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I have a sahm watch my two. She has a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old. My Los are almost 3 and 3 months. It's been a great experience. She's taken one sick day in 1.5 years, she's always open when we need her, she has become a good friend, my lo loves her and her kids. She's also very reasonably priced

Following because this is the route we are planning to go as well. An older lady in our neighborhood has been watching babies for the past 20 years and she is only 3 blocks away from us so super convenient!

Starting this week a sahm will be watching my daughter in her home 2x/week. She is charging me $10/hour and will only have her 17 month old and my DD (16 months). Occasionally she may have another baby who is 12 months but said if I wasn't comfortable with it she wouldn't have him on my days. 5 kids at once in an unregulated environment would make me a bit nervous. My daughter has gone twice already to transition and it went really well. I love that she has a playmate since she will be with my Inlaws the other 3 days. The house is less than a mile from work which makes the commute easier for me and they will be able to walk down to my office for visits at lunch! She is a former teacher and her husband works at the same hospital I do, which is nice. I can actually see my husband and I becoming good friends with them as well, which is nice!

We do and she is amazing! I love that she has 5he freedom to take the kids to do fun things because it is just her kids and my son. I love that there are less sicknesses because of less kids. I love that he is with mixed ages (he is 2 and her sons are 3 and 6). Mostly I love that she is a mom too and was also a teacher and we have a lot in common. I can talk to her about things I'm seeing and we can brainstorm solutions together because she knows my kid....dh and I can do that too but it's not the same. I think having a small care situation has been ideal for us. C starts preschool 2 days per week in the fall and I'm trying to find a way for her to still watch him one other morning because he loves going there so much.

@lady grey: we pay a totally reasonable amount...$30 for 4 hours, which is probably the most I would pay for care in this situation. As a frame of reference I will pay $15 per day for 3 hours at a local church preschool where there will be 10 kids in his class with 2 teachers. So I'm paying more than I would for preschool and less than for a nanny, which would probably be $10 per hour for one on one.

@lady grey: Definitely ask! On days that she is watching multiple kids I don't think it makes sense to pay the same you would for a one-on-one sitter. As a comparison, I had a sitter watch LO & three other kids in my home one day. We paid her $20/hour which comes out to $5/kid. I would have paid her $10/hour if it were just LO.

I would also have some concerns about the number of kids. You should double check your state's regulations about what constitutes an in-home daycare that needs to be regulated.

5 kids with no licensure would make me extremely uncomfortable. I'm also just generally not comfortable with someone watching my kid while also watching their own kid. Basic instinct will have her prioritizing her own children. It one of the reasons our day care (and heck most schools for that matter) won't allow students to be in their parents class.

@Mrs. Lion: Agreed. We have had many childcare set ups over the last year. Grandma care, two different daycares (we had to add a second one short-term when my mom was injured and our first daycare didn't have any more days open), multiple babysitters, attempting to work with LO at home (that was the worst, haha!). So I am kind of an expert

We LOVE our daycare and of course I love my mom. But, actually, if I could go back and do it again, I would have had the SAHM sitter that we used as a fill-in over all those other set ups for so many reasons. She is such a loving person and I 100% felt like she treated my daughter like family when she was there. I saw how she prioritized LO over her own child at times. When LO was there, she worked around her nap and feeding schedule and had her son adjust to that rather than the other way around. She did all the activities LO does at daycare and often better - she has a very Montessori style home for her own son. LO got the socialization of being with another child her age without the inevitable chaos of daycare (even though our school's classes are very small and they have the lowest ratios around). She was more communicative and accountable than anyone else we have had watch LO. She had been a working mom and took the trust we put in her so seriously - it makes me emotional to think of it now. I felt I had a family member watching her but without some of the awkwardness my mom and I have had at brief moments. And she was very flexible, affordable, and right down the street.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the person. You can have a great daycare but your teacher isn't great. You can have the perfect set up with an in-home sitter but if she's isn't great then of course all the other factors matter so much less.

If you have any misgivings now, though, honestly I would say that is all you need to know. Good luck! Childcare is so hard.

@lady grey: I had a SAHM of three watch my son full time when he was tiny, 3 months old - 12 months. It was mostly great. She home schooled her older kids (10, 8 & 7) and they loved the baby! The only issue for us was that my son was in the car a lot in the afternoon being carted to the other kids activities/practices. It was OK when he was a baby, but I wasn't cool with it when he was older, but it was great for short term.