North Side Daycares? (day cares, neighborhoods, pre-school)

[Lookout Kid]

I'll be having my first child in a few months, and am currently knee deep in daycare research. Though they would be the most convenient in terms of my work life and commute, most of the daycares in the north lakefront neighborhoods or downtown seem to be outrageously priced in the $1500-1800 per month range for a single infant. Right now we're looking at driving our kid west to daycares near the Brown Line to avoid these outrageous costs (we'd park our car and take the Brown Line downtown for work). Can anyone recommend a good infant daycare between Lakeview and the Loop and near public transportation for under $1200 per month? Am I dreaming here?

[Attrill]

Ohhh man.... I think you might be dreaming. My wife and starting looking for daycare for our daughter when my wife was 5 months pregnant (daycare starting when our daughter would be 4 months old) and we were laughed at by some places. Other places wanted a $75 deposit to just be considered. Infant daycare is tough.

That said, in the end we found good daycare at a reasonable price. Have you checked NPN?
http://npnparents.org/
The discussion boards there are a great resource, there are some hardcore trixies on the board, but there is a lot of good info. Craigslist can be good as well.

And congratulations!

[Lookout Kid]

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, my wife's all over the NPN board, but I figured I'd see if the collective knowledge of city-data.com could provide any further insight!

[desibear]

NPN is a great resource. As you have undoubtedly determined, finding reasonable daycare downtown for a reasonable price is the modern day equivalent of the holy grail for new parents. My advice is to bite the bullet and fill out 3 - 4 applications at the varoius day cares and, if you are lucky, you will get admitted to 1 in time. Over time, the costs will go down slightly but not much. As a point of comparison, I paid $379/week for my son when he was under 15 months but that rate dropped to $308/week afterwards. However, the daycare just instituted a raise, so now it is $322/week. Keep in mind that these are all discounted prices that I get for being affliated with Northwestern University. I believe the prices to "general public" are about 5% higher.

Congratulations and good luck! Feel free to PM me if you have any additional questions as I was in your shoes less than 2 years ago.

[Lookout Kid]

Thank you both for the info! Yeah, we're starting to realize that we're just going to have to bite the bullet here. We're on six waiting lists right now, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. Have either of you looked into the costs of nanny share? It seems like it could be somewhat comparable to daycare, but the tax issue makes it fuzzy for me. Do you have any idea how this works?

[desibear]

Nanny share could work provided that you had a very nearby neighbor who needed a nanny as well. I have a colleague who did it for a while but got into trouble when his neighbor decided that to send the kid to pre-school and affording a nanny outright became cost prohibitive. This assumes that you and whomever you are sharing the nanny with share similar social/fiscal/cultural traits otherwise it could become very awkward. I think the tax issue is the last of your worries in a nanny share situation. As far as costs go, assume a competent and experienced nanny makes $15/hr. So your costs are $7.5/hr for 40 hours, which works out to $300, a savings of $80 - $100 per week, which may/may not be worth the trouble.