Let's talk about daycare quality!

hulahooper

New member
EDIT: below, I incorrectly cited the California minimum staffing ratio as 4:1 for infants (0 to 18 months). In fact, it is 3:1, the research-recommended ratio, as is correctly noted by a couple of commenters. 4:1 begins at 18 months until 36 months; 8:1 from 3 years to kindergarten.

Hello all,

I see that discussions of daycare occur on this sub almost daily. Things often get very heated very quickly, with a theme of parents feeling intensely judged or defensive for their decisions around daycare, particularly to enroll their children full time daycare as infants. There are also frequent posts of parents feeling very sad or guilty for enrolling their kids in daycare.

My son is about to start daycare for the first time - he's a year and a half. I have a background in psych and work in child mental health, so I've been doing a lot of research as part of my process for preparing for this big transition, to feel like I'm armed with the information I need to feel good about my choices. I thought it might be helpful to share some of that information with you all, since this is such a frequent topic of discussion. Research indicates that parents are not always accurate in gauging the quality of the care their children are in, so it's a topic well worth exploring.

From what I've found, research indicates that daycare quality is the most important factor in the daycare's impact on child development. This means it is more important than the number of hours in care, or the type of care (center based or in home, for example). As a rule of thumb, for children in early, extensive hours in daycare (more than twenty hours per week, younger than a year of age), quality of the care becomes extremely important in mediating whether the daycare will be a positive or negative impact on the children. For those of us who have safe homes and are able to be warm, response parents, high quality daycare can have modest positive impacts for our children. For those of us who experience violence, significant substance use, or are not able to provide warm, responsive parenting to our children, high quality daycare can provide particularly important benefits.

Interestingly, studies show that children of families who are highest income and lowest income are more likely to be in high quality care, where as middle income families are less likely to be in high quality care.

So let's think about what quality daycare entails. Primarily, it means that caregivers are providing warm, responsive and sensitive care - very similar to what is involved in high quality parenting. This is far more important than the kind of facilities offered (outdoor play etc), or the curriculum, or the philosophy of care (montessori vs reggio-emilia etc; although generally, child-centered & emergent curriculums are most aligned with child development research). Basically, what that means is that the people who provide care to your child are more important in determining the quality of the care given than what food they offer, the schedules, the toys they have, the activities they do, etc. There are a few factors outlined by research to be particularly important to the quality of care:

- group size and ratio of adults to children

- caregiver characteristics (education, attitude towards children, feelings about their job)

- caregiver stability (turnover)

The first, group size and ratio of adults to children, seems to be the most important factor of all. For infants, a ratio of no more than 3 children to 1 adult is one of the best predictors of high quality care for the children. Similarly, a smaller overall group of children seems to positively impact the quality of care.

For those of you evaluating daycares for your infants, make the infant to adult ratio a number one question. State standards vary, but often state standards are slightly higher than what research recommends. For California, for instance, the state requires one adult to every three babies under age eighteen months, which aligns with the research I have done, but these standards vary widely by state.

Secondly, research indicates that the caregivers/teachers feelings and background matter a lot. For instance, caregivers who are more child-centric and less authoritative in their attitudes provide warmer and better care. Secondly, education and training in child development clearly benefits their quality of care. Finally, caregivers who choose this as a career rather than a default or backup option of employment provide better care. Interesting, years of experience is not very meaningful in predicting quality of care provided.

Finally, turnover is a major factor impacting quality of care. Turnover tends to be very high in childcare centers, and it decreases the quality of care and disrupts the relationships among the children and their caregivers. Turnover tends to be closely linked to pay. Childcare workers are amongst the worst paid professions in the US. So, when evaluating daycares, ask about turnover and fair wages. Higher wages are linked to happier, more stable caregivers. In terms of child development, it is far better to have well paid workers than nice facilities.

So, to summarize: quality childcare is very important for babies and young children. To find quality care, look for:

- programs with low child to adult ratio (3:1 or better for babies)

- small group sizes

- long term, well paid, educated workers

Hope this may be helpful to some of you! My hope is that some research and information can help clarify and de-escalate some of the conversations that go on here in this sub around daycare.

Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225555/

https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/hdfs/fii/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/s_mifis01c03.pdf

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01021.x
 
@hulahooper I don’t know how people even talk about doing a lot of research to choose a daycare. You don’t choose the daycare. You pray and pray for one to be finally available and you send your child to whichever one is.
 
