Daycare when both parents work from home.

The most common mistake remote-working parents make is assuming that because both parents are home, they do not need daycare. They do. Work-from-home is not the same as parenting-from-home, and trying to do both at once for a child under five tends to mean doing neither one well. The data backs this up: per a 2024 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta study, parents working remotely with a child under 5 in the home reported productivity 18 to 23 percent lower than remote-working parents who had outside childcare.

The right question is not whether you need childcare; it is how much, what hours, and at what cost. This guide walks through three approaches that actually work for work-from-home households, what each costs, and how to choose between them.

Why "both home" is not the answer

During the early COVID years, many remote-working parents tried to cover full days of work while also caring for an infant or toddler. The data and the lived experience tell the same story: it does not work for sustained periods.

An infant under 12 months needs an adult attending to them every 90 to 120 minutes for feeding, diaper changes, or comfort. A toddler 12 to 36 months needs near-constant supervision; the AAP recommends adult-level supervision at all times for children under 3 in any environment without dedicated childproofing. A preschool-age child 3 to 5 needs less supervision but seeks attention every 15 to 30 minutes when other adults are visibly present.

If both parents are in video meetings or focused work for 4 to 6 hours per day each, that is 8 to 12 adult-hours of "unavailable" parenting time per day. Stack that against a toddler's needs and the math does not close. Some option for outside childcare is non-negotiable for an under-5 in a two-WFH-parent home.

Option 1 — Full-time daycare

The most common solution, even for fully-remote families: enroll the child in standard 8:30 to 5:30 daycare, five days per week, just as if both parents commuted to an office. Cost is the same as for office-going parents: $1,000 to $2,500 per month for an infant in 2026 dollars per Child Care Aware regional ranges, less for toddler and preschool age.

The advantage of full-time daycare for WFH families is the cleanest separation of work hours from parenting hours. Drop off at 8:30, work uninterrupted, pick up at 5:30. The disadvantage is that you are paying for full-time care even on days when one parent has light meetings and could realistically take an afternoon. Many WFH families resent this cost line in particular.

It is worth doing the math anyway. If full-time daycare costs $1,500 per month and both parents bill at professional rates, the question is whether a half-day per week of recovered childcare actually offsets the cost when you account for context-switching, video-call cancellations, and incomplete deep work. For most professional households, the math says full-time daycare pays for itself; see our analysis in is daycare worth it financially.

Option 2 — Part-time daycare with shared coverage

A growing arrangement: part-time daycare three days per week, with the parents splitting coverage on the other two days. Common splits: parent A covers Tuesdays, parent B covers Thursdays, daycare covers Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Part-time daycare in 2026 runs roughly 60 to 70 percent of full-time tuition, per Child Care Aware part-time pricing samples. Three days at a center running $1,500 full-time costs roughly $1,000 per month, saving the family ~$500 per month.

For this to work, both parents have to be able to actually take their solo-coverage day without their employer expecting standard meeting hours. That means a "compressed schedule" or "no-meeting day" agreement with each employer. Where it works, it is the best of both worlds: outside childcare for predictability, parent days for connection. See part-time vs full-time daycare for more on this trade-off.

Option 3 — A nanny or au pair (with boundaries)

For families who want their child at home but understand they cannot also work and parent, hiring a nanny who comes to the home is a clean answer. The nanny watches the child in another room while both parents work. Cost is meaningfully higher: $20 to $35 per hour, $42,000 to $73,000 per year for 40 hours per week per Care.com 2024 rate data.

The hard part is the boundary. WFH parents with an at-home nanny frequently fall into the trap of being "available" all day, which exhausts both the parents and the nanny. Successful WFH-with-nanny households put up physical and verbal separation: a closed office door is parent-working time, an open door is parent-available time. The nanny needs to know the rules; the child does too.

An au pair is a lower-cost variant of this, at roughly $19,000 to $25,000 per year all-in including stipend and program fees. The trade-off is that the au pair lives with you, which a remote-working home may or may not have space for.

A quick comparison

Designing the schedule

Whatever option you pick, the day needs structure. The most successful WFH families with young children build their calendar around three blocks.

First block, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: deep work. Child is in daycare or with nanny in another room. Both parents in calls or focused work. No "quick check-ins" on the child unless it is a true emergency.

Second block, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.: parent lunch with the child if they are home, or a parent break. The point is that lunch is real lunch, not a sandwich in front of Slack. WFH families consistently underestimate the value of this hour.

Third block, 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.: deep work part two. Child is in afternoon daycare or napping with nanny support. Same rules.

After 5:30 p.m.: parent time. Close the laptop visibly. The transition matters more for the child than for you; toddlers in particular need clear signals that "work parent" has become "home parent."

The home setup that matters

Three small investments make WFH parenting markedly better.

A real door. An office with a door, even a flimsy one, dramatically reduces interruptions. Open-plan WFH and a toddler in the home is a recipe for half-finished meetings.

Good headphones. Noise-canceling headphones with a visible "I am on a call" indicator (a small light, a sign, anything) tell the child and the at-home caregiver that you cannot be interrupted right now.

A child-safe play area in view of the nanny or part-time-parent. Toddlers wander to wherever the interesting adults are; a curated play space with a baby gate or a designated room makes the nanny's day easier.

The honest tradeoff: cost vs sanity

WFH parents pay for childcare and watch their child not be in the house from 8:30 to 5:30, even though they are home. That feels wasteful. It is not. What you are buying is uninterrupted work time and an end-of-day parent who has not been context-switching for nine hours.

Per the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta study, WFH parents with outside childcare reported job satisfaction roughly 14 percentage points higher than WFH parents trying to combine the two. The cost is real. The benefit is not just productivity; it is a parent who actually looks forward to the 5:30 reunion.

Bottom line

Remote work does not eliminate childcare costs. For most WFH households with a child under five, it shifts the question from "do we need daycare" to "what type and how much." Full-time daycare for heavy meeting calendars, part-time daycare with shared coverage for flexible roles, and a nanny for families who can afford to keep care at home. Whichever you pick, build a real schedule around it.

For more on building a flexible schedule, see our pillar guide on daycare logistics and our companion article on hybrid work and a flexible childcare schedule. If you live in Austin, Portland, or another remote-work hub, see our city pages for centers with flexible part-time enrollment.