Day Care Vs Stay-At-Home Parenting: Pros and Cons Explained

Image: Shutterstock

You may love spending your entire day with your adorable newborn, but as the end of your maternity leave approaches, you may be facing the dilemma of opting for daycare vs. stay-at-home care.

Given our modern-day lifestyle, choosing between your career and taking care of your baby is not easy. You may wrongly equate prioritizing your career with neglecting your child and feel guilty about it. On the other hand, quitting your job to bond with your baby may cause your partner to feel burdened with the financial responsibilities of the family and compromise the quality of life you can offer your child.

For starters, you should be fair to yourself and figure out what works best for you. The final decision, whether it is choosing to refocus on your career or be a stay-at-home mommy for your child, should be entirely yours. Despite all the advice you receive, your decision should not depend on others’ judgment as you may regret it in the long run.

Read on as we discuss the pros and cons of both options to help you arrive at an informed decision along with your partner.

Day Care Vs Stay-At-Home: Things To Know

Child development, financial impact, and personal fulfillment are key when choosing between daycare and staying at home. Here are a few other crucial factors to consider before making your decision.

1. Financial Compulsions

Your financial requirements and commitments play a huge role in deciding whether or not you want to go back to work. Consider the following:

• Daycare: Once you leave your baby in child care, you can resume work after your maternity leave. Being working parents adds to your income and boosts your family’s finances. An increase in the family income will help you provide better services and facilities for your baby. You can select the best daycare for your baby based on the cost and location so it is convenient for you.
• Stay-at-home: You will become financially dependent on your spouse. Your family income will take a hit, and you may need to cut down on expenditures. Some moms start to feel like a burden since they are not contributing financially to the household. Some partners may also start to have resentment towards the woman for not contributing. Mothers living with grandparents might find balancing household and childcare responsibilities easier. However, they may also feel overwhelmed by the demands of caring for older people and their children. They may also supervise, judge, or control when deciding what’s best for their child. Nonetheless, you can spend more quality family time.

You may arrange for a nanny to take care of your baby based on the cost, location, and convenience.

Do remember

Whichever option you choose, do not feel guilty about it. It is not an easy choice to make and so do what you feel will be best for you and your baby.

2. Desire To Witness Those Precious Moments

A major concern that you may have about going back to work is that you will miss the joy of watching your baby cross those initial developmental milestones. Consider the following:

• Daycare: When you choose a daycare, it will mean you will not be present with your baby most of the time. Your baby will achieve most of her developmental milestones in the first few years of life. You may also miss the opportunities to offer immediate comfort to your baby through troubling times.
• Stay-at-home: If you choose to stay at home, you will probably be the first one to witness all your baby’s little achievements and get more bonding time. You will be motivating your baby when they struggle to crawl towards you the first time and hold them when they take their first few steps and fall.

If you hire a nanny or opt for help from extended family, you may request them to record your child’s daily activities or significant milestones.

Roxane Maar, a mother, writer, and tech startup founder, shares the reason behind her unconventional choice not to enroll her daughters in daycare or nursery. She says, “I wanted them to have the opportunity to be deeply connected with their family in their first few years of life, to be in a stress-less environment, to be able to do things at their own pace, without being rushed or interfered with. I wanted them to be exposed to different cultures and languages; I wanted them to be close to nature (i).”

3. Making Your Child Independent And Social

Many people believe that a daycare helps a baby become social and develop independence. Consider the following:

