Recently, couple of readers asked me about my experience finding a childcare for my daughter. So decided to write this article to share our journey and our method to this madness for finding the right care for our Angel; Siya! This article is long so I have broken it down in two sub-articles:
-
Part 1 – Deciding the type of Care
-
Part 2 – 3-step selection process
It’s been a year now and we couldn’t be happier with our choice but I remember the anxiety, the stress and the madness we went through to get our choice of care.
Little did W3 knew that just like anything else, NYC has over hundreds of options available for care ranging from; day-care, 3rd party home care, student care, family care, au pair and nanny care. Each care option in its own merit is amazing; the key is that it should work for your family and your child.
So where does one start, is a question lot of people have just like we did. We followed the below 4 steps to decode this complex, tiring but most important process; choosing the right care for your child.
Part 1 – Deciding the type of Care
Step 1 – Back to Basics
We started our journey by identifying 5 basic questions and ranking the cares we were interested in against it:
- Safety – Safety and security is paramount; How does the caregiver fit this requirement?
- Credentials – What do we want out of our caregiver including # of children in care, education, experience, curriculum, routine?
- Flexibility – How long do we want our caregiver to be available ? What happens on holidays and vacation days?
- Exposure – What do we want Siya to do when she is with the caregiver?
- Value – How much would you pay the caregiver and is it worth it?
Our ranking for 5 basic questions
Step 2 – Quick comparison of top choices
We needed a care in the next 2-4 weeks so we didn’t have the luxury of time to vet both our top choices in detail so we came up with key criteria and assigned a value to identify our preferred option. As you can see from the comparison below, Nanny-care is what we choose.
Our value assignment for top two choices
Part 2 will share with you what happens next in our journey; where we go through a 3-step selection process to narrow down from 200+ applicants to 1 nanny that is right for our family.
Additional Resources
These are some additional links that talk about different type of cares of your kids and regulations.
- List of different types of care and what they are
Little Did W3 Knew 