Questions about daycare

DH and I are trying to figure out what we will be doing after the baby is born. In a perfect world, we will win the lottery. I get no paid maternity leave, so we will find out early if we can afford me being at home. (We have no family here)

Here are my questions:
----Approximately, how much can day care run per week? (I know this can vary greatly, but I'm just looking for a ballpark figure.)

-----Can we change the daycare schedule every week? We both are shift workers and our days off change every week, along with our hours. Are there daycares that do off hours? Are there 24 hour daycares? We got into the worst field for babies.

I know you're probably thinking I've gone absolutely insane. But our hours shift from 1st, 2nd and 3rd shifts. How flexible is daycare? What do doctors and nurses do?

Message edited 1/4/2007 11:46:05 AM.

Re: Questions about daycare

Yikes...you are definitely going to run into problems with standard day care centers because of your changing shifts.

Most daycares are open from around 7am ish to about 7pm. They usually aren't happy about taking part timers or things like that because they feel it's disruptive for the child and the other children in the day care but there are definitely some out there that are more flexible.

As for price range, expect to pay $1000 - $1400 a month for full time day care at a center. If you hire a nanny or sitter, expect to pay significantly more.

I think your best bet is to hire a sitter that can accomodate your schedule, but definitely check into all the daycares you can.

Re: Questions about daycare

Our daycare is $240/week for full time. Full time at my daycare is 4 or 5 days a week from 7am to 630pm (we use less hours but those are the general hours). I would imagine some daycares would be flexible, start calling and asking around. It's never too early to start looking.

Re: Questions about daycare

I agree with the above posters. Most daycares operate from 6AM-6 or 7PM.
Have you thought of maybe a nanny?

Re: Questions about daycare

Re: Questions about daycare

I know it is not ideal, but can you and DH work opposite shifts sometimes?

Besides that I am not sure what else you could do, but I would start your research ASAP.

Re: Questions about daycare

Thank you for your thoughts ladies!!!! I wish we worked at the same place and could work our shifts around each other. We have a lot to think about.

Re: Questions about daycare

I had my daughter in 2 day a week care for 6 months, because I was able to work from home with her. So you can find P/T care if you try. But her days were set, not moved around because they had other children and they can only have a certain number of children on each day.
Full time care is $1K-$1500 on Long Island. Since you pay for the hours they don't generally care if you pick up at 3pm or5pm. With an infant room there is no "class" so it does not distrupt any schedule or anything. But I don't know any that has such off hours for a doctor or nurse.
Can you ask other nurses? DaniRN is a nurse. Maybe she has some ideas.

I have family all near me but they do not watch my daughter so having family close by does not = daycare for everyone.

I also would not want to work different shifts since I would never have family time or see my husband. That is too important to me. But some women love that arrange and it works for them perfectly fine.

Message edited 1/4/2007 2:25:17 PM.