• Daycare: Your baby will learn how to stay away from you for long hours, without any anxiety. Your baby will also develop a routine for eating and sleeping on her own. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the quality of a child’s early learning settings influences their social and emotional development. At the daycare, your baby will be in the company of other babies and children, boosting their socialization skills. In high-quality settings, they may receive warm, stimulating attention and individualized, need-based instruction to enhance their strengths (1). They will soon form their circle of friends and learn how to play and interact with people other than their parents.
• Stay-at-home: As a stay-at-home mom, you will always be by your baby’s side, babysitting them. It can strengthen the bond you share with your baby, but your baby may not like the company of strangers and may feel uncomfortable in a social gathering. Also, it might restrict your flexibility to go out without the baby. Being around a child at home 24/7 can be very stressful and overwhelming. You can feel disconnected from other “adults”, and lose a sense of identity outside of being a parent. However, the scenario could be different if you live in a joint family. Children often benefit from exposure to various adults, perspectives, and interactions in joint family setups. This diversity can strengthen a child’s social skills and adaptability. They learn to communicate and build bonds with people beyond their immediate parents, aiding their emotional and social development.

4. Educational Differences 

If you want to send your child to a daycare center with the expectation of better educational outcomes. Consider the following:

• Daycare: Daycare centers implement early childhood education programs to support children’s rapid cognitive development. These programs foster age-appropriate skills and knowledge development while promoting numeracy and literary skills, critical thinking, and creativity (2). Studies show that daycare encourages positive intellectual development in children, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (3).

Point to consider

According to the American Psychological Association, children who receive high-quality early childhood education and care have increased school readiness and a stronger trajectory for success in STEM education (4).

• Stay-at-home: Staying at home allows parents to teach their children everything from basic self-care and survival to financial management and academic skills. Parents may be able to tailor the educational methods, subject-specific resources, and practical experiences according to their children’s needs. However, this may be influenced by several factors, such as the family’s socio-economic status, home environment, physical or mental health of parents, and the quality of parent-child interactions. Studies indicate that a high-quality home environment with adequate dietary nutrition, economic security, and positive parent-child interactions can enhance the cognitive and psychomotor development of children under five (5).

Once you clearly understand the common concerns related to daycare versus stay-at-home parenting, you can focus on what will work best for you. The following sections will guide you in identifying the solution that best meets your and your child’s needs.

Day Care Vs Stay-At-Home: Pros And Cons

Both daycare and stay-at-home parenting have their unique advantages and drawbacks. Parents may pick either based on their requirements (8) (9) (10).

Advantages of daycare facilities

• Center-based daycare facilities have structured play and activities to keep children entertained while learning new skills. 
• In center-based and family home care, children are exposed to people from multiple cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, facilitating an understanding of society. 
• Through in-home care, children are exposed to people from diverse regions, allowing them to hear various dialects and languages alongside their native language. This multilingual environment fosters early language development and helps children adapt to different linguistic and cultural contexts.
• The multiple well-trained employees in center-based care encourage quality care even if one of the employees is sick.
• Center-based and family-home daycare facilities may expose children to pathogens, which may help develop their immune systems.
• Hiring nannies or babysitters for in-home care may give the child a feeling of security as they provide opportunities for stronger caregiver-child bonding. 

Disadvantages of daycare facilities

• The multiple resources at center-based daycare may be overstimulating for some, making them switch from one activity to another, especially if they find them challenging or boring.
• The strict sick child policies at center-based daycare may lead them to unexpectedly call the parents with a request to return the child home and retain them until recovery. 
• Some family-home facilities may also not maintain adequate cleanliness and follow the basic hygiene or safety requirements, putting children’s health at risk. It may also be true in the case of caregiving by grandparents, friends, and extended family.
• Daycare facilities may charge varied prices based on their locality and the quality of care they provide. However, not all parents may be able to afford it. 
• Daycare services are available only for a few hours daily, forcing parents to ensure their schedule aligns with their children’s.
• Exposure to children from other families may facilitate learning culture-specific behaviors that may not be considered appropriate in their family.
• Children of different ages may be split across different daycare centers, making commuting from place to place mandatory.
• Leaving the child in daycare may also trigger separation anxiety (11).

