Infant + school-age: daycare ~$1950/mo, nanny ~$3800/mo, au pair ~$2400/mo, parent-stays-home opportunity cost ~$52,500/yr.
~$1950/mo
~$3800/mo + taxes
~$2400/mo all-in
~$52,500/yr opportunity cost
Here's what the math looks like for Infant + school-age as of 2026-05-25. The cheapest of the 4 options we compared is Daycare center at roughly $1,950/mo all-in, and the priciest is Parent stays home at $4,000/mo. That's a monthly spread of $2,050 — money that compounds fast when you're talking five-year and ten-year horizons.
Where it gets interesting is the wealth side. Over five years, Parent stays home builds the most net worth (-$40,500) thanks to a mix of equity, appreciation, and avoided sunk cost. The worst-performing path leaves you about $172,500 behind it. That gap is why "which is cheaper this month" is the wrong question. The right one is "which path puts me ahead five years out, given my actual stage and my own risk tolerance?"
Below we walk through each option with the local numbers we pulled for Infant + school-age, then three plug-and-play scenarios you can run before you commit to anything.
Every stage we publish gets its own data sheet because the answer genuinely changes by location. For Infant + school-age, the specifics that move the needle are: Daycare $1950/mo, Nanny (live-out) $3800/mo, Au pair $2400/mo, Parent salary cut 70%, Years care needed 1. A national-average calculator that ignores those inputs will lie to you about Infant + school-age specifically — sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars over a five-year window.
That's why this page isn't a wrapper around a generic spreadsheet. The four (or five) option columns above are running on Infant + school-age's actual property tax rate, transit fare, median rent — whatever applies to this hub. If something looks off versus what you're seeing on the ground, that's useful signal: scroll to the methodology section, check our sources, and tell us what we missed. We update these numbers on a published cadence and credit the contributors who spot drift.
Daycare center — ~$1950/mo. Roughly $1,950/mo all-in with $1,500 upfront. After five years our model projects a net-worth delta of -$90,000 versus a do-nothing baseline. Where it wins: Cheapest non-family option; Social interaction + structure; Tax credit eligible (~$3k/yr). Where it bites: Waitlists 6–12 mo in major metros; Sick days = you take off; Hours don't always match your job.
Nanny (live-out) — ~$3800/mo + taxes. Roughly $3,800/mo all-in with $800 upfront. After five years our model projects a net-worth delta of -$213,000 versus a do-nothing baseline. Where it wins: Home-based, flexible hours; 1:1 attention; No waitlist. Where it bites: Most expensive option (~$1,850/mo premium); You're the employer (taxes, payroll); Backup care if nanny sick.
Au pair — ~$2400/mo all-in. Roughly $2,400/mo all-in with $9,000 upfront. After five years our model projects a net-worth delta of -$124,000 versus a do-nothing baseline. Where it wins: Live-in coverage 45 hrs/wk; Cultural exposure for kids; Bundle agency fees include healthcare + visa. Where it bites: Live-in privacy tradeoff; 12-month commitment (J-1 visa); Not great for infants under 12 weeks.
Parent stays home — ~$52,500/yr opportunity cost. Roughly $4,000/mo all-in with $0 upfront. After five years our model projects a net-worth delta of -$40,500 versus a do-nothing baseline. Where it wins: No childcare worries; Maximum bonding time; Saves commute + work expenses (~$1k/mo). Where it bites: Career gap costs more than the missed salary at re-entry; Mental health risk of isolation; Retirement savings gap.
Conservative — assume things go sideways. Use the lower end of every input. Income flat for five years, no appreciation, maintenance comes in 30% over your initial estimate, and you stay put the full term. In this scenario the option with the lowest *combined* monthly + opportunity cost usually wins, even if it's not the headline-cheapest one. For Infant + school-age, that's typically Daycare center — but only if the five-year net-worth delta is within $43,125 of the leader; otherwise the equity gap closes the case.
Typical — assume the base rate. Plug in the median figures shown on this page. This is what a representative household in Infant + school-age actually experiences, not a best-case projection. We bias these inputs slightly conservative on appreciation and slightly aggressive on maintenance because that's where most calculators fail people in practice.
