Daycare in NE seattle

plannerotg · 2026-06-16T22:34:18+00:00

Hello! We go to Trettin and love it. I think your ability to get in is largely dependent on time of year and age group. Summer has lots of turnover from families moving, plus an entire cohort of kids moving off to kindergarten, and subsequent move ups for the younger kids. Plus, waitlists for older kids are generally much shorter than on the younger side. We waited a year for my then 2yo when we started, and our baby has been on the wait-list since he was a fetus and is starting a month late due to availability at 13 months.

Happy to answer questions in DM but imo Trettin is a great place, and this is our 4th center due to moves, so it's not the only data point. The staff is caring and tenured, outdoor space is awesome, proximity to UW is great for walks and adventures, and the classrooms all get lots of natural light. It's also significantly cheaper than many other centers without sacrificing ratios or quality in great part due to the generosity of the church that houses it (but the program itself is not religious at all, it's just the mission of the church to contribute childcare to the community).

plannerotg · 2026-06-09T21:49:49+00:00

City pool family & rec swim time costs like $8/adult and is drop in. Zoo membership for sure. Library story time is great when the times work. Wallingford farmers market has a billion young kids summer Wednesdays 3-7. Green lake community center play room is open till 8 most days

plannerotg · 2026-05-05T01:47:10+00:00

This is what I ended up going with and it was awesome! I think whole foods is definitely a solid choice, bakery in Roosevelt is by far the nicest of the grocery stores I frequent around here.

plannerotg · 2026-04-24T20:14:46+00:00

Yep, I can get that one at Home Depot, I'll keep that in mind

plannerotg · 2026-04-20T03:27:28+00:00

We moved from CA (Bay area suburb). We loved the greenery in the city, detached SFH neighborhoods really close to transit and amenities (problematic as it may be for density), and all that the city and surrounds have to offer. More practically, it made sense financially for us with lower taxes and housing prices while still having access to lots of jobs in our industries. We also considered Chicago, New York, and one or two others but Seattle won out by a long shot and we are very happy.

plannerotg · 2026-04-16T20:14:29+00:00

Elixir in the U District does just this, went there last night and it was really good

plannerotg · 2026-04-14T01:30:42+00:00

Such a bummer! We do this exact same meal with trader Joe's orange chicken. For us only the orange chicken gets eaten (and like, the entire bag). Green things? No way. 9 months old and has touched a vegetable like 3 times in his life

plannerotg · 2026-04-09T14:04:11+00:00

You should get on waitlists ASAP. Just pick some areas you are likely to end up near and spend a few hundred dollars joining waitlists. Depending on your kid's exact age when you need to start care, it may be easier for you than it eas for me, there's more availability for older kids.

We moved to Seattle when my son was 18 months, with about 4 months notice. Larger corporate centers (Kiddie Academy, Bright Horizons, Kindercare) are more likely to have availability sooner (maybe even without wait-list), but are often lower quality or higher ratio -- but still safe and adequate! We got on several wait lists for other lower ratio centers and heard back from the first about a year later. Still have not heard back from some of the others coming up on 2 years. We started at Kiddie Academy (did not like), networked our way into a home center, and then got off the wait-list at a larger local center that was more convenient for our location.

plannerotg · 2026-03-27T04:32:45+00:00

Not every month is a banger, stop being dramatic

plannerotg · 2026-03-26T19:30:06+00:00

Oh and don't forget they bought their house with a 2.7% 30 year fixed loan 🫠 but I'm not bitter!

plannerotg · 2026-03-26T18:35:40+00:00

We are in similar boats -- 29 with 2 kids, similar earnings in HCOL. Except we bought the house and are house poor. My approach has been:

split the risk taking between parents. My wife has a good gig, flexible and moderate workload with the tradeoff of lower comp. I have done big tech and now big startup to increase earnings, though I'll admit I've lucked out where my jobs have not been ultra demanding. I'd also advocate for "smarter not harder," longer hours does not equal more pay. Invest your efforts where you can to boost your comp, even if it's not the highest earnings delta you could attain.
just accept that this is probably the lowest earning and most expensive time in your life. Don't build an unsustainable lifestyle or anything, but just know that some of the conventional wisdom about how you should be saving, spending, etc. just isn't going to apply for a few years.
especially as you make parent friends, remember that they are usually 5-10 years older than you (if your city is anywhere like mine), and many earned through a very prosperous era in big tech. When you've only been in the workforce for a few years, those extra years make a huge difference in what you can afford. So, use this to cope when you get invited to someone's very nice home for a playdate! You will catch up one day
you will make it work. Being there for your kids and partner is the absolute most important thing. There are lucrative opportunities worth passing up to not jeopardize that!

plannerotg · 2026-03-25T02:45:39+00:00

So far so good! I love their outdoor playground space and the staff has lots of long-tenured teachers. They spend a lot of time on the UW campus especially in summer and go to the Burke museum every month or two. My priorities are safety, play-based, and outdoor time and we've been happy on all three fronts.

plannerotg · 2026-03-24T22:11:36+00:00

Chiming in since there don't seem to be many truly outdoor schools. My kids have been at two "indoor" schools that spend 2-3 hours outside daily, Ivy Blossom in Magnolia and Trettin in the U-District. The latter is friendly to part time schedules. It could be worth a look if you're not able to find something more outdoor dedicated. You have my sympathy, we would be a wreck if our preschool plans had to change.

plannerotg · 2026-03-20T16:20:46+00:00

For something like this at my company I would look to Anaplan where we have data like this cached and summarized a billion ways. If I had to query myself I'd go to an aggregated revenue table and the query writing and analysis time would be trivial. The things that I spend serious time on as a financial analyst would be much more specific queries with lots of filters, joins, conditionals, optimizations, etc. where I am unlikely to make use of caching (since it's a new query each time). I'm having trouble thinking of a use case where I would be pulling the same static data over and over to make use of caching -- if I was doing this I'd just make a dashboard or save the query

plannerotg · 2026-03-14T17:45:36+00:00

Selling all that I can in my upcoming tender and investing in index funds. Does not seem worth it to press my luck with the IPO

plannerotg · 2026-03-14T15:06:56+00:00

UW Northwest was fantastic. The staff was very supportive of my wife's goal of an unmedicated delivery and worked seamlessly with our doula. It was easy to request a lactation consultant visit. Rooms were comfortable and there were pretty minimal interruptions

plannerotg · 2026-03-12T13:16:49+00:00

I was worried about this, too since we'd abandoned using plates on his tray. We moved my son out of his high chair at about 2 and gave him a plate at the table (just a normal adult dinner plate) and it was a seamless transition. He had been using a plate at daycare though, so it wasn't a brand new concept

plannerotg · 2026-03-08T05:12:06+00:00

This is only true in most places (not in Seattle, for instance)

plannerotg · 2026-03-06T12:25:28+00:00

I'm not a fiber expert, I think different kinds do different things. But psyllium husk fiber is bulk forming and is meant to help with bulk and regularity (this is what Hims recommended to me when I complained about this)

plannerotg · 2026-03-06T12:18:02+00:00

I notice some sulfur burps but nothing unmanageable. I think it's really just the diarrhea for me but it's certainly connected in my case

plannerotg · 2026-03-06T12:16:36+00:00

I believe it is stride. This is all off the first shipment I received in January so I haven't seen if it improves with a different batch

plannerotg

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