Advantages of stay-at-home parenting

• At home, activities are more spontaneous, allowing children to explore their creativity. 
• The repetitive nature of certain activities may help the child to learn and retain the skills better. 
• Children who live in joint families with grandparents may easily gain knowledge of their family’s linguistic quirks, traditional beliefs, cultural rituals, and religious customs.
• As parents identify the independent needs of their children, they can provide each child with personalized age-specific resources for skill development while ensuring adequate nutrition, sleep, and physical activity. 
• Parents can ensure that the home environment and the things the child uses are sterile, thus protecting the child from several diseases.
• Staying at home saves parents on transportation charges of going to work or dropping their child off at daycare. 
• Parents get opportunities to indulge in hobbies, develop new skills, conduct scientific experiments, and gain new knowledge with their children.

Disadvantages of stay-at-home parenting

• In families facing economic hardships, parents may struggle to teach the children age-appropriate activities, which may restrict their development and cause boredom. 
• The responsibility of managing childcare and domestic chores can affect the parent’s ability to maintain good health, affecting the consistency of childcare.
• Stay-at-home parents may struggle to find time to connect with other adults, which can lead to feelings of isolation or loneliness.
• Parents in joint families may feel pressured and criticized when they don’t follow the traditional child-rearing practices of the family and opt for modern methods suggested by their pediatrician.
• Parents may feel overburdened by the unending list of chores and the lack of recognition, which may affect their self-esteem and confidence.

Sharing her personal experience of being a stay-at-home mother, Adrien Segal writes, “But there were also things I didn’t love. I didn’t like that nothing was ever done. At work, I finished projects. At home, I could work the whole day, and at the end there was absolutely no evidence I had done anything at all. There was always more laundry to do, another mess in the living room, another meal to fix, another diaper to change. At work, I could tell when I was doing a good job. At home, I struggled to have confidence in my abilities. I was pouring into my kids, but the changes were so incremental I couldn’t tell if anything I was teaching them was taking hold. Was the investment of my time and energy really making a difference? But it was worse than that. At home, it often seemed like nobody noticed or applauded anything I did (ii).” 

Now that you know the benefits and challenges of choosing a daycare or stay-at-home parenting, the following section will help you decide what’s best for your child.

Knowing What Works Best For Your Family

Deciding between daycare and stay-at-home parenting is a personal and nuanced decision that depends on various factors unique to each family. Regional studies indicated that culture-specific factors such as familiarity and personal experience, social image, and higher stress related to parenting such as working longer hours or belonging to larger families influenced the preference for daycare facilities over stay-at-home parenting (6) (7). Some other factors that influence the decision include:

1. Extended support: Some working parents may have a joint family setup where the child’s grandparents live with them and help care for the child. In other cases, reliable extended family members or friends can occasionally aid stay-at-home parents in looking after the child. However, regardless of whether they are working or staying at home, parents may also hire a reliable nanny or babysitter to help with childcare.
2. Demands of parental occupation: Parents with unpredictable jobs requiring them to stay long hours may choose to either daycare facilities such as family care or place children under the care of nannies. Some parents may even choose to quit their jobs and stay at home after a period of working if they find their job interfering with the quality of care received by their child. 

Michelle Au, a mother and doctor, writes in her blog about how she hired a nanny to provide quality care for her children. She writes, “Neither Joe nor I work part-time or any kind of variable/abbreviated hours.  We both work in the OR, which means we invariably leave home before sunrise, before the kids wake up.  We both take overnight call on a rotating basis…  We both have demanding jobs but this obviously doesn’t make parenthood itself any less so, therefore when it comes to childcare, we’ve always been of the philosophy that “if you can’t do it, I’ll try to do it” and vice versa. However, the fact is that both of us work all day on most days, and as such, we need to have a childcare solution to cover those working hours.  What we have, and what we have always had, is a full-time nanny (iii).”