Ambitious — assume things break your way. Raise your income trajectory, drop your move-out horizon to three years, and let appreciation run at the upper end of Infant + school-age's historical band. In this case the equity-building options (typically Parent stays home) pull ahead hard — often by enough that the higher monthly carry pays for itself before year four. The watch-out: ambitious scenarios assume you actually execute. If you're not sure you'll stay, the conservative path is the honest pick.
- The "parent stays home is free" math ignores three real costs: lost salary today ($52,500/yr), career re-entry penalty (typically 7–14% lifetime earnings hit per BLS data), and lost employer 401k match.
- Daycare waitlists in major metros run 6–18 months for infant rooms. If you want daycare, register WHILE pregnant — not after the baby arrives.
- Nanny employment requires you to be the employer: withholding payroll taxes, paying state unemployment insurance, providing a W-2. Most families either use a service like HomeWork Solutions ($55/mo) or get bitten at tax time.
- Hybrid setups (3 days daycare + 2 days grandparents, or part-time nanny + parent flex hours) often beat pure daycare or pure stay-home on both money and stress.
None of these are unique to Infant + school-age alone, but they hit harder here than the national average because of the specific cost structure we documented above. The save-scenario feature on this page is built precisely so you can capture a "before I forget" snapshot of your numbers and compare against your real bank-statement reality six months later.
Daycare cost = Care.com 2024 metro median for center-based care. Nanny cost = Care.com 2024 + 12% payroll-tax employer share. Au pair = agency fee amortized over 12 mo + weekly stipend ($195.75) + room/board imputed at $400/mo. Parent-stays-home opportunity cost = current salary × stay-home parent's salary-cut percentage + BLS re-entry penalty (7–14% lifetime earnings hit per year out, conservatively modeled at 10% × 20 remaining career years). Five-year net worth = -monthly cost × 60 + tax credit savings + commute/work-expense savings.
Specifically for Infant + school-age, the inputs above come from: Care.com 2024 Cost of Care Report; U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Child Care Affordability data 2024; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey 2024 (Re-entry wage gap); International Au Pair Association (IAPA) program data 2024; American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on early childhood care. Where two reputable sources disagreed we used the more recent figure and noted the prior value in our changelog. We don't accept paid placements on these pages — affiliate disclosure lives on the editorial-policy page in the footer.
Last reviewed 2026-05-25. If you spot a number that's drifted, the "Email me this result" button on each option sends us a copy along with whatever you flagged.
Save these inputs as a named scenario, or copy a prefilled link to share the exact setup.
For infant + school-age, daycare at ~$1950/mo is the cheapest paid option. Parent staying home is "$0/mo" in cash terms but costs ~$52,500/yr in foregone salary — substantially more than daycare unless your salary is below ~$30,420.
For infant + school-age, a nanny is roughly $1,850/mo more than daycare. You're paying for: home-based care (no commute/drop-off), flexible hours, sick-day coverage, and 1:1 attention. For families with two career-track parents in high-COL metros, the productivity recovery often pays for the gap. For single-income or remote-work families, the math rarely works.
At ~$2400/mo all-in (agency fee + weekly stipend + room/board), an au pair is roughly $37% cheaper than a nanny with similar hours. The catch: you give up a bedroom, you sign a 12-month J-1 visa commitment, and au pairs are not appropriate primary caregivers for infants under 12 weeks.
Yes, and it's worse than the headline number. For infant + school-age requiring 1 year(s) out, the direct income loss is ~$52,500. But BLS Current Population Survey data shows re-entrants face a 7–14% lifetime earnings penalty per year out — for a $75,000 earner that's another ~$150,000 over a 20-yr remaining career.
Yes, and it's usually the empirical winner. Part-time daycare (3 days/wk) + grandparent or parent-flex coverage for the other 2 days runs ~$1,268/mo and lets one parent keep ~70% of their job. Or a nanny-share (you + another family split one nanny) cuts costs by ~40%. Get creative — strict "all daycare or all stay home" is rarely the right answer.