Struggling To Find Good Child Care? Here’s Why. -

Have you been spending weeks researching, contacting, and reviewing child care facilities, only to get placed on years-long waitlists with no end in sight?

Maybe you got lucky and found a spot somewhere, but the drive is thirty minutes away or the cost is the same as in-state college tuition.

I get it – I went through the same tedious process just a few years ago, and I know how overwhelming it can feel. Searching for child care can be frustrating and challenging for many reasons.

In this post, we’ll talk about the problem of finding affordable, quality child care and why it’s a struggle for so many of us.

Finding child care is hard for many families

If you’ve been searching (and searching, and searching) for good, affordable child care but can’t seem to find it, you might be wondering if you’re doing something wrong.

No, it’s not you. We’re in the midst of an actual child care crisis. The same thing is happening to many other families across the country, with some polls estimating that about a quarter of families with young children are having difficulty finding suitable child care. Shockingly, these difficulties are happening across all income levels.

As you can probably imagine, it’s a problem that has a significant impact on families, particularly on working women.

Not being able to find good, affordable child care leads to negative work consequences, increased social and emotional strain, and a reduced workforce as women leave their jobs to care for their kids.

It also limits access to quality care for young children during crucial developmental years.

Why it’s so hard to find child care

High demand

A quick “child care near me” Google search returns a good number of results. Ironically, hardly any of those facilities have availability for new children.

That’s because high demand, combined with teacher shortages and limited high-quality options, have led to a perfect storm that makes it very difficult to find open spots for child care.

As a result, parents are shelling out non-refundable fees to get on waitlists up to an entire year (or more) in advance to even have a shot.

Rising costs

It’s no secret that child care is expensive. In major cities, daycare and preschool costs can be upwards of $400 a week. That’s the cost of a mortgage – and that’s just for one child.

Paying these kinds of fees is not an option for many families, especially those with multiple young children. As child care costs continue to rise faster than inflation, it becomes increasingly difficult to find affordable care.

Federal funding is available for low-income families, but it is nowhere near enough to cover everyone that needs assistance, and it only covers some of the cost of child care.

Difficulty retaining teachers

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many child care facilities shut down and a large number of teachers left the workforce.

Although this has improved since then, child care facilities struggle to find qualified teachers. They’re facing low wages, limited resources, and high-stress working conditions, which leads to high turnover and difficulty retaining teachers.

Limited high-quality options

Finding child care in general is already hard, but finding high-quality child care is even harder. Qualified teacher shortages, increasing demand, and the true cost of providing quality care all make it difficult to find and access high-quality options.

Furthermore, finding high-quality settings that accommodate parents who work normal hours (the standard 9-5) is becoming increasingly difficult.

Explore all your options when searching for child care

So what do you do if you can’t find care?

If you can’t find child care and your return to work is around the corner, you may need to have a short-term strategy while you wait for another arrangement.

This can mean looking into other types of child care, including home daycare, a nanny or nanny-share, or family care, or even looking into care options that are further away than you’d ideally want.

As a long-term strategy, add your child’s name to as many child care waitlists as possible and stay in frequent communication with them (every 4-6 weeks). Openings sometimes come up unexpectedly, and a child care facility may be more likely to offer you a spot if you’ve been regularly expressing interest.

Sources

Kamenetz, Anya, and Mansee Khurana. “1 in 3 Working Families Is Struggling to Find the Child Care They Desperately Need.” NPR.org, 19 Oct. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047019536/families-are-struggling-to-find-the-child-care-they-desperately-need.

Mader, Jackie. “Finding Child Care Is Still Impossible for Many Parents.” The Hechinger Report, 28 Oct. 2022, hechingerreport.org/finding-child-care-is-still-impossible-for-many-parents/.

Coffey, Lauren. “Families at All Income Levels Struggle to Find Child Care.” EdSurge, 21 Jan. 2026, www.edsurge.com/news/2026-01-21-families-at-all-income-levels-struggle-to-find-child-care.

Bell, Sharon. “How America’s Child Care Crisis Impacts Parents.” ZERO to THREE, 7 June 2024, www.zerotothree.org/resource/how-americas-child-care-crisis-impacts-parents. Accessed 25 Mar. 2026.

“If You Can’t Find Care | Childcare.gov.” ChildCare.gov, 2025, childcare.gov/consumer-education/find-and-choose-quality-child-care/if-you-cant-find-care.

Gutierrez, Laura Valle. “As Federal Funds Expire, Child Care Prices Are Soaring.” The Century Foundation, 26 Oct. 2023, tcf.org/content/commentary/as-federal-funds-expire-child-care-prices-are-soaring. Accessed 25 Mar. 2026.

“Third Way.” Thirdway.org, 2025, www.thirdway.org/report/explaining-americas-child-care-problem.