Adrienne Gilla's workday isn't exactly traditional.
The North Aurora mom often takes business calls with a squirming toddler on her hip.
A baby gate beneath the desk in her home office keeps 16-month-old Reese from tangling in wires.
And breaking for a quick song of Itsy Bitsy Spider isn't unusual.
This is life for Gilla, the mother of two, since she decreased the number of days her youngest daughter attends day care.
"Once the economy hit and my business was down and I wasn't working as much .... it (was) like, OK, if I have work I'll drop her off. And if I don't, I don't, because I just can't afford it," Gilla said.
Parents nationwide are telling day care providers they must scale back or abandon their services. Instead, they keep kids at home with grandparents or upend their work-life balance because gas and food prices have become prohibitive and average child care costs outpace rent and mortgage payments -- even for those drawing salaries.
Gilla admitted that the in-home day care her girls attend at her best friend's house is cheaper than most services -- around $150 for two kids, twice a week.
But four weeks of service adds up to around $600 a month. And that's too much money, Gilla said, when business is slow.
Fannie Rogers of Aurora knows a lot of people who have opted to stay home with their children, rather than dole out hundreds of dollars for child care each month.
It make sense to Rogers, the single mother of two girls, who reasoned that low-income families spend more on day care than they make at work.
"They're working for nothing basically," she said.
It's not just low-wage earners feeling the pinch. Day care costs average between $3,380 and $10,787 a year for just one preschooler, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.
Even before this year's economic perils, the cost had climbed 5.2 percent between 2006 and 2007, said Linda Smith, the association's executive director. And in every state in the country, the monthly child care bill for two children is higher than median rent payments and as high or higher than a mortgage.
While 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, the most recent available, indicated 2.65 million preschoolers attended day care, Smith's association says current national enrollment -- or unenrollment -- figures are not available.
But there are distressing signals, including a June prediction -- before the stock market's tumultuous fall -- from research firm IBISWorld Inc. that day care revenues would climb by just 1 percent in 2008 -- just more than a third as much as in each of the previous two years.
When Yvonne Boose's husband lost his job earlier this month, the Montgomery woman knew there was no way she could pay for her 15-month-old daughter's day care as well as the mortgage, utilities and food.
"So we had to make a decision to pull her out," Boose said.
Despite lay-offs and the lagging economy there are still some day care centers with full enrollment and waiting lists.
Among the fortunate is the Aurora Family YMCA on Garfield Avenue.
Executive Director Amy Collins thinks the depressed economy may actually be helping the business, which she said doesn't turn away families with tight budgets.
"Parents need to go to work during these economic times more than ever. We're here for them," Collins said.
The Aurora YMCA's weekly full-time rate is $200 for infants and toddlers and $168 for children 2-1/2 years old and up, Collins said.
But for parents struggling to make ends meet, Collins said the YMCA offers a fee assistance program, which takes into account the families' income and household size.
Rogers is among those benefiting from the program.
The single mom said she pays about $134 a week for child care for her two daughters, Harmony, 3 and Keyriah, 4.
To help make ends meet, Rogers tries to pick up as much overtime as she can at her job as a postal clerk. This means Rogers often works from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.
It's a long day, she said, and then laughed it off, "but I have to do what I have to do."
When not having child care isn't an option, some fear financially strapped parents will put their kids in facilities or homes that are little more than waiting rooms.