3. Special needs requiring personalized care: Parents with children who have intellectual disability, autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and specific terminal illnesses may prefer to stay home to ensure their child gets adequate care. They may put in the effort to arrange for resources to sustain the home-schooling and therapy needs of the child. However, some parents may not have adequate home care resources beyond a certain age. Thus, they prefer center-based care to address their child’s growing physical, psychological, socio-emotional, or developmental needs. 
4. Home environment limitations: The quality of the home environment in some homes may be abusive or resource-deprived, requiring the child to be put in daycare to have their basic needs met. In abusive families, one or both parents may not prefer to keep the child at home for safety reasons. In homes where parents are ill, they may prefer center-based or family home care to ensure that the child grows up in a positive environment. Families that can’t afford daycare may leave their children in the care of grandparents, friends, or extended family.
5. Special educational needs: Some parents of intellectually gifted children or those with learning disabilities may choose to stay home, believing that experiential, home-based learning better meets their children’s educational needs. It may also apply to children with auditory, visual, or speech-related pathologies and those who are full-time actors or sportspersons. However, families where the income and savings of one or both parents can support the cost of placing their child in daycare may hire nannies and babysitters. 

In addition to these factors, parents should also consider the quality of daycare available for their children. The following section shares some tips that would help.

Tips For Assessing Day Care Quality

Assessing the quality of a daycare facility involves determining which type of daycare best meets your child’s needs. The main types of daycare include family child care homes, child care centers, in-home care, and care provided by family, friends, or neighbors.

1. Child care centers
   Best suited for parents who hold standard day jobs, these centers are more non-profit or commercial, with numerous staff and age-based admittance for children. Parents need not worry about what their child eats, as these centers ask parents to fill out weekly meal planners and feed what parents pick for their children. Parents may assess these centers on whether they follow the state-recognized guidelines for: 

• Child-to-staff ratios 
• Health and safety standards
• Standard of resources or equipment available for children
• Safe sleep policies
• Emergency first aid and accident prevention
• Level of child handling training, experience, or supervision of the staff
• Parental reviews on the staff

2. Family childcare homes
   Best suited for parents requiring care at non-traditional hours for multiple children of different ages, family childcare is run by small family homes with one or two caregivers. Parents may assess these care homes for: 

• The admittance limit
• Program license and inspection history
• Minimum health requirements
• Child safety policies 
• Mandatory background checks on primary caregivers
• Food’s nutritional quality and whether it matches a child’s medical needs

Research finds

Studies indicate that the enhanced caregiver-child bonding in home-based care enhances the child’s general well-being, successfully reducing problem behavior. However, children may have a higher-quality physical environment in center-based care facilities (12).

3. In-home care
   These may be opted when parents or children have specialized requirements that a nanny or babysitter may best understand. Parents may acquire live-in or live-out nannies through state-approved nanny placement agencies. Here’s what you need to check when considering an in-home care option: 

• Follow the state-dictated training protocols for nannies 
• Run background checks on each babysitter and nanny they acquire
• Train the nanny in emergency first aid procedures and CPR 

In special cases, parents may also check to see if their babysitters or nannies are trained in sign language or looking after a child with special needs. Parents may also be allowed to supervise what their children eat daily. They may even prepare their child’s meals each day or week in advance to ensure their diet suits their nutritional and medical needs. 

4. Family, friend, or neighbor care
   Leaving your child with friends, neighbors, grandparents, and other family members is a convenience-based arrangement that may either be temporary or long-term. It has no standard protocols or licensing requirements and may be opted by any parent. When considering this option, parents must:

• Check the caregivers for basic knowledge of health and hygiene, child safety, emergency first aid, and safe sleep training. 
• Enquire regularly about how their child is being supervised while playing and sleeping. 
• Ensure the meals provided to the child are nutritious and devoid of allergens. 
• Discuss strategies for disciplining the child, holiday schedules, screentime allowance, and visitation.  

Irrespective of the type of care facility parents may have to keep an eye on whether the basic requirements of the child are met satisfactorily. They may also have to ensure that the child is safe from harsh disciplining strategies and abuse. Parents may also have to regularly check in on the caregiver’s health to ensure that the child does not catch infections from ill employees (13). 

