What does the research say about babies and toddlers and ensuring sufficient numbers of providers in family child care settings?

Strong, secure relationships between babies and toddlers and their child care providers are important indicators of a quality care setting and support positive child development.

Child care providers who are attuned to each child’s unique needs and personality can support, nurture, and guide the child’s growth and development. The quality of the interaction between the child and provider has been found to be related to the level of security in attachment that infants have with their family child care provider. Sufficient numbers of providers are needed to ensure both the quality and safety of babies and toddlers in family child care settings.

Sufficient provider-to-child ratios have been connected to sensitive and quality care.

In general, numerous research studies have found links between “structural” features of center-based child care programs that can be regulated, such as provider-to-child ratios and group size, and provider behavior that is more positive and sensitive to the individual children in care. Less research exists specific to family child care, but some studies have found a connection between provider sensitivity and ratio and group size regulations that take into account the age of children. Another study found that family child care homes that were rated as lower quality also tended to have greater proportions of infants and toddlers in care. Additionally, when family child care homes are observed as rating higher on standardized measures of quality, the children in care are more likely to be assessed more positively on cognitive, language, behavior and cooperation measures, such as the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS).

Babies and toddlers in child care also need to be in safe situations where the provider is able to manage the number of children in care.

The National Life Safety Code, developed by the National Fire Protection Association, recommends that child care group sizes in a home be no larger than six, with no more than two persons “incapable of self preservation” in the event of a need to evacuate. Two nationally recognized leaders in developing child care policy have adopted similar standards: the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Head Start. First, regulations governing the family child care homes allowed to participate in the child care system managed by the DoD require that in mixed-age family child care groups, the number of children under two years of age is limited to two children, with no more than six children total in care, including the provider’s own children under age eight. The DoD’s system of child care, including the provisions to regulate family child care providers, has been recognized as a model of using standards and monitoring to improve quality of care. Second, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Head Start, requires that small family child care homes do not exceed a group size of six children with no more than two children under age 2, in regulations approved in January 2008 on family child care homes providing Head Start and Early Head Start services.

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How can state child care licensing, subsidy, and quality enhancement policies ensure sufficient numbers of providers for babies and toddlers in family child care?

Most states require some regulation of non-parental care provided in home settings, and all states should do so.

Of those states that regulate the ratio of providers to children in family child care, 13 states already require no more than two children under age 2 per provider. Maximum group size for one family child care provider is harder to categorize, since many states have a matrix in which group size depends on the ages of all the children in a provider’s care. Thirteen states either cap maximum group size at six or do so if children under age 3 are present. Two states go further to limit group size to five when any children under age 2 are in care (with a maximum of two children under age 2 allowed). 

Licensing rules cannot be effective, however, without supports for providers to meet these requirements.

States should pair licensing mandates with incentives and supportive strategies in their Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) and child care subsidy systems to ensure family child care providers have the financial resources to afford caring for limited numbers of infants and toddlers in small group sizes, a potential reduction in the number of children in their care, without having to close for financial reasons.

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