Everything we know, grouped by the decision you're making.
41 guides on care in British Columbia — real rates, how the vetting works, and the trade-offs nobody puts in a brochure.
Cost & pricing
What care actually costs in BC, and what drives the number up or down.
How Much Does a Nanny Cost in BC? (2026 Pricing Guide)
In-home childcare in BC starts at $32/hr, with a three-hour minimum — so a short evening booking runs $96. Here is the full 2026 rate card, what actually moves the price, and what a full-time nanny placement costs.
What Does a Nanny Placement Actually Cost? (Placement Fee + Real Nanny Wages Explained)
The placement fee is $500 or $1,000. The nanny's salary — $45,000 to $52,000 a year to start — is separate, and it is the number that actually shapes your budget. Here is how the two fit together.
What Postpartum Support Costs in BC — and What Overnight Care Actually Involves
Daytime postpartum support is $38/hr with a three-hour minimum. Overnight is $42/hr from 10 PM to 6 AM — $336 for a full night, during which the specialist stays awake and you do not.
Infant vs. Toddler Care: What Actually Changes (and Why the Rate Does Too)
Twelve months is the line. Under it, the booking is $38/hr instead of $32 — for every child in the home, not just the baby. Here is what actually changes about the day, and why.
Occasional Childcare in BC: Date Nights, PD Days, and the Day Nobody Planned For
Three very different reasons to need a few hours of childcare, and what each one actually costs. Including an honest answer about the one Puffin cannot currently solve online.
Summer Childcare in the Fraser Valley: Covering Nine Weeks
Nine weeks of school holiday against three weeks of parental leave. How families actually build a summer that works, and where in-home care fits alongside camps.
Managing Multiples: What Nanny Help for Twins Actually Costs
Two babies is not two of anything — except the work. What in-home help for twins costs, why the rate does not double, and the honest conversation about when one caregiver is enough.
Agency vs. marketplace, and how to hire
Who ends up as the employer, and which arrangement fits your household.
Why Surrey Families Are Choosing On-Demand Home Care Over Traditional Agencies
The traditional home care agency model is slow, inflexible, and often expensive. Here is why families in Surrey, Abbotsford, and across the Fraser Valley are switching to on-demand platforms like Puffin.
Nanny Agency vs. Nanny Marketplace: What You're Actually Paying For in BC
A marketplace listing looks cheaper because the vetting, the payroll, and the WorkSafeBC registration are still on your list — just not on the invoice. Here is what each model actually hands you, and who ends up as the employer.
Live-In vs. Live-Out Nanny: Which Is Right for Your Family?
Live-in works if you have a genuine private room to offer and need early mornings or late evenings covered. Live-out works for almost everyone else. Both are matched through nanny placement — here is how to tell which you need.
Nanny Taxes and Payroll in BC: What You're Actually Responsible For
Hire a nanny directly and you are an employer — not a customer. Here is what that actually means in BC, what changes if you book hourly care instead, and where to get advice that is worth relying on.
Childcare Marketplaces vs. a Full-Service Agency: An Honest Comparison
Marketplaces are genuinely better at some things — price, choice, speed. Agencies are better at others. The difference is structural, and knowing which you are buying matters more than which is "better".
Returning to Work After Mat Leave in BC: The Childcare Decision
The childcare arrangement usually has to be settled months before the return date, while you are least able to think about it. What the realistic options are and when each needs deciding.
Back-to-School Nanny Checklist: What to Settle Before Week One
The school year runs on a hundred small logistics, and the ones that go wrong are almost always the ones nobody wrote down. A checklist to work through before the first week.
Caregiver safety & vetting
What a real background check involves, and what to insist on.
What Is CRRP Clearance? A Parent's Guide to Background-Checking a Caregiver in BC
CRRP is BC's Criminal Records Review Program — a vulnerable-sector check specifically for people who work with children and vulnerable adults. It is not the same as a standard police check, and the difference matters.
Employed Nanny vs. Contractor Nanny: Who Is Actually Liable?
