.
You have to pay for all 52 weeks in the year, even the week between Xmas and New Year’s when they’re not even open! If you miss a day (or week) you still have to pay.
115E seems to be the normal price around here. How much do you pay for child care? Please include your child’s age, the setting and the hours. Just wondering if that is expensive as it sounds.
That doesn’t seem too expensive to me…although I would object to paying for a week when they aren’t open.
I have a 4 1/2 month old, who goes to a daycare center. She is in the Infant room, with 7 other babies (but not all are there at the same time), and 2 or 3 teachers at a time (depending on how many babies are there).
My daughter is there 8 am- 6 pm and it is $45.00 a day, so $4.50 an hour. The cost will go down when she gets older. I provide bottles, diapers and wipes. They will provide food when she starts eating. I still have to pay when she is out for a sick day, but can take 2 weeks “vacation” without paying.
A friend of mine paid $125 per child for 6am - 4pm, parents had to take turns bringing in healthy snacks every week or a surcharge. Had to supply diapers and milk.
We pay $125 US, and that’s cheap around here - usually around $175 or so. Licensed home daycare, with activities program (she does a developmentally-appropriate lesson plan/activities plan for each child, and when the center is full, she has musicians and puppetteers come in, too). She’s also open longer than that - 7 AM to 5:30 PM.
She gets two weeks paid vacation and holidays (center closed, we pay) and we get a week’s vacation (we don’t pay if our son isn’t there), and if we’re going to be gone a while for some reason (illness, etc.), we only pay a portion of the fee to hold his spot. I don’t mind the vacation pay - I’d want it if it was me doing the work, and I like the other arrangements. Bonus, she never closes for almost any reason - snow, sleet, etc., she’s always there.
Plus, the boys love her. (used her for our first, too)
The daycare Aaron goes to is a subsidized Army center at the local post. Right now, it’s costing us $129 every two weeks, but it’s sliding scale, so it increases when I’m working.
He’s got stable providers (these women have seen kids start in the infant room, progress to the pre-toddlers, then the toddlers), and they are either certified or working towards it. They plan for different activities for the kids that are developmentally and age-appropriate, but take into account each child’s schedule, so they don’t wake anyone up because it’s music time, or whatever. They also have different programs for parents on different topics like dental health for young kids and the like.
The fee pays for the staff and for meals, but I provide his formula. (The center uses Carnation Good Start, and I’m against Nestle’s corporate politics.) We get ten days free leave per year, but if Aaron needs to be out either because of an illness that the center requires him to be home for, or because the center is closed for weather, we get credited for that. I also love the center because they’re flexible with their hours, so it’s great when Aaron has a doctor’s appointment; there is no “cut-off” time, and I can pick him up as my schedule dictates.
$190 a week for my 3 1/2 year old in a residential care setting. We pay our provider for 50 weeks a year. The other two weeks include one week of vacation and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. If Cranky Jr. is sick or we go on vacation, we still pay her. I think that’s fair enough–she deserves to be guaranteed a certain level of wages.
She’s open from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, although none of the kids are ever there that entire time. She provides food (and I believe she gets help with that via a state or federal program that targets daycare settings). We provide diapers and formula or breastmilk (back when that was required). The price was the same when he was a baby, BTW.
We have a lady come to our house four days a week, 8:30 - 4:30. I’m thinking she’s paid about $250 US and gets 3 weeks off a year, usually coinciding with our schedule.
Wow Anahita. That sounds pretty cheap to me. I don’t have any children in day care so I don’t know how much it “should” cost. But, they must not be making very much money working in childcare.
$115 X 9 Kids X 52 weeks = $53,820 a year in gross income for the place before any expenses. A house, three workers, free lunch and breakfast. Wow.
$400 a week when our daughter was young (18 months).
But it was worth it, we loved the place and the people who ran it. They did much more that somply look after the children, they had engaging activities planned for the whole day as well as hot meals.