After considering all the factors, if you wish to stay at home, here are a few ways you may manage your transition from being a working parent.

Managing The Transition To Stay-At-Home Parenting

Becoming a parent is a significant life change, and adjusting can take some time. Mothers who go from full-time jobs to staying home to care for their children may face multiple dilemmas, such as identity loss, financial anxieties, and time constraints. Here are a few ways that can help manage the transition into stay-at-home parenting:

• In order of importance, write down your daily schedule, including every detail, from household chores to personal care. 
• Keep track of your baby’s feeding and sleeping patterns to establish a routine around it. 
• Involve your partner in childcare responsibilities so both of you have time to rest and recuperate.
• Get out of the house even when you do not have errands to run. 
• Try to spend time with other adults, such as family and friends.
• Join support groups or make friends with other stay-at-home parents. 
• Do your chores throughout the day in short bursts instead of waiting for the baby’s nap or rest time. 
• Involve your children in doing chores such as feeding the dog or unloading the dishwasher to keep them engaged.
• Use limited screen time to entertain toddlers and older children when using the loo. 
• Just focus on having an activity done instead of making it perfect.
• Do not take any criticisms from your kids to heart.

Sharing her experiences with her three children, stay-at-home mom Danielle writes, “Kids are blunt. They tell it how it is. I have been told several times “Mommy you need to get dressed.” or  “Mommy your hair not pretty.”  but I have also been told “Mommy you pretty now.” and my favorite, “Mommy I love you!” which makes up for everything. Hopefully your kids keep the bluntness to you and not the random stranger at the store (iv).”

While stay-at-home parenting is challenging, it is worth all the hard work. Parents must remember to choose their battles wisely and ask for help from a professional nanny, babysitter, family, friends, doctor, or therapist whenever they are struggling.

Infographic: Day Care Vs Stay-At-Home Pros and Cons

Deciding between daycare and in-home childcare can be tricky. It’s important to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each option and how they align with your circumstances and priorities. To assist you in making this decision, we have created an infographic outlining the pros and cons of both ways. Review this information and consider it as you decide.

Illustration: Momjunction Design Team

Illustration: Daycare Vs Stay-At-Home – Which Is Better?

Image: Stable Diffusion/MomJunction Design Team

Do you want to know the differences between home daycare and child care centers? In this video, we’ll look at the pros and cons of each option to help you decide which is best for your family.

Community Experiences

Join the conversation and become a part of our nurturing community! Share your stories, experiences, and insights to connect with fellow parents.

Reviewer Author Editor Fact Checker

Aika MarchantLMFT

Aika Marchant is a marriage and family therapist, licensed in Texas and California. She has six years of experience and specializes in trauma, couple therapy, and multicultural counseling. Her mother is a Japanese immigrant and her father is a white American.

Read full bio of Aika Marchant

Harshita MakvanaB.Com, PG Dip

Harshita is a graduate in commerce and holds a PG Diploma in Patent and Copyrights Law from NALSAR University. She has also pursued CA and has more than three years of internship experience in auditing. Her love for travelling has taken her to various parts of the world, and writing the travelogues was what brought out her love for content writing.

Read full bio of Harshita Makvana

Rebecca MalachiBSc

Rebecca is a pregnancy writer and editor with a passion for delivering research-based and engaging content in areas of fertility, pregnancy, birth, and post-pregnancy. She did her graduation in Biotechnology and Genetics from Loyola Academy, Osmania University and obtained a certification in ‘Nutrition and Lifestyle in Pregnancy’ from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU).

Read full bio of Rebecca Malachi

Trisha ChakrabortyMA, BEd

Trisha worked as a schoolteacher for three years before taking up professional writing in 2021. She completed her masters in English from the University of Calcutta and bachelors in Education from the University of Burdwan.

Read full bio of Trisha Chakraborty