Introduction I chose to write this book because of the pain I’ve seen in the heart of parents who have placed their child/children in child care centers that did not have the best interest of children at heart. These parents hurt deeply because they placed and even paid money on a weekly basis to have their child in a program that was not respecting the child. I like to call these programs child farms because their interest is not in helping to develop, grow, and nurture children but to make money off children. One mother could barely speak as she told me her story. She had asked her father to pick her son up from his family child care home and take him to the doctor. When the grandpa arrived, he knocked on the door, but nobody answered. He could hear babies inside the house crying, but it did not appear that anyone was inside caring for the children. Grandpa sat on the porch and waited for someone to come, all the while he could hear the babies inside crying. A while later the caregiver pulled up in the driveway with Wal-Mart bags in her hands. When grandpa told her whom he was there to pick up, she let him have the baby and did not even check his identification. He could have been anyone picking up that child. The mother set up a watch with the county police and the Department of Social Services for the next morning. Parents brought children into the home and left. About thirty minutes after the last child was dropped off, the caregiver came out of the house, locked the door, and got into her car. As she pulled out of her driveway, she was arrested. Parents were contacted to pick up their children. The caregiver was putting the children in their cribs and then leaving the house to go shopping and run errands. Another parent had her six-month infant get a broken arm. Another parent had her four-month infant die—death certificate said SIDS, but the child was dead for over two hours before anyone knew. These are scary stories, and there are many more. We’ve all seen these in the news, but I’ve personally sat face-to-face with some parents who have suffered through this devastating situation. Their common statement was “How does a parent know a good center from a child farm?” How does a parent know? And so it goes, I wrote the book. I hope this book will be useful to you as you begin to research child care programs for your child. Follow your heart. Look deep if it feels good. Leave and do not turn back if something makes you feel bad. Your feelings will be your best guide. As you tour programs, write notes in the note sections and try to complete the ratings as you feel them while you are touring a program. After touring several programs, the program-rating pages will help you to remember the qualities you liked best about each program. Remember, high-quality child care and education programs are difficult to get into. You will probably be put on a waiting list, so it is important to start your search for child care early. The earlier the better! I used to tell parents, “Call me when the stick turns blue.”

From the author of Expecting Better and The Family Firm, an economist's guide to the early years of parenting. “Both refreshing and useful. With so many parenting theories driving us all a bit batty, this is the type of book that we need to help calm things down.” —LA Times “The book is jampacked with information, but it’s also a delightful read because Oster is such a good writer.” —NPR With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even greater challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting. As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There's a rule—or three—for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision? Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn't always hold up. She debunks myths around breastfeeding (not a panacea), sleep training (not so bad!), potty training (wait until they're ready or possibly bribe with M&Ms), language acquisition (early talkers aren't necessarily geniuses), and many other topics. She also shows parents how to think through freighted questions like if and how to go back to work, how to think about toddler discipline, and how to have a relationship and parent at the same time. Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent's guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert—and mom of two—who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions—and stay sane in the years before preschool.