Don’t you think that it is even less that that Shirley? The OP said that no one even lives in the house so all the the house expenses are just for the day care. Rent or mortgage, taxes, up keep, etc. Plus toys, at least one employee, office type supplies, cleaning supplies (don’t day cares have to disinfect everything?) accountant fees if they have one…gosh, I could spend that $53,000 for the just off the top of my head.
Private care in a woman’s home for $150 a week for my three (soon to be four) year old son. She’s a God send. Doesn’t require me to keep a strict schedule (though obviously a reasonable one) so if I’m fifteen minutes late coming out of the office due to something I don’t have to worry about her charging me an extra $5 a minute or something. Is willing to watch him late or on a Saturday if need be, doesn’t charge for days he’s not there for any reason, feeds him better meals than I ever could and has kids of her own near his age who he plays with. Heck, she even takes him (and her kids) to places like Chuck-E-Cheese on occassion and picks up the tab without expecting me to pay for anything. Plus she’s about two minutes off my route to/from work. I couldn’t ask for better.
His old sitter was about the opposite. $150 but the usual bits about not being more than five minutes late to pick up, pay each week in advance, have to pay each week no matter what (and she reserved a floating week for herself for vacation I still had to pay for), etc etc. Certainly it’s her right to run her business as she wants, but I’m glad to be away from all that.
It just went up this year and my mother who is the director of the childcare centre nearly had a nervous breakdown over how much more to charge. I pay about $AUD90 a month. That’s $45 US roughly. P the Younger is there 5 days a week with all meals provided. I do provide a lot of food as he eats gluten free food. He also has a fulltime aide paid for by Playcare although the centre subsidises her wages.
Obviously this is heavily subsidised by the government. It’s also means tested so the more you earn, the more you pay. Off the top of my head I think our centre’s highest rate is $160 a week but I could be wrong about that.
For before/after school, 5 days every other week (2 one week, 3 another- I telecommute and on the days I am home I drive her to school), I pay $102 every other week. This includes breakfast and snack.
On release days I pay an additional $19 if she is there.
We get one week of vacation from Sept 1st - Aug 31st.
Pick up/ drop off anywhere between 6:20am and 6pm.
And they have very few closed days (Xmas Day, NY Day, etc).
It is in a center, which has it’s ups and downs. Sadly, the pay for the teachers is not that great, so there is a fair amount of turnovers in staff. But, when school is out (either lone release day or vacation) they have excellent mini-sessions with field trips, speakers, etc.
Totnak (just turned 3) attends a Montessori toddler program, which is open from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm. There are 12 kids. At least 3 teachers are always present, sometimes 4. Parents have to send lunch and a snack for their own child, and a serving of fruit to be cut up and shared, every day, and provide diapers and wipes for kids who still need them. The school provides milk and the ingredients for the kids to cook or bake something to share once a week. For this we pay the equivalent of US$550 a month.
Flodjunior’s school (a private Montessori school - same building as totnak’s preschool in fact) provides afterschool care from the end of the school day (3 pm Mon-Thur, 1 pm on Friday) until 4:45pm. Milk is provided, they have to have their own snacks. This costs about US$20 a week, more during school vacations when it’s available all day.
Just to clarify, I believe the creche gets some money from the government to help subsidize insurance, etc. I guess it’s not as expensive as I thought!
Today was her first day and she did much better than I could’ve hoped. She even held the teacher’s hand and walked off with her. Yay!
I (we) pay approx. €85 per month for kindergarten for Coilgirl. She only goes there 30 hrs per week which makes it a little bit cheaper than if she was there full time.
There are about 10-12 children in my daughters group and 2.5 teachers.
€85 per month is quite cheap and of course does not cover the cost. The rest we pay via taxes (which are quite high).
A local woman looks after our eight month old daughter for the princely sum of €85 per week. She minds her in her own home so it’s not a proper creche but she’s great with the little one and came highly recommended by our neighbours. By Dublin standards (usually €150-€200 per month), it’s very cheap.
