Where To Find Child Care Providers

My daughter recently had her first baby. She was able to take three months off of work, but was planning to go back full time at the end of the three months. She had found out from co-workers that child care providers are difficult to find, especially for infants. She wanted to place her baby in a home setting so she began calling child care providers that were licensed by the local county social services agency.

She called social services for the list of child care providers in her area. She was surprised when she was told that she needed to pay for the list. Because social services charges for the list they provide the names of all the child care providers in the area. The list was very extensive. It listed the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the child care providers as well as details of their license. These details included how many children they were licensed to provide care for as well as the names of any child care aids that they employed. My daughter brought the list over to my house so we could find the right home for the baby.

We started by locating child care providers on the list that were close to my daughters home. Several of the day cares were full, or were already caring for an infant. The child care providers are only allowed to have two infants in their care at a time. We called one provider and were told that she would have an opening in six months. This child care was located two blocks from my daughter so the location was perfect. She placed her name on the waiting list for the infant slot. We then tried calling child care providers that would be able to care for the baby for the six months. We found one that was located in the opposite direction from where my daughter works. This was going to add forty five minutes on to her morning and afternoon commute, but she was running out of options. She decided that for the limited time she would make the extensive drive. My daughter had no idea that she would have such a difficult time finding child care providers with openings, or she would have started the process of looking earlier.

After two weeks of driving the extra distance and trying to adjust to getting herself and a baby ready in the morning my daughter decided that she needed to find another option. Her husband suggested using a day care center until the opening occurred in the neighborhood. There was a center located three blocks from my daughter’s work place. She went to visit the center and was pleased to see the care the children were given. She would also be able to go and see the baby during her lunch hour. She decided that she would go with this option. After one month she decided that she liked the center so much, she took her name off of the waiting list with the neighborhood provider.