Licensed Infant Care in San Bernardino, CA

Infant Care in San Bernardino

As of August 2026

San Bernardino's child care roster leans toward centers, with 81 of the city's 125 licensed providers operating as child care centers and 44 as family child care homes, about a 65-to-35 split. Preschool coverage is strong, reaching 81 percent of providers. Combined licensed capacity is 4,032 children. Every provider is licensed through the California Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division (CCLD), and CloverMap lists San Bernardino's full roster for parents to compare.

What to know about childcare in San Bernardino

San Bernardino's 125 licensed providers are majority center-based. Child care centers account for 81 of the roster, compared with 44 family child care homes, about 65 percent center-based. Families searching here will more often encounter classroom-organized programs than home-based ones, though family child care homes still make up over a third of the options. Parents new to licensed child care often assume one format is inherently better, but the right fit usually comes down to a child's temperament and a family's daily logistics: center hours may align more predictably with a standard work schedule, while a family child care home can sometimes offer more flexible drop-off and pickup arrangements.

Combined licensed capacity across the 125 reporting providers is 4,032 children, averaging about 32 per provider, consistent with a center-heavy roster, since centers typically license larger groups than family child care homes. It's worth remembering that a licensed capacity figure describes how many children a provider is permitted to enroll, not how many openings exist on a given day. Actual availability shifts constantly as children age out or families relocate, so this citywide number is best used as a planning benchmark rather than a guarantee of a specific opening.

Age coverage in San Bernardino is strongest at the preschool level, where 101 of 125 providers, 81 percent, serve preschool-age children. Infants and toddlers are each served by 59 providers, 47 percent, and 50 providers, or 40 percent, serve school-age children, the lower end of school-age coverage among cities in this batch. For families mapping out care across several years, knowing which providers serve multiple age bands up front can simplify the search considerably, since a single provider that follows a child from infancy through the preschool years spares parents the work of re-searching and re-enrolling at each stage.

All San Bernardino providers are licensed through the California Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division. CCLD sets baseline staffing, group-size, and safety requirements that apply to both centers and family child care homes. A license is not a ranking or endorsement of one provider over another; it simply confirms the operator has met the state's threshold requirements to legally operate. Parents researching further should treat a CCLD license as a baseline credential, then judge day-to-day fit through a tour, a conversation with staff, and their own sense of the environment.

Because centers dominate the roster, San Bernardino parents comparing options will mostly be weighing one classroom-based program against another, ALESSANDRO PRESCHOOL is one example among many. Families specifically wanting a family child care home will have a smaller, though still meaningful, set of choices. CloverMap lets San Bernardino families filter by format and age group. Starting a search by deciding on format, then filtering by the age group a child currently needs, tends to narrow the list to a manageable number faster than browsing every listing one by one.