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What to Look for When Choosing a Daycare

9 min read · Updated May 28, 2026

The five things to check on every BC daycare are the licence type and age band, the staff-to-child ratio against Schedule E, educator credentials (especially Infant Toddler Educator for under-3 care), participation in CCFRI and $10-a-Day, and how the room actually feels when you walk in. Everything else is a nice-to-have.

This guide is for the moment you have an offer or an open-house invitation in hand, not the moment you are still applying. The BC supply gap is severe enough that most parents do not get to compare three offers and pick a favourite. They get one offer, and they have to decide quickly whether to take it. The checklist below is built for that decision. If you are still earlier in the search and need to know how to get to the offer stage at all, our pillar guide on how to find daycare in BC covers the application strategy.

Start with the non-negotiables

Three things either work or they do not. There is no spectrum.

1. Licence type and age band

BC has eight licensed types of daycare. Each is defined in Schedule E of the Child Care Licensing Regulation, and each serves a specific age band. A Group Child Care (Under 36 Months) licence cannot legally take a four-year-old. A Preschool licence runs one to four hours a day and cannot be your full-time arrangement (BC Gov, Types of child care).

Confirm the licence type and the age band on the offer itself. If you applied for a 12-to-24 month infant spot and the offer is for a Multi-Age room with a 2-year-old in it, that is a different program with different ratios. See our breakdown of the eight types if you need a refresher.

2. Staff-to-child ratio

The legal floor for ratios is in Schedule E. For under-36-months group care, one Infant Toddler Educator can be alone with up to four children. From 5 to 8 children, an ITE plus a second educator. From 9 to 12, an ITE plus a second educator plus an assistant. For 30-months-to-school-age group care, ratios start at 1:8 and add staff in bands up to a maximum group of 25.

Ask on the tour: how many children are in the room today, and how many staff. Watch the floor for ten minutes. The licensed ratio is a maximum, not a target. Good programs often run below it, especially in infant rooms.

3. Educator credentials

Every BC daycare is required to be run by people who hold an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) certificate, with two specialised tiers above it: Infant Toddler Educator (ITE) for under-three care and Special Needs Educator (SNE) for children with support needs (BC Gov, ECE certificate types). Family Child Care is run by a Responsible Adult, which is a lower-tier qualification (first aid, criminal record check, 20-hour course).

If your child is under three, the question to ask is whether the educators on the floor hold ITE certification. ITE-staffed under-three care is one of the clearest quality signals available, because the credential is harder to earn and the ratio is tighter. If your child is older, ECE is the baseline. Ask how many of the floor staff are certified versus assistants, and whether the lead educator has been with the program for more than a year.

Cost: sticker price versus out-of-pocket

Vancouver group infant care averages around $1,900 to $2,109 per month at sticker price (Westcoast CCRR Group Fee Survey, 2024). Almost no BC family pays sticker. About 94% of licensed providers participate in the Child Care Fee Reduction Initiative, which knocks a fixed amount off the monthly fee at every age band (BC Gov News, 2024).

The out-of-pocket numbers that actually matter are:

These three programs stack. For a full breakdown see our guide on BC daycare subsidies and the CCFRI mechanics explainer. On every offer, ask the centre for the exact monthly amount after CCFRI is applied, and whether the spot is a $10-a-Day spot. "Whether the centre participates in $10-a-Day" and "whether the specific spot you are being offered is a $10-a-Day spot" can be different answers at the same centre. Confirm both.

The tour: what to actually watch for

A tour is a 20-to-40-minute window into how the program runs on a Wednesday morning. Most parents walk in worried about the wrong things (decor, signage, the lobby) and miss the things that matter. Westcoast CCRR's parent checklist is a good starting frame: clean and safe space, warm and friendly caregivers, indoor and outdoor play, healthy food, varied learning activities, a daily routine (Westcoast CCRR, Choosing Child Care).

A few more specific things to look for:

How the educators talk to children

Listen to the language. Educators in a good room narrate what is happening at the child's eye level ("you found the red truck, can you push it to the rug?"). Educators in a stressed room give instructions across the room ("everyone come sit down"). Both happen in every program some of the time. The ratio between them is the signal.

