I had a similar experience to Spixie; I was sure I wanted a daycare centre for my son and my husband agreed...that is until I started going around and looking at them all. It just seemed too institutional for such a little baby (he was 8 months old) and I couldn't imagine leaving him even in the nicer ones. If he had been 2 0r 3, I probably would have felt differently. Aside from that, the only centre that had a space for him was going to charge $1700/month for one child!!! That would have been most of my salary! We went with a home daycare and were very happy with it although we had to deal with the provider needed the occasional day off for appointments, illness, etc. At that time I didn't know I would become a provider myself either!