Hellobee Boards

Interested to see the responses. I'm planning to start looking for jobs a couple months before I anticipate any openings at the centers we are waiting for. I figure I can tell the job a start date more easily than I can tell the childcare. Our back up is an in home provider who is flexible.

Have you asked the childcare if you can identify a start date- maybe they would hold your spot for a couple weeks which might give you an opportunity to get further along in your job search?

My situation was a little bit different. I was applying for a civil service job, and kept him at home while I was taking the exams, and my ILs watched him while I went for the interview. It ended up being a two-month process, but most of it was just waiting.

In the meantime, I made a list of daycares we were interested in, but because I was on the list for 6 counties we really had to wait until I had an offer somewhere and just hope that one of the centers on our list for that area had an opening, because D works non-traditional hours and we wanted E's center to be close to wherever I ended up.

We were really, really lucky, because as soon as I got the call telling me that I would be offered a job pending official state approval I called the first one on our list for that area, and they had an immediate opening. He starts on Monday. The way things turned out I would have been had a month or so to find child care, though.

I think if you can swing it financially and this is the place you really want to put him I'd go ahead and enroll him now.

I'm not working until my youngest is in kindergarten. But if I had to I would find a job first. I have family here to help.