You might think that home daycare is babysitting, but there are so many more benefits of home daycare than people ever realize!

I hear people say all the time, I would never put my child in a home daycare. But I know many providers that are doing their very best to provide a loving nurturing environment that rivals most other kinds of childcare.

Home daycare provides offer a comfortable homey family environment. Care is provided in our homes and it’s made to feel safe, comforting, and loving. There are soft surfaces and comfortable places to play and feel like part of a family.

Quality childcare providers are much more than babysitters. They are entrepreneurs running their own businesses with pride. They invest in their business, education, and care about the outcomes for the children who are a part of it.

In home daycare, you have the benefit of having the same person with your child from open to close. Not a rotating group of adults that work 8 hour or 4-hour shifts. This gives continuity of care that is unlike any other environment.

The adult to child ratio is smaller in home daycare than center caregiving more one on one attention from the provider for the child. Having fewer children in the home environment, less illness travels through the children because they are exposed to fewer things.

Home daycare has a far lower turnover than center care. The children have the same teacher all day, but also year to year and home daycare providers, in general, stay in the business longer.

Home daycare is more affordable than center care and it’s also convenient. Home daycare procedures are often made with personal families in mind instead of in an institutionalized way of herding many children and families in one direction.

The smaller teacher to child ratio and home environment as well as having the same teacher from open to close day to day helps children form a closer bond with their caregiver. The caregiver often becomes part of the family. I know for me; I consider all my families as my family too.

Many people remark that home providers are less educated than center providers, but we are all required to take the same amount of continuing education every year and I know many many home daycare providers with degrees in early childhood, Child Development Associate credentials, and certificates of mastery. We aren’t a bunch of dumb, uneducated nobodies.

Also, remember that smaller groups are less stressful for children as well. Another great benefit of the small group is that parents can more easily build relationships that become close to other families as well. I try to have a lot of parent involvement activities that give families opportunities to see each other throughout the year.

There are a few benefits to having a nanny care for your children in your home. One of them is definitely convenience. It’s wonderful not to have to take your kids to daycare and drop them off. Obviously, children are not socializing with other family’s children at home and that’s a big drawback.

Home daycare is the perfect middle ground for that. It’s a smaller group in a home environment, but they still get socialization with other children. And they get some school preparation helps such as working together with kids in a group, sitting and listening for activities and stories and things, and a little bit of the teacher/student interaction.

Home daycare is less expensive than nanny care as well. Paying someone to watch your children full time could become quite expensive.

The one benefit of home daycare over any other kind of childcare is the mixed-age classrooms. In a center, children are divided by age and ability. This is great for making teaching easier, but it makes kids miss out on so much that makes families great. God designed the family to have kids of different ages. So, in family childcare, you still get that benefit.

A multi-age grouping helps older kids learn to be nurturers, and younger kids learn skills from older kids. Kids learn by watching and doing. Mixed-age classrooms help kids learn as much as they possibly can in their early learning years from EACH OTHER. It’s a wonderful thing that is inherent in the set up of home daycare and another wonderful benefit of what home daycare has to offer.

Home daycare, in my opinion, is hands down the very best environment for children. If you can find a good quality home daycare, your kids will be set up for success.

A very close friend of mine left home daycare and became a kindergarten teacher. She told me every year when school started, she could look across her classroom and see which kids were with stay at home parents, which kids went to daycare centers, and which kids went to home daycares. She said that 100% of kids who had come to school from a home daycare did better in kindergarten than kids who had come from daycare centers.

ter behavior, better manners, better friendships, and better academic skills. I don’t know if that’s true in every town or everywhere. But I know that it was true in her classroom. Just another something to think about when making decisions on where to send your child while you work during the day.