The word on the invoice decides who carries the risk when something goes wrong. What "employee" and "contractor" actually mean for a family hiring in-home care.
Is Your Nanny Insured? WorkSafeBC, Explained for Families
Household insurance, liability insurance and workers’ compensation are three different things, and families routinely assume one covers the others. What each actually does.
What Happens If Your Nanny Is Injured On the Job?
A slip on wet stairs, a back strained lifting a toddler. What follows depends almost entirely on one thing decided before it happened: who the employer was.
The Real Cost of a Background Check in BC — and Who Pays It
A criminal record check is not one product at one price. What the provincial CRRP costs, what a commercial check costs, why they are not interchangeable, and who ends up paying.
How Puffin Vets Every Caregiver
The full process, including the parts that cost us money and the parts we cannot do. Written so you can compare it against anyone else’s.
Autism & pediatric support
Home-based support, respite, and how the funding works.
Why In-Home Support Matters for Autistic Children (and What We Are Building)
Not because home therapy outperforms a clinic — the research on that is genuinely mixed. Because of four things a home setting is structurally better at: the parent is there, skills are practised where they are used, nobody has to transition anywhere, and coaching happens in front of the person carrying it over.
Home-Based vs. Clinic-Based Autism Therapy in BC: What's the Real Difference?
Not which one works better — the research on that is genuinely mixed. What actually differs day to day: what a centre gives you that a house cannot, what changes when the session comes to you, and the one question worth asking any provider.
Respite Care for Autistic Children in BC: What It Is, and What We Are Building
Respite is care for your child so that you can stop being on duty for a few hours. Here is what a shift actually covers, what it costs at $42/hr, how it relates to MCFD Autism Funding — and how to reach a person today if you need it before online booking opens.
In-Home Speech Therapy in the Fraser Valley: A Parent's Guide
What in-home speech support actually involves in the Fraser Valley, who delivers it, how it differs from a clinic appointment, and the questions worth asking before you commit to a provider.
What Is an SLPA, and How Can One Help My Child?
A Speech-Language Pathology Assistant delivers the plan; a Speech-Language Pathologist writes it. What that division actually means for your child, your waitlist, and your bill.
Pediatric Occupational Therapy at Home: What to Expect
Occupational therapy for children is about the ordinary work of being a child — dressing, eating, writing, coping with a noisy room. What in-home OT support involves, and what it does not.
What Is an OTA, and When Should You Consider One?
An Occupational Therapy Assistant delivers an OT’s plan week after week. When that is the right fit, when it is not, and what to check before you engage one.
OT for Sensory Processing: What It Means and What Helps at Home
Sensory processing is how a child organises sound, touch, movement and light. What it looks like when that system is working hard, and the ordinary adjustments families make at home.
In-Home Behaviour Intervention and ABA in BC: How It Works
Who does what in a behaviour intervention programme, why the supervising clinician matters more than the interventionist, and how BC autism funding treats these hours.
Supporting an Autistic Child at Home: How Respite and Intervention Fit Together
Respite and intervention are different services doing different jobs, and families are often offered one when they need the other. How to tell which you need this month.
Private Speech Therapy vs. the Public System in BC: How to Think About It
The two pathways differ on referral, cost, scheduling control and what is covered. What each involves, and why the honest answer for most families is "both".
Combining Childcare and Therapy: What One Provider Actually Changes
Families coordinating a nanny, a therapist and a schedule are doing unpaid project management. What consolidating actually solves, and what it does not.
Care for Children With Additional Needs: What Families Should Know
Finding childcare for a child with additional needs usually means explaining your child to strangers, repeatedly. What to ask, what a caregiver can and cannot do, and where therapy support is different from childcare.
Senior & adult care
Choosing between levels of support for a parent or partner.
Postpartum & newborn
The first months, and what overnight support actually looks like.
