About Baby PhD

What is The Baby PhD Childcare Network?

The Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network is made up of several professionally operated home daycares, a nanny share program, and a childcare providers' resource center.

The Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network is made possible, in part, through a grant from the Childcare Initiative of The University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Hospitals.

Our Mission :

The Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network is dedicated to educating young children to learn, live, and play. We provide holistic early childhood education that is led by professionally trained teachers. Our programs operate in developmentally stimulating home-like environments within which children’s natural love of learning can flourish. We foster the growth of the whole child through age-appropriate activities that address social, emotional, cognitive, language, and physical development. Above all we strive to be practical, relevant, and fun!

Home Daycares

Each home daycare operates as an independent business run out of the private home of the daycare provider. The daycare homes range in size. Five of them are smaller size – taking up to 3 children at a time. In these settings each child gets a great deal of personalized attention. The child:teacher ratio is never more than 1:3. Daycare providers at our smaller sites often get together for playtime and for special programming such as creative art, music, and sign language. This gives the children in their care the opportunity for larger group social interaction on a regular basis. These settings are ideal for younger children, and children who are new to the daycare experience.

Two of our daycare homes are larger size. They take between 8 and 12 children at a time. These homes typically have a small teaching staff. Teacher:child ratios range from 1:3 (for infants and toddlers) to 1:5 (for preschoolers). In these homes, children participate in both mixed age activities (music, meals, story time, free-play, dramatic play) and age-specific activities (including literacy, pre-math, gross and fine motor, and creative arts projects that are focused on specific developmental milestones). One of our larger daycare homes, the Baby Ph.D. Dorchester location, functions as a training site, activity hub, and resource center for the entire network.

As of September 2007 eight home daycare providers are part of the Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network; 5 in Hyde Park, 1 in Kenwood and 2 in Bronzeville.

Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network staff are available to assist parents who are interested in sharing a nanny with another family to:

We currently support three nanny-share arrangements and we expect to set up several more over the course of the next 6 months.

Please Note: At this time, to qualify for support from The Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network, nanny share arrangements must include at least one family that is employed by, and receiving employment benefits from, The University of Chicago or The University of Chicago Hospitals.

If you choose to utilize a childcare provider from The Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network, you will be asked to sign a formal contract outlining your provider’s: fees & payment procedures, hours of care, vacations and holidays, illness policy, emergency procedures, discipline philosophy, meals/feeding procedures, napping policies and procedures and diapering/toilet training procedures. The contract is meant to be a good faith statement of parents’ and providers’ mutual expectations regarding the ‘nuts-and-bolts’ of the childcare experience.

Parents of children who are enrolled with Baby Ph.D. Childcare Network providers will be given many opportunities to learn about their children’s day-to-day experiences. Those opportunities include regular conversations with your individual provider, review of a daily information log kept on site by your childcare provider, shared digital photographs, and occasional e-mails from, and article distribution by, The Baby Ph.D. Network Office.

Should you decide to sign on with the childcare provider with whom you are interviewing, you are asked to complete the attached family information sheet. The sheet will be submitted to The Baby Ph.D. Network office. Information will be utilized for University of Chicago Child Care Initiative grant-related reporting requirements, to maintain internal records, and to maintain effective communication with you regarding Network events and Network resources available to families such as yourselves.