Childcare during a business trip.

For a two-parent household, a business trip means the at-home parent solo-parents for two to seven days. For a single parent, a trip means the entire week of childcare logistics has to be rebuilt from scratch. Either way, the question is the same: what is the cleanest way to cover the gap so that work happens, parenting happens, and the trip is not the most stressful week of the quarter?

Per a 2024 Society for Human Resource Management survey, roughly 38 percent of US professional workers travel for work at least once a year; the median is three trips. This guide walks through five options for covering childcare during a trip, what each costs, and what to set up in advance so the next trip is mostly logistics, not a small crisis.

Option 1 — The other parent solo parents

In a two-parent household, the simplest answer is that the at-home parent absorbs the week. Daycare drop-offs, dinner, bath, bedtime, weekend coverage, all of it. This works, but only if you set it up properly. The most common failure mode is treating it as the same week the at-home parent normally has, except slightly harder.

What to put in place before the trip: reduce the at-home parent's work calendar by 20 to 30 percent for the week (no late meetings, no early starts). Pre-book one to two outside helpers (a sitter, a grandparent, or a friend) for the most punishing hours, especially the witching hour between 5 p.m. and bedtime. Move the laundry, the meal-prep, and the grocery delivery before the trip starts. The point of the helpers is not to take the kid; it is to take the cognitive load.

If you have a DCFSA or employer childcare benefit, a sitter during a business-travel week often qualifies as a reimbursable expense if both parents are working. See the IRS Form 2441 instructions for the test (both spouses must work, look for work, or attend school full-time during the care).

Option 2 — A short-term nanny or sitter block

For a four- or five-day trip, hiring a sitter for a daily block (often the most stressful 3 to 4 hours, typically 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.) costs $300 to $700 for the week at $20 to $35 per hour, per Care.com 2024 rate data. This is the most common professional-class solution: keep your daycare arrangement the same, but layer in evening help.

Where to find sitters: a sitter you have already used through Care.com or Sittercity, a college student from a local babysitter agency, a high schooler from the neighborhood who has babysat for you before, or a daycare teacher who does occasional evening work (a meaningful share of daycare teachers do; ask politely). See our emergency childcare options guide for how to vet a sitter quickly.

Option 3 — A grandparent stays over

A grandparent or other family member flying or driving in to help is a common middle-class solution and usually the lowest-cost. The trip becomes a small reunion for the kids and frees the at-home parent to work normal hours. Cost is typically travel ($200 to $500 round-trip for a regional flight) and incidentals.

Two things to make this work well. First, share a written schedule of the week in advance (school, daycare, naps, dinner time, bedtime, allergies, doctor on call). Second, build in one solo evening for the at-home parent: the visiting grandparent stays with the kids while the at-home parent gets dinner with a friend. The visit is much more sustainable when there is a small reward at the end of day three. See daycare vs grandparent care for the broader dynamics.

Option 4 — The kids travel too (sometimes)

For some trips, bringing a parent and child along is more practical than solo-parenting at home. Conference cities with family-friendly hotels (Anaheim, Orlando, San Diego, Washington DC) sometimes make this cheaper than a week of evening sitters. Cost is the flight plus a few hundred dollars in hotel-room sitter charges (most major hotels offer in-room childcare through a vetted agency at $25 to $40 per hour).

This works best for a single parent traveling for the kind of event where evenings are unstructured and the conference runs only 9 to 5. It does not work for events with required client dinners or 7 a.m. starts. If the traveling parent's company has a "travel with family" stipend (common in technology and consulting per SHRM 2024 data), this is the time to use it.

Option 5 — Employer backup care

If your employer offers backup care (Bright Horizons, Care.com Care@Work, Vivvi), business travel by the other parent often qualifies as a "covered situation" for using the benefit. You can book a sitter or a center placement for the days the working parent will be remote, at a $15 to $25 daily copay per the Bipartisan Policy Center 2024 employer benefits brief.

This is the cleanest option if you have it, because the vendor handles vetting and scheduling. Most parents who have the benefit underuse it because they think of it only for sick days; travel is an entirely legitimate use. Check your benefits portal before the next trip lands.

A quick comparison

The night-before handoff brief

Whatever option you pick, the traveling parent should leave a one-page handoff brief on the kitchen counter. The brief makes the rest of the week run on autopilot. Cover: pediatrician name and number, daycare phone and contact teacher, medication doses and times, food preferences and allergies, naptime and bedtime, weekday and weekend schedule, two emergency contacts, and one note of trivial-but-important detail (the lovey is washed on Sunday; do not lose Brown Bear).

Add the daily WiFi password if anyone visiting needs it, the location of the spare house key, and the doctor's after-hours number. The brief is mostly for the visiting helper or sitter, but it is also a reminder for the at-home parent. See daycare tour questions for the format of a single-page document that surfaces what matters.

Cost math for a typical trip

Bottom line

Business travel does not require improvisation. It requires a small, repeatable system: two pre-vetted sitters, a one-page handoff brief, a reduced workload week for the at-home parent, and a grocery plan. With those four pieces in place, a trip stops being a small family crisis and becomes just another work week with a slightly higher childcare bill.

For more on flexible care arrangements, see our pillar guide on daycare logistics and our companion article on hybrid work and a flexible childcare schedule. If you live in New York, San Francisco, or another travel-heavy city, see our city-specific guides for which centers and sitter agencies handle short-notice bookings best.