Transitions between activities

The hardest minutes of a daycare day are the transitions: snack to outdoor time, outdoor to nap, pickup. A program that handles transitions calmly, with predictable cues and one-on-one help for children who need it, is a program that has its routine working. A program where transitions look chaotic from the outside usually feels chaotic from the inside.

Outdoor space

BC daycare licensing requires outdoor play time, and most centres go outside twice a day even in winter. Look at the outdoor space honestly. Is it set up for the age band you are visiting, or is it a generic playground that the room shares with older kids on a rotation? Is there shade in summer and shelter from rain in winter? Vancouver has roughly 160 rainy days a year. The outdoor space has to function on most of them.

Drop-off and pickup logistics

Ask where you park, where you sign in, and whether the room you will drop your child into is the same room they nap in and the same room they eat in. Centres that split rooms (one for nap, one for play, one for meals) can be fine, but a transition through three rooms per day is a lot for an infant.

What happens when an educator is sick

Single-educator programs (Family Child Care, Multi-Age) close when the licensee is unwell. That is the trade-off for the home-style setting. Centre-based group care has more redundancy, but each centre has its own backup-staffing protocol. Ask: what is the procedure if a staff member calls in sick? Is there a substitute pool? Are you contacted in advance?

Questions worth asking before signing

A short list. Print or screenshot it before a tour.

  1. What is your monthly fee after CCFRI, and is this a $10-a-Day spot specifically?
  2. What is the actual staff-to-child ratio in the room today, and what is it on a typical day?
  3. How many of the lead educators hold ECE certification, and for under-3 rooms, how many hold ITE?
  4. What is your daily schedule (meals, naps, outdoor time, free play)?
  5. How do you handle the first two weeks for a new child? Is there a phased transition? See our guide on helping a baby adjust to daycare for what a good phased start looks like.
  6. What is your policy on illness (when does my child need to stay home, when do you call us to pick up)?
  7. What is your communication routine with parents (daily report, app, email, paper notes)?
  8. How long has the lead educator been with the program?
  9. What is your procedure when a staff member is sick, and how often did you close a room last year due to staffing?
  10. Can I see the latest licensing inspection report?

The last one is genuinely useful. Every licensed BC daycare is inspected by its Health Authority, and inspection reports are public. The centre should be able to show you the most recent one. If they will not, that is information.

What to do once you have the offer

You will probably need to decide within a few days, sometimes a few hours. Here is a workable order:

  1. Confirm the licence type, age band, start date, and exact monthly cost in writing.
  2. Visit the room if you have not already. Most centres will let you, even on short notice.
  3. Compare against other active offers if you have them. Most parents do not.
  4. If the answer is yes, accept and notify every other waitlist you are on. Some centres will not remove you until you ask.
  5. Plan the transition. Start the adjustment process one to two weeks before the actual start date if your child has not been in care before.

The single biggest mistake parents make at this stage is waiting too long on a yes-or-no decision. BC's market is supply-constrained enough that an offer rescinded is an offer that goes to the next family on the list. If a centre meets your hard requirements (licence, age, cost, location) and the tour is reasonable, the right move is almost always to take it.

You can still be on other lists after you accept. Many parents do this, then trade up when a higher-priority offer comes through later. That is not bad behaviour, it is how a supply-constrained market works. Just be honest with the new centre when you accept, and give the old one enough notice to refill the spot.

The bottom line

A good BC daycare is a licensed program with the right age band for your child, ratios that meet or beat the legal floor, ECE-certified educators (ITE for under-three), participation in the fee-reduction programs your family qualifies for, and a room that feels calm when you walk in. That is the whole list.

Everything else, the curriculum label, the colour of the walls, the brand of the toys, is downstream. Pay attention to the educators and the routine, ask the questions above, and trust your read of the room.

For the broader strategy of getting to the offer stage at all, see our pillar guide on how to find daycare in BC. Once you have a date, our guide on helping your baby adjust covers the next two weeks.

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