Childcare for my 1 year old
- Thread starter mdvio99
- Start date
I would budget around $900 to $1,200 per month. Waitlist times depend on where you are located exactly but can easily take a number of months.
Start contacting day cares now if you know the area where you will be living.
No one can tell you about waiting times or costs (unless licensed/registered and may be $10 a day). You need to start calling now to get on waitlists or put down deposits for a space. You can look at home day cares too which may be in the neighbourhood you are living in. Will you have a car or be relying on public transportation? That will be a factor in what lists to get on. You need to decide how far you want to go (drive/bus) to drop and pick up your child every day.
You may not have had children in a while. Many are paying close to $2500/month in the GTA. You may be able to find non-profit and/or home daycares for around $1200 in the GTA or subsidized/income geared spots. Many daycares have waitlists of over a year. There aren’t enough childcare workers so securing a spot is extremely competitive and the better quality low cost spaces are hard to come by. It also depends on where you live. In areas where there are a lot of young families you are often limited to the more expensive options. Many are having to delay returning to work because of lack of childcare. Luck and location has a lot to do with it.
Would try to put yourself down on as many lists as possible. Realistically you may not be able to secure daycare in a few moths.
In downtown Toronto daycare fees are around $1,000 a month for a toddler, and a couple of hundred more for an infant at centres that have opted into the CWELCC program, which for this year is over 90% of the centres in Ontario. It seems logical that outside Toronto would be cheaper.
Opting in and actually being able to provide $10/day spots are very different. Many can’t secure a spot at the reduced rate and are left with either highly subsidized or very expensive if you can’t find a subsidized spot. There used to be some moderate pricing options but most of those have gone away.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/07...are-amid-implementation-of-10-day-child-care/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-child-care-1.6875384
Availability (especially for infants) has been an issue for a long time. Parents sign up for waiting lists as soon as they find out they are expecting. That has been a thing in the GTA and other major cities for a while now.
I was specifically responding to your statement that "You may be able to find non-profit and/or home daycares for around $1200 in the GTA or subsidized/income geared spots."
$1,000 a month is the going rate for the majority of centres right now, if you can find a spot. Toddler and pre-school spots are easier to get than infant.
For context, I signed my little one up for a pre-school space with only a couple of months notice at one of the more expensive centres in downtown for less than $950 per months. City run centres cost about $750 per month for pre-school but the wait times are longer.
That's parenting. It's up to the couple on the arrangement.
daycare does provide interaction with other kids/toddlers more frequently vs stay at home kids/toddlers.
we do not know OP's situation. May be both of them are going to study in Canada or have full time jobs that's committed to
Jumping in on this older post because we’re going through the same search for our 1-year-old right now. Has anyone had luck with a specific home daycare or non-profit in Toronto that’s actually kept fees under $1,200 lately? Curious if wait times have changed since this thread was active.
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