How to find back-up or drop-in daycare

Finding great daycare for your kids is challenging.  And that’s just for regular daycare. Finding drop-in daycare for special circumstances or occasions? Well, that is even harder.

Knowing how to find drop-in daycare is tough. There simply aren’t a lot of drop-in daycare options out there. Some drop-in daycare options aren’t of great quality either. But even though they aren’t many options, there are options, you just need to know where to look for them. 

Here are five great options to consider when looking for drop-in, backup, or hourly daycare:

1. Family, friends, and neighbors

2. Fitness center daycare

3. Daycare centers that specialize in drop-in care

4. Online nanny and sitter services

5. Community parks and reds programs

In this article, we’ll review the benefits of drop-in daycares options for families with young kids. Not all of these will be a good fit for your family. However, among these many options, you should be able to find one that works well for you.

Family, Friend, and Neighbor Care

When in need of last-minute daycare, calling on your family, friends, and neighbors should always be your first go-to option. While it may feel like you don’t know many, if any, people who will be available to provide last minutes care, you’ll likely find that people in your extended network do.

So put a call out on social media. Use Facebook or Nextdoor to see if anyone knows of someone interested in providing daycare for a few hours.  Someone in your area likely knows someone, perhaps a high-school or college student, with some free time and an interest in earning a little extra money. 

Family, friend and neighbor care is often meant to be used for one-off occasions. However, the relationships you build with carers will provide you with more contacts when you need care in the future for both one-off and ongoing needs. 

Fitness center daycare

Parents of young children know the joy of being able to drop the baby off at their fitness center’s child care for an hour of exercise. 

Usually, fitness center daycare will have a strict time limit of no more than a couple of hours. So this option is not great if you need a full day’s care for your kids. Another limitation is that they usually require you to stay on-site while your child is in care. Keep these limitations in mind if you are considering this daycare option.

However, remember that fitness center daycares don’t need to be used just for exercising! 

Do you need an hour to pay bills and make appointments? Want to relax with a coffee and listen to a podcast? Meet with a friend who is also a member of the club? 

These are all legitimate reasons for utilizing fitness center daycare. 

Of course, this type of daycare isn’t free or accessible to everyone. You’ll need to be a member of the center to take advantage of this perk. If money is a concern, consider options like the YMCA which has sliding scale fees based on income. 

Centers specializing in drop-in care

It’s not super common, but there are a few daycare programs that specialize in providing drop-in care. The biggest of these is probably the national provider Bright Horizons. Bright Horizons doesn’t just provide drop-in care (they call it backup care) but it is a common service for them and that sets them apart from some other chains of daycare programs. 

There may be a Bright Horizons providing drop-in daycare in your area and you may not even know it. Drop-in care is typically not well publicized so it can fly under the radar for parents. 

To find a drop-in daycare in your area, you’ll want to search with your city’s name and the terms either ‘ drop-in daycare’ or ‘backup daycare.’ You may find that there is a Bright Horizons or some other drop-in daycare in your area. 

Sometimes backup daycare is a benefit provided by companies. Check with your employer to see if they have listings of drop-in daycares you can utilize when you find you need last-minute care. 

Online nanny and sitter services

Online nanny and sitter services can be a great option for getting care for your kids that you use only occasionally. The two biggest sites are Sittercity and Care.

On both sites, you can browse profiles of sitters in your area and filter by criteria to meet your needs. So, if you just want someone for a couple of hours 1 or 2 days a week, you can focus on just those sitters that provide that type of care.

One caveat is that online sitter services aren’t truly last minute. You will need to search through profiles, find a few candidates, interview them, and make a selection. However, once you find a person (or multiple people, depending on your needs) you’ll have a go-to reliable sitter to provide drop-in care with little notice.

Community parks and rec programs

An under-appreciated place for drop-in daycare is your local parks and rec center. Parks and rec programs will frequently provide drop-in daycare for kids who are at least potty trained. 

Now, this type of drop-in daycare usually has constraints. It will often be offered at specific times, on specific days, and for a limited number of hours. If you have flexibility in your schedule this is often a fantastic option for parents who need a drop-in or backup daycare. Typically it is quite affordable and kids, who love the variety of games and activities that are usually available at parks and rec centers.