Family day care vs long day care

The basic difference

Long day care happens in a purpose-built centre. Children are grouped by age into rooms of roughly 15 to 25, cared for by a team of educators working to a roster, and move up a room each year.

Family day care happens in an educator's own home. One educator cares for a small group, a maximum of four preschool-aged children at a time, usually across mixed ages, in an ordinary house with an ordinary backyard.

Both are early childhood education. Both are approved care for the Child Care Subsidy. The difference is scale and setting, and which one suits your child is a real question with a real answer. It just isn't the same answer for every family.

Side by side

Where a centre genuinely wins

We run a family day care service, so take this section as the one where we've got the least to gain from telling you the truth, and tell you anyway.

• Hours and reliability. Centres typically open early, close late, and run every weekday of the year. A single educator can't match that. If you work shifts or start at 6am, a centre is the practical choice.
• Cover when someone's away. If your educator is unwell or on leave, family day care can mean no care that day. A centre absorbs it.
• Big-group children. Some children are energised by a busy room and thrive with twenty potential playmates. If that's your child, don't fight it.
• Purpose-built facilities. Large playgrounds, dedicated art rooms, specialist equipment. A house has a backyard, not a campus.
• Choice of friends. Four children is four children. If the mix doesn't click, there's less room to move.

Where family day care wins

• Being known. One educator, four children. Nothing gets lost in a handover, and a child's off day is noticed the day it happens.
• Consistency. No room changes, no roster, no rebuilding a relationship with a new adult every few months. For anxious children and slow-to-warm children this is often decisive.
• Mixed ages. Younger children stretch upwards; older children practise patience and explaining. It works much the way a family does.
• A gentler sensory environment. A home is quieter than a room of twenty. Children who get overwhelmed often do much better in one.
• Fewer bugs. Fewer children means less circulating illness, something parents feel keenly in the first year of care.
• Flexibility on the small stuff. Routines, food, toileting and sleep can genuinely bend around one child when there are only four.

Is family day care actually regulated?

This is the most common worry, and it's worth answering plainly: yes, and to the same standard. Family day care operates under the National Quality Framework, exactly like long day care. Educators are approved and assessed, homes are checked, the same national learning framework applies, and services receive the same quality rating. It's early childhood education in a house, not babysitting.

What about cost?

Family day care often carries a lower daily rate, but don't stop at the headline number. The Child Care Subsidy applies a different hourly rate cap to each type of care, so the gap between the two narrows or widens once the subsidy is applied. Centres also frequently bill a full long day whether you use ten hours or six.

The comparison that matters is the gap fee for the hours you actually need. How the Child Care Subsidy works → · Our fees →

Questions to ask either way

• How many children will mine be with, all day?
• How many different adults will care for my child in a normal week?
• What's staff or educator turnover been over the past year?
• What does the school-readiness program actually involve, and can I see a child's individual goals?
• Who tells me how the day went, and were they there for all of it?
• What happens when my educator, or the room's staff, are away?

What this looks like at Gizmo's

Gizmo's is a family day care service in Pacific Pines, running since 2010. Katie holds an Advanced Diploma of Early Childhood Education, taught in a traditional kindergarten for five years before starting it, and takes a maximum of four children aged 2–5 through the school term: the same four, with the same educator, every day, working towards individual school-readiness goals.

We're a clear example of the trade-off above, in both directions. We're open three days a week: Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8am to 4pm. If you need five days, or a 6am start, a centre is simply the better answer and we'll say so on the phone.

On the reliability question, though, the picture is better than the generic case: in sixteen years Gizmo's has had no period of unplanned closure. The only scheduled closure is over Christmas, and fees aren't charged when we're closed.

Family day care in Pacific Pines → · For Maudsland families → · For Oxenford families →