Daycare costs (Seattle, Bellevue, Shoreline: apartment, day care, how much)

[uggggghhhhh]

My husband is interviewing with Amazon. I've read through a good chunk of the massive amazon thread but I have questions unrelated to his interview.

We'd be moving from Metro Boston with our 3 kids (8,4,& 1). I am a family care provider (inhome daycare).
I'd like to know what the going rate is for child care.. center, family or nanny care? Is there a specific neighborhood that caters to those dual income professionals? (I live in the suburbs of Boston catch all the families who travel into town).

If I choose NOT to do daycare, can someone make a recommendation for a family neighborhood. Where do all the families go? We can do suburbs, country and city. However safety and schools are our biggest concerns.

Anyone from the Boston area that can tell me specific neighborhoods like my own here?

Please and thank you.

[flyingsaucermom]

First question (as always): How much can you afford in rent/mortgage?

Professionally employed families tend to conglomerate in N-NE Seattle neighborhoods. Home values run $400k (and that's a fixer-upper) and up. Green Lake, Ballard, Queen Anne, Wedgwood, Ravenna, View Ridge, Bryant, Greenwood is up and coming for families it seems.

Further north you have many communities such as Shoreline, Bothell, Montlake Terrace, Edmonds, etc..

A lot of tech professionals live on the Eastside. Places like Kirkland, Woodinville, Samammish, Issaquah and of course, Bellevue.

Personally I was NOT a fan of Seattle Public Schools. SPS has continuous issues with boundaries and program consistency. I've heard better of Shoreline. Wonderful things about Lake Washington and Issaquah (we're in Issaquah). One important thing to note is that school districts don't just serve their cities. For example, Issaquah SD serves part of Renton, Bellevue and Samammish.

[Hemlock140]

The more popular pre-schools with long waiting lists are charging $1,800-2,000+/month, many offering second languages and sign language starting at age 1-18 months. In home day care is generally less, at about $1,500 for those that are in demand. Nannys are at about $20/hour and up though I know some people with Chinese immigrant live-in nannys at half that.
The more affluent the neighborhood and longer the waiting list the higher the rates for child care.

The areas with the great schools, safe neighborhoods, the most children, and parents that can afford day care are the eastside suburbs, such as Mercer Island, Bellevue, Issaquah, Sammamish, Redmond and Kirkland.

In case you haven't found it yet, this is the website for licensing information:

Title 170 WAC: EARLY LEARNING, DEPARTMENT OF

[uggggghhhhh]

Thank you so much. We are trying to deciper information online. We all know they can't put it on the internet if it wasn't true.

We did this neighborhood match to find one like ours. Shoreline was the second best match. Ballard was the first only due to the universities. (I like minutes from Harvard and Tufts).

How much we can afford is all based on whether I run daycare. However, we are hesitant to buy a home until we know what the neighborhoods are like. It's all so confusing.

I'm in the middle of taking the preservice training for the DEL. The demand here is huge with my location. I make great salary and one of the most desirable family care in the areae (thanks to center base training and a degree). I'm hoping it's not just location that and can bring that same quality of care to the west coast.

You don't know the ratio's off hand quickly? I plan on reading regulations on my 6+ hour flight to visit the area. But I just wanted to put daycare as an option if desired.

[beautifulseattlehomes]

It is not very common to find "in home" daycare in many neighborhoods of Seattle proper...Ballard, which is very close to my neighborhood is one of them. Most parents would either keep kiddies at home (there are many stay at home Moms here) or put them in a very established and well known preschool program of which many abound in the North/Northwest part of Seattle. I don't know what it is like out of the city. But I will say this...Seattle is not like any of the East Coast cities that I grew up in and know well. I am always surprised by the amount of Mamas who left the career world here to stay home with their children and those children stay home with them! Very different from my sisters Upper West Side neighborhood and my cousins in DC and Boston where every woman has a career and many children have nannies.

Nannies who come to their clients homes run between $20 to $40 an hour depending on the number of children and what they are being asked to do. My friends Nannie for her three children, after school with no driving gets $22 an hour and cooks dinner for the whole family nightly.

[BellevueNative]

Child care is expensive in the Seattle area, which is why many women are choosing to leave the work world to care for the kids. Especially if you have more than one child! It just doesn't make financial sense for most families to spend $2000-$4000 per month on child care. That's the majority or all of many people's take-home pay. Seattle is a city where many families have at least one large wage earner, so that enables families to make it off of one income.

[flyingsaucermom]

I've actually seen quite the opposite of what the other posters are saying. When I lived in NE Seattle (Bryant, Wedgwood, Laural Hurst, View Ridge, Ravenna) I saw many solicitations for nannies and in-home childcare providers on a popular NE Seattle Mom's Yahoo group. Families were especially interested in "nanny sharing" for both the social and economic benefits. I had a single, recently divorced (former) friend that was making ends meet as a nanny in her two bedroom basement apartment near the Udistrict. If she could make it work, so can you!

I also see demand here in Issaquah, but usually it's part-time needs and the parents wants you to help with pick up and drop off, which would be challenging if you've got your own kids to move around.

[BellevueNative]

All of the people I know with nannies use their services part time, and they aren't live-in obviously.