At What Age Can I Start my Child in Daycare?

For working parents, knowing when you can safely place your child in a childcare environment can be an important one.

There is no simple answer to this question though as there is no set minimum age for daycare operations. In other words, it will depend on the facility what ages they can and cannot accept. Your best approach is to call a potential care provider and see what they tell you. Places like Surry Hills Learning Center, a child care centre in Sydney, knows that parents always call up to ask these types of important questions and are happy to outline their policies.

Earliest Limit:
This is not set in stone, but a pretty standard age limit is 6-weeks old. Though each country differs, many offer a minimum of 6 weeks maternity leave that would allow a new mother to stay at home with a newborn without losing their job. That means most people are out looking for daycare until after 6 weeks anyway, so it makes a natural cut-off point.

Many believe that a few weeks are important that a baby and mother stay together, to form strong bonds, establish good feeding habits and even just to make sure the umbilical cord has completely healed.

If you are looking for childcare at this age level, look around and see what the cut-off ages are for local centers. There can be other concerns with putting very young infants in care, but they can help you make the choices and get adjusted.

In or Out of Diapers
Besides this base age limit, you will find many daycare centers that don't handle infants at all. The level of care is too great and they focus on preschool or young school age kids instead. For places like this, they prefer to use potty-training as the boundary rather than a set age. Children must be out of diapers in order to be admitted. That would put the ages roughly between 2 and 3 years of age.

Any Other Age
It bears repeating that every child care center will have it's own policies about minimum enrollment ages. Many will fall somewhere between these two ages, and some may only accept children older than 5 (the usual "school age"). Some places may offer care for infants as well as older children, but with a tiered pricing level to reflect the care needed at various ages.

Other Options
If the local age limits make it impossible for you to put your child in care, you can look at other options. Look to family members or in-house sitters that can help you get back to work until the require age-limit is met for your child. It may seem extravagant to hire a nanny but when you consider the larger financial issues of having to get back to work, you might find that it is a workable solution for a short time. Perhaps a combination of a nearby family member and a part-time nanny would be another solution?

Even if your child has reached the minimum age, you can get creative to make the situation work until that time.


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