Choosing the right daycare

Tweet

My baby is now 8 months old, and one of the biggest hurdles has been paying for and trusting a daycare facility. I had to go back to work when he was just 4 weeks old. I found a woman to watch him in her home for only $20 per day. She was awesome. I never worried about him when he was with her. I never had a problem paying for it. She had some serious family issues she had to deal with out of the country, so when my baby was 8 weeks old I had to search for somewhere else. I only had 1 month of peace. Everywhere I searched was so expensive. I am a single parent so paying $200 per week was not something that I was able to do. Then I found a wonderful place. It cost $145 per week. They were catered towards families who did not have a high income. If I had trouble paying for a week, they would let me pay late. He stayed there until he was 6 months old. After that I found a new job 40 miles a way. I needed the new job. It has perfect hours for me. I go to work at 7 am. This sparked a new daycare problem, however. Since his old daycare opened up at 6:30 am, I would not have made it to work on time, so I had to switch again. I started my search again. This time posed a big problem. The area where I work only has those daycares which charge around $200 per week. I got the new job, but it did not matter that I was making more money because I was paying so much more monthly in daycare. Yesterday I realized that I had to take him out of the day care that I really could not afford anyway. They were not taking of my baby very well. I would pick him up at 4 and the last time he had eaten would have been at 10 am. So a girl I work with referred me to a woman who watches children in her home. She said she is awesome with babies. She also only charges $25 per day!!!!! So I went to her house to check it out- boy was I disappointed. Her house was trashed. Her house was not baby proof. Everything was sooooooo messy. She had dogs and cats running around everywhere. I can't send my baby there. IO don't know what to do. I need help. I know that price shouldn't be the first thing I look for, but I only make so much money. I need my baby to be taken care of properly. How can I find the right daycre????