NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — It’s no secret that Nashville’s population is booming, but as more and more people move to Music City, there are actually less options for childcare.

According to the latest numbers, the average annual income for a Nashville family is $67,482, and the average cost of childcare for an infant in the state of Tennessee is $8,524. Those numbers are staggering, especially when you consider families with more than one child.

This month, Nashville mother Juliana Lamar took her official oath of admission into the Tennessee Bar: the last step toward getting her law license. To make the moment even sweeter, the judge swearing her in held her one-year-old baby, Beckham, during the ceremony.

The video went viral: representing a woman balancing both a professional career and being a mother.

“There are a lot of nights that I feel a little guilty, because of the fact that I spend so much time working and studying,” Lamar said.

As any parent knows, this wasn’t easy, especially when it came to finding childcare.

“We faced a lot of difficulties finding daycares because the waitlists are so long here in Nashville,” Lamar said.

That’s just one of many issues facing Nashville parents like Lamar.

To start, the wait lists for child care centers are often two to three years long.

That’s partly due to the next problem: a lack of options.

According to numbers provided by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, Nashville’s population grew 21% from 2000-2018. In that same time, the city actually lost 83 childcare programs: that’s 3,360 total child care slots.

Last, but certainly not least, is the high price tag that creates such an issue for many families.

“The cost of childcare is enormous,” The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s President Ellen Lehman said. “It is much more than many of the local colleges are.”

Lehman says there’s a reason costs are so high.

“What the untenable business model is, and why the costs are so incredibly high, is because for babies, there have to be a lot of teachers just for a few babies,” Lehman said. “The same is true with the toddlers.”

Even though the costs are high, the average hourly wage for child care educators is only $10.49. She says that’s one of the reasons that it’s difficult to keep employees at these centers.

Lehman says her organization is doing whatever they can to make things more efficient and cost-effective for child care centers, including shared financial offices, shared property management services, and more lenient rules about substitute caregivers.

Unfortunately, Lehman says high costs aren’t going away any time soon.

“Is there a cheap way to do this? No,” Lehman said. “Not with the quality regulations, not with the things that really matter to us as parents, not to making it an educational opportunity.”

While costs may stay high for the time being, Lehman hopes improvements can make it easier for children like Beckham to get the early childhood care they need.

The best advice Lehman has to offer: start researching childcare options early by going to childcarenashville.com

At this website, families can research availability by zip code.