@demonslayer410 They didn’t explicitly say that. But based on wait lists of 6 months to a year, that’s basically what the order of operations would have to be.

The daycare we ended up using was the only daycare with a spot available by the time I had to return to work.
 
@demonslayer410 Can confirm with 4inAM. I tried contacting day cares when I was 3 months pregnant, looking for infant care 12 months out (when LO would be 6 months). Several places told me they had an 18 month wait list for infant care 😑
 
@midddeb Wr called 7 places alone today to secure a spot for our baby due in October. One place charged $590 just to be added to the wait-list, and there was still no guarantee that there'd be an opening 🙃
 
@jdi12 All of the other ones were $150-200ish. This isn't even a high cost of living area. We moved FROM a high cost of living area and literally had never had a problem finding childcare, lol. Sigh.
 
@hulahooper Is it really useful information though? I don’t know about in the US but in Canada, a 1:3 ratio would mean a nanny or a nanny share. Very few people can afford that. So really you’re just making people feel worse about their daycare decisions.
 
@jwd I think yes - it’s useful to know what to look for even if you can’t always provide it.

Like - it’s useful for me to know that cooking whole healthy foods from scratch is optimal for nutrition even though I work and my kids get dinner out of a bag at least 1 out of 3 nights. Am I going to guilt trip myself over it? No. Should I just pretend to myself it’s super healthy and the best choice? Also no. It’s okay for me to know I’m making that tradeoff.

Knowing what’s optimal can help me make trade offs (maybe I choose a home daycare over a center because they intentionally stay lower ratio when before I thought I’d prefer a center) and can also help me understand and push for the kind of legislation and support structure that makes things better for all kids.
 
@guevaraj This is wonderful, and stated so much better than I could exactly how I feel about it. There's tons of things - healthy food not least - that I've knowingly not done according to best practice or evidence base with parenting. But feeling like I know what choices I'm making is a lot better for me than feeling like I'm just going on my gut or doing what my parents did or whatever it is that guides our decisions when we don't have the information.
 
@jwd In California, all infant rooms are required to be 1:3. They can be 1:4 if mixed age.

IMO, while some of this is an individual parent problem, a lot of this should be a “call your legislator and demand better” kinda thing.
 
@guevaraj How though? Daycare centres are already hemorrhaging staff, not just in Canada but also in the US. Centres can’t afford to pay untrained staff a decent wage - why would people educated in child development want to work for only slightly better than minimum wage? And that’s already at ratios that are higher than recommended.

In Canada, childcare is already heavily subsidized by the government. My families pay less than $23/day. Wages are subsidized. We also have 12-18 months maternity leave. And yet STILL there are not nearly enough licensed childcare spaces to fulfill the need, and centres are closing rooms due to lack of staff. As @midddeb said, you don’t research childcare - you pray you get a spot and are thankful.
 
@jwd My real opinion is you make it a part of the public school system and fund it the same way, daycare workers unionize (not sure if they already are in Canada, they certainly aren’t here), you keep paying more until you find market equilibrium to attract and retain high quality talent and you mandate the ratios we know are good for kids because that’s a long term investment. That’s a bit of a pipe dream though, at least in the US, because the way you fund that is you socialize it.
 
@guevaraj This is what I’ve been saying too. There is no reason that those who care your young children should make $15k while those who care for slightly older children make $40k.

If all of us who care for other people’s children in centers/schools were all in the same union, working for the same wages - that would dramatically increase the pay and quality of care and make spots guaranteed.

I do worry that class caps would be ignored, just like they are in public schools. There are centers in my area that are consistently over ratio though, so maybe it’s a wash?
 
@jwd I think it's a bit unfair to say I'm making people feel worse about their daycare decisions. I'm not making people do anything. I'm only the sharing the research I've done; people who feel they don't have options, and knowing more about the research around daycare would only make them feel bad, can choose not to read my post.
 
@midddeb This can be of great importance to families who have few daycare options. If families are better at evaluating daycares, then they will be better equipped to have trade off conversations. Maybe daycare isn't the best option. Maybe one parent needs to stay home, get a different job with different hours, maybe they need to look into a nanny or au pair, maybe they need to start asking family for help, maybe they need to move to a new area with better daycare options, maybe this affects their decision to have more children.
 
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