Unofficial State of Childcare in the East Bay 2021

Nanny vs. nanny share vs. daycare vs. try to work from home with a crying baby?

Unofficial stats based on 4 months of searching for daycares and nannies via Berkeley Parent Network, Care.com, Bananas, and an agency.

Daycare

I've looked at some contracts for in-home daycares in the area and had informational interviews with some. My neighbor, who runs an in-home daycare for older kids, said the California state licensing agency has advised daycares to update their contracts to include phrases about sending kids home if they seem lethargic or have a runny nose or cough. This is an update, from what I understand, to the previous policy of sending them home only in case of fever, diarrhea, or vomiting. 

There is also an expected 2 week quarantine period if you travel out of state and three days quarantine after the disappearance of cold or flu symptoms in your child.

If you're working full-time at an average M-F, 9-5 job and travel an average amount, you'd be able to send your child to daycare less 50% of the time you need daycare. 50%!

Here's how I calculated the number of days without childcare coverage:

• If we go more than 120 miles away 4x year (to visit a relative or stay at an Airbnb), that's 8 weeks of no daycare coverage due to quarantining afterwards. So 40 working days of no childcare due to traveling.
• 7 colds lasting 10-14 days plus 3 days of quarantine after. That is 119 days, so with weekends (34 days) excluded, 85 days of no childcare.
• 3 stomach bugs per year, lasting 10 days, minus 8 weekend days, is 22 days of no childcare.
• Total days without daycare coverage = 140 days of no childcare coverage out of 261 working days in a calendar year.

During non-coronavirus times, it'd be more like just 22 days of no childcare because they don't send kids home for colds or traveling out of state.

Summary: With COVID- 19 policies, daycares have restrictions that would leave you without childcare more than 50% of the time. This is only true, of course, if daycares follow through on what their contracts say, how often your child gets a cold, and whether parents also quarantine as the daycare contracts advise.

 

I'd be curious to know what people have seen!

Working from home with a crying baby

I've heard of some moms saying they worked from home full-time until their baby was about 8-9 months, at which point it needed more attention. I think this scenario sounds nice, and doesn't work for me! Not sure about ya'll, but my job requires me to run meetings pretty often, and my baby eats and sleeps in frequent, short bursts, and I also don't have enough clout to do whatever I want at work. If you have a job that involves few meetings and/or your baby is super chill and/or your coworkers are flexible, maybe it could work. Maybe it has to work, if you don't have other options. If so, I feel for you!

Nanny & Nanny Share

Care.com & Berkeley Parent Network rates

If you'd like a nanny who has experience watching infants and has done a nanny share before, you're looking at the following rates. This is what about a dozen people have asked for:

• $25/hour for single baby
• $30/hour for two babies

Should I use an agency?

If you're going through an agency, apparently nannies expect more for an infant! We didn't find this out until we already made one nanny an offer. The agency wasn't open to helping us arrange a nanny share. The agency also charges a registration fee of a few hundred dollars plus a one time finder's fee of 18% of the nanny's annual salary.

Costs:

• $27-28/hour very minimum rate for one infant
• $250 registration fee
• 18% of nanny's salary as a finder's fee

So what are agencies good for? Ours was pretty good at feeding us very qualified candidates. They tried to be helpful at coaching us to run interviews and they "helped" setup the interviews through super long email threads (very inefficient). They failed us in a couple areas. First, they matched us with people who ended up wanting a higher salary than we could pay because apparently the agency had outdated paperwork for some of their nannies. At least that's what they said. So an agency is great if your goal is quality childcare, minimum searching effort on your part, and you're ok with nannies wanting at least $28/hour at bare minimum for an infant. They will likely want more than that and will negotiate up and will be used to working with families that give them time and a half for overtime and large holiday bonuses.

Does anyone charge less than $25/hour?

If you'd like to pay less than $25/hour for your baby, either the nanny won't have experience watching infants or won't have done a nanny share before, or both, or might be extremely new to speaking English. There are some really promising college-aged and late 20's/early 30's nannies out there we interviewed who seem polished, responsible, and also a little inexperienced. I'm sure they can thrive with clear directions.

Should I pay cash or on the books?

80% of nannies will ask for cash. If you want to pay over the table, you will have to filter heavily and your pool of candidates will be much smaller. Read this article to learn why.

In a more ideal world, what kind of childcare do you need?

What kind of manager you are, in my opinion, is linked with what kind of childcare you'll thrive with. After interviewing a few dozen nannies and doing 7 trial days over the last few months and also interviewing with some daycares, here is my rudimentary understanding of how to choose a nanny or you could substitute other kinds of childcare for the word "nanny" in the diagram below.

In practical terms, this means you have to find out, probably through trial and error, whether you want to be the one deciding your child's schedule, food, education, etc. or whether you'd like someone to do that for you. I found out, to my surprise, that I want to be the boss parent, but not like a super boss. I want a childcare provider that will go with my requests, and also make proposals if they have an idea. I figured this out by doing trial days with nannies that didn't make any suggestions at all, and those who were so firm in their convictions of what my baby's schedule *should* be that they wouldn't listen to me at all. I didn't like either extreme. However, there are some parent(s) who prefer a "boss nanny" who is essentially a governess and can run the kids lives with minimal input needed from the parent(s).