How to Decide on Child Care

My wife and I are trying to figure out how to narrow down our child care options. We’re lucky enough to have able and willing grandparents on both sides ready to help when we go back to work. But I feel like an actual day care would be more beneficial to our child’s development. My wife prefers a nanny to reduce the likelihood of getting sick a lot. Is there any data or guidance that can help us?

–Paula

With all parents going back to work, child care generally comes in one of three forms:

Child care in a child care center or home care center
A nanny (or nanny share)
Grandparents or other family members as caregivers

The overall data suggests that there are limited differences for child outcomes across these options. Which is great! But it means data isn’t going to make this decision for you. This is a great place to pull out the “Four Fs” framework. Here we go…

Frame the question. What are the actual options available to you for child care? Unfortunately, given the somewhat problematic child care situation in the U.S., it is possible that center-based child care simply isn’t available, at least in the short term. Grandparents or family members as caregivers are definitely not available to everyone. A nanny share can be awesome, but it requires someone to share it with. There is value at this point in concretely outlining the set of options you realistically have on the table before evaluating.

Fact-find. The important differences across these options are likely to be (1) cost and (2) logistics. Nannies are, on average, more expensive than center-based care (and home-based child care tends to be less expensive than more formal center-based care). All options have complicated logistics — drop-off and pickup versus having child care at home; what happens when the kid is sick; what happens if the nanny or grandparent is sick. It’s useful to think through these. If you are two doctors who will be on call at the same time, going down the tree of what will happen when someone is ill is very important, and may influence your choices here.

Final decision. Make a decision! You’ve got, in expectation, about 19 weeks (plus your leave, if you have it). Center-based child care may need to be locked in now. You have more time if you are looking to find a nanny, although establishing how you are going to do that is useful to do sooner rather than later.

Follow up. Whatever child care situation you settle on you will be somewhat locked into for at least some period of time. But not forever! Plan a time to revisit it, once the baby has arrived and you’ve got a little time under your belt, to see if you need to pivot.