Mommies & Daddies! Day Care & Child Care Options (Raleigh: real estate, renting)

[jerseygirlonthemove]

My husband and I will be relocating to the triangle area soon. If a major decision to accept a job and relocate wasn't enough we also found out that we are expecting our first addition come March. We are very excited, but nervous. Of course, our priorities have shifted a little since we will be coming down as 3 instead of 2.

Sadly, we are leaving family and friends behind. Both my husband and I will need to work, so we will need to consider day care options.

I've found recommendations from people on this forum to be invaluable. If anyone has had a GREAT experience with day/child care, I'd love to hear about it.

Right now we are looking at NE Durham, SW Durham, Raleigh (near Brier Creek section), Hillsborough and maybe APEX. While I know that this is a wide range of options, selection of location will be decided heavily on day/child care and the school system of that area.

Thank you in advance for your recommendations.

[rfb]

If you buy into Wake County, the school system is (more or less) uniformly good. That is good, as you have a high probability of redistricting within Wake County, so it is much harder to buy with a specific school in mind. If you buy in Durham County, then you need to pay more attention to the specific schools, as some are good and some not quite as good. Durham doesn't have the redistricting woes of Wake, so selecting a specific school makes more sense. I'm not very familiar with Orange County schools (which is where Hillsborough lies)

I don't think you will have much issue finding quality childcare anywhere in the Triangle. You can search NC Div of Child Development- Searching Resources in Child Care for some options, and them you can use something like "Google maps" to find their proximity to where you are considering to live as well as work.

I'm most familiar with the Brier Creek area. Around Brier Creek, there are some good childcare options: Goddard is right there, and Kids-R-Kids is not far away in RTP at Alexandar and South Miami Blvd. Both are 5 star childcare facilities. There is also a Kiddie Academy right near Brier Creek which is a 4 star facility.

Happy hunting. And feel free to ask any specific questions - lots of folks here will be more than willing to give you their opinions!

[lamishra]

My neighbors kids go to Primrose and they just love it, although I think it's a bit pricey.

[rfb]

I can second Primrose first-hand. My son (2.5 years old) goes there and we absolutely love it. Depending on where you buy, there may be one that is convenient.

[PDXmom]

Originally Posted by jerseygirlonthemove

My husband and I will be relocating to the triangle area soon. If a major decision to accept a job and relocate wasn't enough we also found out that we are expecting our first addition come March. We are very excited, but nervous. Of course, our priorities have shifted a little since we will be coming down as 3 instead of 2.

Sadly, we are leaving family and friends behind. Both my husband and I will need to work, so we will need to consider day care options.

I've found recommendations from people on this forum to be invaluable. If anyone has had a GREAT experience with day/child care, I'd love to hear about it.

Right now we are looking at NE Durham, SW Durham, Raleigh (near Brier Creek section), Hillsborough and maybe APEX. While I know that this is a wide range of options, selection of location will be decided heavily on day/child care and the school system of that area.

Thank you in advance for your recommendations.

You might want to check out Trianglemommies.com. You might get more good info there.

[iowachick]

When we first relocated to the area, we chose NW Raleigh right off 70, about 8 min from Brier Creek. We rented until we found where we wanted to buy, I work in Durham and my husband works in downtown Raleigh, so we ended up buying in Garner and I went from full-time to only work a couple times per week. When I was working full time though, we looked at the daycares in Durham and I must say I was not impressed AT ALL. We had 2 kids (3 & 1) to think about and I just didn't feel good with any of the several places we looked at in Durham. I LOVE the Brier Creek area, but there aren't a ton of childcare options, but if you can afford it, Goddard is excellent, I was really impressed with the place, but couldn't justify spending over 25k a year for our 2 kids to go there. Also, the elementary in Brier Creek is very good too, but don't buy a house expecting your child to go to that specifc elementary school, because a lot can (and will) change 5 years from now.
Apex is a nice area, people say it's the next Cary, with real estate prices really going up. The schools aren't bad, either. We actually put an offer in on a house in Apex, but didn't get it.
I would think about the distance you want to travel to get to/from work. Also, price of daycares is another consideration. For our one year old the range we looked at was from $1,000 to $1,300 a month for full time daycare- plus another $950 for our 3 year old. There is a NC state daycare website we used NC Div of Child Development- Searching Resources in Child Care
where you can look up daycares in an area and find out their star rating as well as any investigations they've had....hope this helps. You can PM me if you need any more info.

[omamia]

The Chapel Hill Mother's Club website also has a good list of area preschools.

Chapel Hill/Carrboro Mothers Club: Preschools by Location

I've heard great things about the Sunflower School in Hillsborough.

[welovedurham]

The theme of the current issue of Carolina Parent is child care... CarolinaParent.com - The Triangle's online parenting resource. It is very comprehensive... see if they can send you a copy.

SW Durham schools are great! But, in general, there are a lot of choices in Durham... neighborhood, magnet, year-round (not b/c of space issues), charter, private, preschool. Any type of program in particular you are looking for?

[ss.mmm]

Kindercare is good.
My friend's kids go there and they are happy with it.

[MasterFung]

Originally Posted by rfb

I can second Primrose first-hand. My son (2.5 years old) goes there and we absolutely love it. Depending on where you buy, there may be one that is convenient.

Third, they offer the best balance for socialization, education and from our extensive research, it's not close... big thumbs up!