Many Brookline daycare centers and facilities for day care in Boston provide full-time care. This is great news for parents working full-time, but may be less desireable for parents working part-time or those who require Boston day care services nearby their workplace. In addition, full-time Brookline day care may be less appealing for at-home parents who prefer their child attend school part-time and spend the remainder with their family. 

To answer this need, shared daycare slots are offered at some Boston day care centers. Modeled after the concept of "job-sharing", where two employees share a job but work on alternating schedules, shared daycare slots involve two families coordinating their Brookline daycare schedules.  In some cases, parents need to find another family with whom the available slot may be filled, however, many day care providers do help in the process of coordinating families. Some centers offering day care in Boston make it even easier by maintaining a list of families looking to share a daycare slot.

No matter how the arrangement is set up, the benefits of sharing a spot can be well worth it to parents who want their child to attend day care in Boston near their homes or offices. Another benefit of sharing Boston day care center slots is cost effectiveness. A shared slot may be more manageable financially for some families.  In addition, sharing a daycare slot in a Boston day care center is also a terrific option for families whose children who are not quite ready for a full time "school" or child care environment.  

There are a few considerations for coordinating a shared slot at a Boston day care facility.  Usually, the two children's ages should be within a few months of each other.  Naturally, to share a slot, it is important that the children to be in the same developmental stage.   Also, the children's schedules must compliment each other.  One child, for example, would attend school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while the second child only attends on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Brookline day care center.