Just recently my daughter had her very first child. She had the first three months off for maternity leave from work, but after that was intending to go back full time. Of course when she does start back to work she is going to need to find child care for her new baby, talking to co-workers she found out good child care providers can be difficult to find. She preferred that her baby find a place in a home setting so she began her search calling child care providers licensed by the local social services agency.



She started by calling social services and asking for the list of child care providers that are in her area. What she was told was a big surprise to her, she was going to have to pay for the list. Since social services actually charges for the list it is quite extensive. It lists names, phone numbers, addresses, and the details from their license. Some of the details included are how many children they're licensed to care for as well as the names of any child care aids in their employ. She brought the list over to my house and we started the search looking for the right child care provider for her new baby.

Our first step was finding child care providers on the list that were close to her home. Most of the day cares were either full or were already caring for a young baby. Child care providers care allowed to only care for 2 infants at a time. When we spoke with one provider she told us that she had an opening in approximately six months, and we could go on the waiting list. My daughter agreed, but now she had to find an interim solution for those six months. We found someone with an opening , how ever it was in the opposite direction that my daughter must travel each morning to work. While this was going to add on an additional 40 minutes in the morning and afternoon to her commute she was running out of options. She had no idea it would be so difficult finding a child care provider, if she had she would've started the process a lot earlier.

After spending 2 weeks driving the additional distance every morning and night, trying her best to adjust to getting herself and the baby ready in the morning my daughter decided their must be a better scenario then this. Then it was suggested to her to try a day care center, at least until the opening in her area for the infant opened up. There was a day care center very close to her office, only 3 blocks away. She took the time to drop by and visit the center and was very pleased with the level of care taken with the kids. Also she'd be able to go see the baby on her lunch hour every day because of the location. She decided to give the day care a try. After only a month she was so happy with the situation she decided to remove her name from the nearby child care provider in her neighborhood and just rely on the day care center.