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I haven't really priced it out.

I think a big factor for me would be cost of just a in-home babysitter versus a real in home preschool. Aka is there a classroom like set up or just living space. Is there a curriculum and lessons or just go with the flow of the day. I've seen really cheap in home prices around here but I assume they are more just sitter type services which is understand ly cheaper.

It's about a 45$ difference here. If a center was more convenient/ideal I would totally send her there and not think twice. We use an in home because it's the best for her right now.

We're at our third daycare. The first was a center for $300/wk (cheapest center we found), then an in home for $200/wk that apologized for being expensive, now we're at an in home that charges $250/wk. We moved between daycare one and two. Centers here are $400/wk which we couldn't justify (and the waiting lists were too long so they weren't an option anyway).

Our center is $1675/month and most of the others nearby are more expensive than that. We only looked at one in-home because it is very close to where we live, and it was $1200/month. Both include food once the LOs are on solids. We liked the woman running the in-home, but she was just starting it and that made us a bit wary -- if she'd had it up and running for awhile, we may have gone with it but we didn't want to be guinea pigs with our newborn.

@Mrs. Pen: I think you need to visit both and see which you like better. Personally, I would not make a decision based on cost. I'd base it in where you feel J would be the happiest. Daycare is a temporary expense.

My answer would probably be different at different ages, to be honest. I feel like the deciding factor is age appropriate care.

In an in home center, what are the age ranges of the currently enrolled children? I'd feel less comfortable if my kid was the only infant around a bunch of preschoolers, namely because in my state, the ratio requirements are different if you have all infants versus a mixed room.

I'd also feel oddly if my son were the only toddler with all infants. I really prefer age appropriate segregation in the day care setting as it's easier to deal with all kids being in diapers or all kids using the potty.

Hope that makes sense!

I looked at a couple of home day-cares online. The price difference wasn't insignificant (between $50-$75 less, which isn't a lot for some people, but is a lot for others), but I wasn't impressed by the pictures. I know I should have visited to get a real sense, but the pictures being used (and the descriptions of the sites) made us feel that it would be like going to a babysitter all day. Which would have been fine when he was younger, but at his age now we felt that he would benefit much more from a more structured learning environment. And I really liked the accountability of the director and more than one teacher (all of whom have a least a BA in Early Childhood Education, and several who have a Masters).

The price for the center we went with wasn't outrageous, compared to some I looked at, it's close to my office, we loved it, and E seemed really comfortable there, so it won. He starts on Monday Overall we felt that we would be getting much more bang for our buck with the center.

In my area, in-home daycare is about $90-100/week cheaper than a center. We would have liked to use an in-home daycare but the hours of people recommended to us just wouldn't work with our schedules. Instead, LO will be at the center where I work even though it is much more expensive. But I think the convenience factor will make the cost a little less painful.