Creche vs Daycare vs Childcare vs Preschool in Early Childhood Education: 4 best differences and how to spot them

by Ekene Ifechukwu

Creche vs Daycare vs Childcare vs Preschool How to know the differences in Early Childhood Education

Trading Risk: What You Need To Know

Early Childhood Education for babies, infants, and toddlers: Creche vs Daycare vs Childcare vs Preschool or Pre-kindergarten.

How to know the differences between crèche, daycare, childcare, and preschool.

Day & Child care: What is?, Services, Centers, Types, and General Purpose

Proving information about care tips and services for child support & development

Why people use day care and child care interchangeably
Crèche vs Daycare vs childcare vs preschool (How to know the differences between crèche, childcare, daycare and preschool or pre-kindergarten)
Proving valuable information about care tips and services for child support & development
What is child care services?
Growing Need of Child care Services Globally
Daycare center/facility
Types of Daycare or Childcare or Creche services centre
What is the general purpose of child care services

Why people use day care and child care interchangeably – (Crèche vs Daycare)

In early childhood education (ECE), crèche, preschool, childcare, and daycare differ markedly even though they appear the same to an average person probably because they are sometimes practically indistinguishable from one another in terms of design, organization and management.

For this reason, many people use crèche, daycare and childcare interchangeably. It hasn’t been a serious offence to use the term daycare when childcare is supposed to be used but to an early childhood education (ECE) professional, it is an aberration.

Crèche vs Daycare vs child care vs preschool – How to know the 4 differences between crèche, childcare, daycare and preschool or pre-kindergarten

Preschool or pre-kindergarten

**Creche vs Daycare: A child learning in a preschool. Photo by Jason Sung on Unsplash**

1. Preschool is a pre-kindergarten or kindergarten pre-elementary approach to education usually held in nursery school to run programs for children between the ages of 3 and 5.It may be publicly or privately operated.

2. It is an educational establishment for offering early childhood education (ECE) to children before they undertake basic compulsory education in elementary schools. The terminologies used to refer to preschool vary from country to country. They include playschool, nursery, pre-primary, pre-elementary, pre-kindergarten, and even kindergarten as in the US.

3. Preschool education, imited to pre-primary school, play school, or creche is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school.

4. Preschool or pre-kindergarten or kindergarten can be a part of childcare giving.

Childcare

**Creche vs Daycare: A caregiver giving attention to a child in a care services center. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto**

1. Childcare education is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time whose ages range from two weeks of age to three at a care service center. or even beyond.

2. Childcare is the service where children are entrusted into the care of someone for the purpose of caregiving with the spotlight on child support and developmental needs. Child support and development demands growing up children such that their health, social, emotional, and educational needs are met.

3. Child care is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, and social and cultural conventions.

4. This stage of early childhood education is encompassing and includes creche and preschool activities. It is used interchangeably with childhood but with a more professional outlook.

Daycare

1. Day care refers to the care provided for infants and toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children, between two weeks of age to five years and even beyond either in their own homes, in the home of a relative or other caregiver, or in a center-based facility.

2. Daycare refers to the service where children are entrusted to the care of someone for the purpose of caregiving with attention in the absence of the parents.

3. Daycare is often just an ordinary holdover term from a time when childcare services & centers were far less professionally-established, and little was known about the importance of early childhood education.

4. Daycare is often used synonymously with childcare services. However, for the fact that daycare is an accepted description at a foundation level, it merely does not justify its use to the professionalism associated with running childcare.

Therefore, having cited the above terminological limitations characterised to daycare centre, the use of childcare center, early childhood education centre, early learning center, or child learning centre is more acceptable alternative representation to day care centre.

Early childhood education (ECE) professionals find the term more appropriate to use than daycare because it focuses on the most important part of the care arrangement—child support and development.

Crèche

**Creche vs Daycare: A toddling playing with toys in a creche. Photo by Troy T on Unsplash**

1. Creche is a nursery where babies and young children are cared for during the working day.

2. It refers to child caregiving services by someone else in the absence of the parents.

3. The only difference between crèche, daycare, and childcare is that crèche is a lot less structured than a day care and childcare otherwise the three can be used interchangeably.

4. Childcare runs child support and developmental programs for babies, infants, and toddlers of varying age range,s unlike crèche or day care. Therefore, crèche services centres generally have fewer qualified workers than a day care or child care center.

Proving valuable information about care tips and services for child support & development – (Crèche vs Daycare)

**Creche vs Daycare: Providing a child with proper care and support for learning and development is vital in early childhood education. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash**

Despite the difference, however, we will use daycare and childcare interchangeably in this article, for the sake of convenience and not just for early childhood education (ECE) professionals, in providing valuable information about child care tips and services for child support & development. Discussion in this section will childcare services and the growing need of it globally; day care centers – types & general purpose of day care centres.

What is child care services?

Child care services is providing care for babies, infants and toddlers of varying age range in a day care centre or facility.

The Growing Need of Child care Services – (Crèche vs Daycare)

Globally, there is a need for day care services for child caregiving. The need for day care centres can be attributed to the desire of parents for childcare services. Day care services are offered in a centre known as daycare or child care centre.

thereby creating the need for day care – a better option than use of nannies (nanny care) or babysitters (babysitting).Many toddlers and infants are at daycare centres in developing countries today.

Daycare center/facility

A daycare centre is a child care facility where parents drop off their kids usually babies, infants and toddlers of varying age range for the purpose of caregiving.

Types of Daycare or Childcare or Creche service centre

In-home or family daycare centre

This is a childcare centre run in the caregiver’s home or home extension. The caregiver cares for the children enrolled at the center. Children in in-home or family day care centers may experience customized small-group or individualized care services.

Group daycare or formal daycare center

The facilities are usually run similarly to a school as care is provided for babies and toddlers of varying age ranges in groups. It will often offer transitional or pre-preschool level of educational services, active childplay and other similar structured experiences for such children.

Being a larger group than in-home center, the child-to-caregiver ratio in this facility may be lower than in-home centre with children usually divided into age-specific groupings with age-appropriate activities. Group day care services can be offered in family & friends corporate or religious organizations.

Family & friends corporate daycare

Some family-friendly of major corporations are offering (sometimes subsidized) day care facilities on their campuses. It is very convenient for working parents because it gives them more access to their babies, infants and toddlers. Won’t you as a parent savour the fantasy of having lunch with your baby if I may ask?

Religious group or organization day care

Childcare services from a religious group or organization can offer convenience, rest of mind and even a substantial discount. You would surely be comfortable with such a treat especially for families who are religious.

What is the general purpose of child care services?

From the foregoing, we can deduce majorly the following from the general purpose of child care services:

It provides exceptional child support and development through care for babies, infants, and toddlers of varying age ranges.
It is convenient for working parents to continue working after child-bearing, especially those whose employers operate paid maternity leave.
It offers the kids valuable social interactive skills as they socialize with kids of their age and pre-preschool education services.

Watch videos on Daycare vs Preschool & Preschool vs Kindergarten

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