While North Dakota is known around the country as a sound economic community, there are some pit falls that come with the good. Working parents are struggling to find daycare, and many are forced to quit their jobs to care for their kids.
Alicia Waldoch of Fargo says, "Ellie is our whole world. I mean, She is our whole life."
When you love someone so much...
"There'd kind of be red flags. I thought, 'Okay, this is strange', says Waldoch.
It's hard to leave them in the hands of others. But after Alicia Waldoch experienced a nightmare.
"There was one time when the provider was in the shower, the kids were in the basement and nobody was looking after them," says Waldoch.
She changed daycare providers. But the switch wasn't so easy.
Waldoch says, "Every time I called, they had no openings."
"We were computers up, calling places and no,no,no,no,no openings," says Kevin Wolnik of Fargo.
"Everybody's full. Completely full," says Danelle Wolnik of Fargo.
It's a common problem in the Fargo-Moorhead area and the entire state. Parents need to work, but daycares are full. At Small Wonders, it can take up to a year to get your child in.
Small Wonders Director, Lynnette Lein, says, "We're telling them there's no chance of getting a baby spot and they're panicking."
Lein says their wait list has more than 200 people on it. She says there's a need for daycare centers, but it's tough to expand.
"Facilities may have an opening, but don't have teacher to take care of the children that are qualified," says Lein.
And while the daycare centers try to keep up with demand, parents cross their fingers for an open spot.
"Very thankful, we both called our moms and said, " you couldn't believe it! We finally got into a place!" says Wolnik.
The wait list at small wonders is so long that the daycare center has handfuls of people who call to put their names down before they're even pregnant. Lein says she's working with the state to find ways to increase the amount of daycare and the keep the cost down for parents. She says improvements could come as early as next year.
If you're having a tough time finding care for your kids, some centers move referrals or family members of people already using their services to the top of the wait list. At home daycare providers are also options, but don't always have the education programs that daycare centers do.
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