Drop-in day care?

[Kelly's Girl]

Does such a thing exist? I am trying to leave my job and work from home, and I would require as-needed, drop-in care for DS. How can I find it? I've googled "part-time day care", "drop-in child care", etc. to no avail. Does anyone have any info on these type things? TIA!

[BTB]

Yes, it does exist, but it is not common even in large urban areas and often charges an arm and a leg. I gave up on finding it, you may have more luck if you have more time until you need it. A better bet - and what I went with - is another SAHM in the neighborhood.

[deliciousjones]

There's a daycare in our neighborhood that offers drop-in childcare for $10 an hour. There's guaranteed coverage if you give 24 hours notice, otherwise it's really a matter of if there's enough coverage to stay within the ratios.

I'd see if there are any SAHMs in your neighborhood who might be willing to help. I recently found a mom just around the corner who is going to watch my daughter 1 day a week while I work from home.

[Jenyfer9]

DH's company has on-site childcare (although I don't think that it is only for their employees, but I could be wrong), and you can do a "drop in" only if there's room.

Prime example: this weekend ds#1 and I are going on a trip. DH was going to work from home on Friday with ds#2 here with him (yeah, I'd like to see how much work he'd get done ;) ), but a meeting got scheduled and his attendance is required... so he contacted their daycare about having ds#2 "drop in". They could only tell him if they would have room a week prior to this, so we had to wait and see... well, they did. He's thinking about doing it for Monday as well (the day we return). We had to fill out all the same forms as if he was going to be there on a regular basis, so I guess that if the need arises again, we won't have to fill out the paperwork.

So maybe it exists, but not necessarily listed as such in the yellow pages.

[Pookie]

I was only able to find one place around here that does that. DS goes about once/ twice a week, though. I'm not totally in love with it, but when he gets a little bit older and we need more of a schedule then we'll move to someplace better.

[magdesilver]

Look for babysitting places. We have one in our city and there was one in my old city, too. I think if you look in the yellow pages under babysitting or child care, you should be able to find one. The one here is called kidzstreet, I know some are chains.

[AlisonCO]

I have found 2 churches in my area that do pre-school but also Parents Day Out - basically drop in care. The one that I am looking into has hours everyday, but not all day. It is $5/hr and you can do a contract that guarantees the days and times you want or a schedule where you call the week before and set up the days you want (based on avaiability.) Maybe check for a PDO program in your area.