Personally, I think that if you approach home daycare providers that only care for infants/toddlers, they would be very happy to work with you. I know several providers around here that only do infant care - and they are always happy to hand out referrals to their clients that age-out of their program.

Perhaps if you started by contacting your local licensing for a list of "infant only" caregivers, you could just put some feelers out to them. I know that I would be happy to receive a referral bonus by simply giving out info.

I gave up the battle long ago of trying to convince parents of 3s and 4s that it was beneficial to stay in a home daycare rather than move their child to a traditional prek. Many parents are worried that their child will be behind their peers if they don't have a year or two of preK before starting kindergarten. I have had clients that ask for my opinion about area preschools when their children reach 3-4yo - and I'm happy to tell them what I know about each of the programs that they ask about.

Bottom line I guess is that you may meet with some resistance from SOME home providers about giving referrals out for you - but there are probably some that would gladly accept the referral bonus to move a child out of their care to make room for an infant. It's certainly worth a try! All they can say is "no".

JMO - Good Luck!!!!!!!!!

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