What Does a Postpartum Doula Do? A Guide for New Parents in Surrey & the Lower Mainland
The weeks after birth are beautiful, exhausting, and often overwhelming — especially when family is far away. Here is exactly what a postpartum doula does and why Surrey families are booking them before baby even arrives.
Preparing for a Newborn: Deciding on Support Before the Baby Arrives
Most families arrange postpartum help after they are already exhausted. What the options actually are, what each one is for, and the decisions worth making while you still have the bandwidth.
Event childcare
Staffing children at weddings and events.
How Many Nannies Do I Need for My Event? (The Staffing Formula, Explained)
Two infants need as much coverage as four school-age children. Here is the exact points system Puffin uses to staff an event, so you can work out your own number before you book.
Wedding & Event Childcare in BC: What to Know
Childcare at a wedding is a staffing decision, not a favour you ask of an aunt. What event nannies actually do, what it costs at $40/hr per nanny, how the overtime threshold works on a long wedding day, and the questions worth settling before you book.
Corporate Event Childcare in BC: Staffing a Family Day, Party, or Offsite
Company family days and holiday parties fail on the same detail: nobody staffed the children. What corporate event childcare costs at $40/hr per nanny, how to size it when the headcount is a guess, and who is liable when the caregiver is not your employee.
Conference Childcare in BC: What Organisers Need to Arrange
Offering childcare is one of the cheapest things a conference can do to change who is able to attend. What it costs across a multi-day programme, why the overtime threshold resetting daily matters, and the logistics organisers underestimate.
What to Expect From Event Nanny Staffing: A Shift, Start to Finish
Not the pricing and not the formula — the shift itself. What happens in the twenty minutes before your guests arrive, what the 6 PM stretch looks like with small children, and how handover works when there are fourteen of them.
Still deciding between an agency and doing it yourself?
The short version, including when a marketplace is genuinely the better call.
Prefer them newest-first? See the full blog index.
Speech, language & feeding
Drawing on the Hanen Centre, the American Speech Language Hearing Association, the Canadian Paediatric Society, the CDC and the Ellyn Satter Institute.
About half of toddlers considered late talkers catch up to their peers on their own by age three.
That is the finding of a systematic review published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (Fisher, 2017). If you are reading this because you are worried, start there — worry is a sign you are paying attention, not a sign something is wrong.
Two quick questions, and we’ll point you at the one guide most worth your time.
Getting started
Things to try at home, today, with what you already have.
The 10 Day Speech and Language Home Guide
Ten days of no-prep activities built around the techniques speech language pathologists use every day.
Read Article →Play Based Language Activities by Age
Activities that build vocabulary and conversation, grouped into four stages from birth to five.
Read Article →Reading Aloud and Early Literacy
The dialogic reading method — PEER and CROWD — and why it outperforms reading straight through.
Read Article →Should I be worried?
What is typical, what is worth a closer look, and when to ask someone.
Is My Child a Late Talker?
What late language emergence means, milestones by age, and the signs that are worth a closer look.
Read Article →Early Social Communication Signs
Joint attention, what it looks like at each stage, and what is worth paying closer attention to.
Read Article →Normal Disfluency or Stuttering? What’s Actually Typical
What typical bumpy speech sounds like, how a stutter differs, and when it is worth an opinion.
Read Article →Specific situations
Screens, more than one language at home, and mealtimes.
Screen Time and Language Development
What the evidence says about screens and early language, without the guilt.
Read Article →Bilingual and Multilingual Homes
Why the “stick to one language” advice is wrong, and what is genuinely normal in a bilingual toddler.
Read Article →Picky Eating and Feeding
The Division of Responsibility — you decide what and when, your child decides how much.
Read Article →Families across BC routinely wait months for a publicly funded speech and language assessment. How long depends on your health authority and your community.
No wait list. Once the home based service is running in your city, families who have registered are contacted directly and scheduled.
Being straight with you: this service is not running everywhere yet. Rollout happens city by city, and which city comes next is decided by where families have registered interest. Registering tells us where the need is. It does not commit you to anything, and it is not a booking.