Infant Daycare near PowderHouse/Davis/Ball/Teele

[fortlotus.livejournal.com]

Like most new parents in MA, I've got serious sticker shock over the cost of daycare, especially at larger facilities (as opposed to home daycare). I'd really like to send my future baby to daycare in the neighborhood, just to avoid having to take an infant onto the T.

Bright Horizons and Kindercare are seriously expensive. Looking at the State directory of daycares, I see that some of the in-home ones are easily half the cost.

My question is: Have any of you used in-home daycare in or around Davis Sq? If so, where did you send your child, and would you recommend the place to others?

I would appreciate any additional thoughts or tips that you might have. Thanks, everyone!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

While it's not strictly speaking in and around Davis, we've sent both kids (now 6, and nearly 2) to the same home-based daycare all the way through. (Candyland Adventures, up near the VNA/Armory area.) And it's been a good experience. The small size is really often a very nice aspect in terms of attention and so on. (Plus, fewer other kids to share germs with!)

I'd definitely recommend visiting before enrolling, getting a sense of the provider's experience and making sure you feel like you have a good rapport with them, etc - it's a more personal relationship than I've gotten the impression that a larger center provides, which can have both pro's and con's.

Make sure to ask about vacation policies - unlike a center, a sole provider will almost certainly have more "closed" days over the course of the year (they do, after all, deserve time off and need personal days now and then, plus they're required to have "professional development" classes for certification, which also means occasional half-days or closed-days). In our case, it's been announced long in advance so we could plan around them, and it's been reasonable numbers of days.

Also check on anything in specific that matters to you, to be sure they're up for handling it - cloth diapers if you go that route, vegetarian diet if you happen to be vegetarian, whatever. Often they're quite able to accommodate things like that, where a center might balk at the idea of cloth diapers, for instance.

Good luck, and congrats on the new arrival!