Original research
The Denver Babysitting Index
What childcare actually looks like, measured rather than guessed. Every figure carries its date range and definition. First release: September 1, 2026.
Release 1 · September 1, 2026 · Childcare bookings, 2022–2026*
The headline numbers
*2026 is partial — it reflects everything on the books through early 2027 as of the report date, not a completed year.
Average booking lead time
5.0 days
Median days between when a booking is made and when care begins, finalized bookings, 2022–2026.
Yearly median rose from 3.0 days (2022) to 6.0 days (2024), then eased back to 5.0 days (2025 and 2026*).
Most requested day
Sunday
Sunday holds the largest share of childcare bookings — 22.4% of finalized bookings across 2022–2026, and the top day every year since 2023.
About 10% of bookings record one calendar day late due to UTC date handling, so some Saturday-evening bookings count as Sunday. The upward trend is too large and consistent to be an artifact.
Same-day booking rate
7.9%
Share of finalized bookings requested and started on the same calendar day, 2022–2026.
Same-day demand roughly halved from 11.8% (2022, finalized) to 5.8% (2024) and has held near 7–8% since.
Average hourly rate
Data coming soon
Mean hourly rate across completed bookings.
The current data export does not include rates. This metric will be published once rate data is delivered and verified.
Average booking duration
4.64 hours
Mean length in hours from booking start to booking end.
2022 only, all booking statuses. The current export does not include time-of-day data for 2023–2026, so this figure cannot be confirmed for later years.
Highest-demand hours
5–6 PM and 8–9 AM
The start-time windows holding the largest share of bookings.
2022 only. The current export does not include time-of-day data for 2023–2026, so these peak windows cannot be confirmed for later years.
Booking lead time, by year
Lead time is the number of days between when a booking is created and when care begins. The mean climbed sharply from 2022 into 2024 — parents planning further ahead — before easing back in 2025–2026 toward a ~5-day median.
All booking requests
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean lead time (days) | 7.63 | 11.89 | 16.92 | 14.30 | 10.54 |
Finalized bookings only
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean lead time (days) | 7.67 | 10.23 | 14.58 | 10.80 | 10.74 |
| Median lead time (days) | 3.0 | 4.0 | 6.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 |
Same-day bookings, by year
A same-day booking is one where the booking-created date equals the service-start date. Same-day demand roughly halved from 2022 to 2024 and has held steady since.
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026* | All years | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All booking requests | 15.2% | 9.9% | 7.6% | 9.7% | 9.8% | 10.5% |
| Finalized only | 11.8% | 7.2% | 5.8% | 7.3% | 7.7% | 7.9% |
The busiest day of the week
Sunday is the top childcare booking day across all years combined — 21.4% of all booking requests and 22.4% of finalized bookings — and has held the top spot every year since 2023. Its share climbs steadily, from 16–17% in 2022 to 26–28% by 2025–2026, while Saturday falls from 17% to ~11%. Monday is the weakest day in every year without exception.
One caveat: dates in the source data are UTC-normalized, so bookings starting at or after 6:00 PM Denver time record one calendar day later (about 10% of bookings, confirmed in a cross-check against a separately labeled export). That inflates Sunday somewhat at Saturday’s expense — but a static shift affecting every year equally cannot explain a trend this size, so the Sunday growth reads as genuine.
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How we calculate the Denver Babysitting Index
The Index is built from anonymized, aggregated booking records supplied by Call Emmy, the childcare marketplace that publishes this site. Records are stripped of personal information before analysis. No individual family, caregiver or address is identifiable in anything we publish.
Source and verification
Release 1 was prepared from an anonymized export of Call Emmy childcare bookings. The column layout was verified by cross-matching job IDs from an earlier, labeled export: service type, booking status and all three date fields matched at 100% across those known jobs. A small share of rows was unreadable and excluded rather than guessed into a category. Exact booking volumes are treated as proprietary and are not published.
Geography
An explicit list of the municipalities and ZIP codes included in “metro Denver” will be published with a future release, so readers can see exactly what area a figure describes.
Time period
Release 1 covers 2022 through the bookings currently on the books into early 2027 (2026 figures are partial). Comparisons across releases will only be made where the definitions and geography match.
Two ways of counting
Every metric is shown two ways: all statuses (every booking request, the full demand signal) and finalized only (bookings that actually happened). We label which lens each figure uses.
Sample and thresholds
Every metric is published with its date range and definition. Exact booking volumes — how many requests or finalized bookings we handle in any period — are proprietary and are not published. Any cut of the data that falls below the minimum sample threshold will be withheld rather than published with a caveat, because small samples get quoted as though they were solid.
What the Index is not
- It is not a survey of all Denver families
- It is not a measure of the whole Denver childcare market
- It does not include informal arrangements between neighbors or relatives
- It reflects one marketplace’s bookings, and we will say so every time
Corrections and revisions
If a figure is later found to be wrong, we will correct it and note the change and its date on this page.
For journalists and researchers
Figures on this page may be cited with attribution to the Denver Babysitting Index, Denver Babysitters. Please include the release date (September 1, 2026), the metric definition, and whether the figure reflects all booking requests or finalized bookings only. Questions about the data: support@callemmy.com.
Where the data comes from
Call Emmy operates the childcare marketplace whose anonymized booking records power the Index, and publishes this site.