“Childcare Center” vs. “Daycare Center”: Taking care of the child or the day?

Linda MacConnachie, owner of two Sunshine Station preschools in North Carolina, wrote to us:

Please help us change the image of our industry by replacing the word "day care" with “child development centers” or “child care centers”.

As we like to say, we are not taking care of the DAY, we are taking care of the CHILD.

Indeed she has a strong point.

Doodledays is about childcare. We did wrestle with this issue. Should we use “childcare center” or “childcare provider” consistently? Avoid the term “daycare” or “daycare center” altogether?

The American Heritage® Dictionary defines the two terms as below:

child-care or child·care
adj. Of, relating to, or providing care for children, especially preschoolers: a child-care center; child-care professionals.

day·care or day care
n. Provision of daytime training, supervision, recreation, and often medical services for children of preschool age, for the disabled, or for the elderly.

Clearly, “childcare” is a more precise term than “daycare”.

The term daycare somehow connotes a solution to an inconvenience. Daycare = Paying someone to take care of your child during the day because of practical reasons.

On the other hand, the term childcare puts the focus on caring for the child.

As Linda put it – it is about taking care of the CHILD not DAY.

So why did we still use the term daycare on many pages?

Word of mouth and search engine results are our two predominant means of reaching our audience. For a young website like doodledays.com, it is important to get noticed by search engines like Google. Matching the phrases people are searching for to the language on our site was an important consideration.

While childcare topics are universal, our initial focus has been on the US region. We were surprised to find a big difference in search usage for different phrases within US and outside. Most people in the US use “daycare” or “day care” as the search phrases rather than “childcare” or “child care”. Interestingly, the statistics are reversed for non-US searches!

For Google search usage indication, see:

1. “Childcare”: US and Canada at the bottom two of the seven ranked countries searching with “childcare” as Google search keyword.
2. “Child care”: Australia ranks first followed by Canada and US for “child care” - but there is significant gap in usage.
3. “Daycare”: Canada and US are top two and most predominant in usage in search.
4. “Day care”: US, Australia and Canada top the search usage.

So we did compromise.

We will strive to change the usage from ‘daycare’ to ‘childcare’. Even a change in usage could help reset our expectations about the service.

After all, doodledays is all about childcare matters.

Help us by spreading the word on doodledays.com.

Research shows overweight toddlers and those NOT in daycare have higher risk of iron deficiency.

This featured report on doodledays home page today is about recent research on iron deficiency among toddlers. Iron deficiency can lead to anemia, muscle and bone marrow impairments. It is also linked with learning development. Obviously, it is important to prevent it.

Based on a nation-wide sample of 1,641 toddlers, the recent study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers found that:

• One out of five toddlers who are overweight has iron deficiency. In comparison, only one out of fourteen normal-weight toddlers has it.
• One out of ten toddlers not in day care had iron deficiency. In comparison, only one out of twenty toddlers enrolled in day cares had it.

The study does not explain the discrepancy between kids in day care versus kids at home.

We know that balanced diet habits help prevent iron deficiency. If your child is not weaned off bottle at the right time, the risk of diet imbalance is higher. This is because of over-consumption of milk and juices at the expense of foods with iron.

Many day care centers limit milk feedings. May be to protect against the risk of feeding spoiled milk? Could it be that day care center policies are more consistent with weaning the babies off bottle at the right age? Could this be the explanation?

Raising your child at home full time, in a home based care provider setting or enrolling in a day care center is a personal decision. But we all should be aware of iron deficiency and take precautions to avoid it. Talking to your pediatrician about iron levels, nutrition, right time to wean babies off bottles, appropriateness of iron supplements, etc. is a good idea.

Childhood obesity is the other factor. Balanced diet and regular physical activities are the obvious prevention measures. Please visit the childhood obesity awareness page on doodledays. The videos are fun (for both kids and parents)!