Licensed Full-Day Daycare in Merrick, NY

Full-Day Daycare in Merrick

As of August 2026

Families comparing child care in Merrick will find 25 providers listed with New York's Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), every one of them center-based. Combined they report licensed capacity for 1799 children — one of the larger capacity totals among nearby New York cities of similar provider count — averaging roughly 72 children per site. Coverage spans infants through school age, with the deepest slice in preschool. One provider, QUALITYstarsNY-rated, adds a quality data point beyond the roster count. CloverMap organizes Merrick's listings so parents can browse the verified set directly.

What to know about childcare in Merrick

Merrick's 25 providers are all centers — OCFS licensing records show zero family or group family day care homes in the city, so every option here is a dedicated facility rather than an in-home program. For parents, that typically means structured classrooms organized by age group, multiple staff on site, and set operating hours, as opposed to the smaller-group, single-household model a licensed home provider would offer. It also means a Merrick search won't turn up a family day care option — every provider on the roster shares the center format.

Licensed capacity across all 25 reporting providers totals 1799 children, for an average of about 72 per site — a notably high figure that points to larger, multi-classroom centers rather than small standalone programs. That scale can mean more openings across age groups at any given time, though it also means larger group sizes within a program compared to a smaller-capacity city, which is worth asking about directly when touring.

Age coverage is broad: 6 providers serve infants, 9 serve toddlers, 11 serve preschoolers, and 15 serve school-age children. The preschool slice is the largest of the four, suggesting Merrick's centers are especially well set up for three- to five-year-olds, while infant capacity — six providers — is real but the tightest band to search, and worth prioritizing first if that's the age range you need.

Every provider on this roster is licensed or registered through OCFS, the state agency that sets and enforces child care standards statewide. Holding a license confirms a program has met New York's requirements for staffing ratios, group sizes, health and safety practices, and facility conditions — it establishes the baseline every provider here has cleared, separate from any quality rating a program may or may not carry.

One Merrick provider, Merrick Before/After School Chatterton Before SACC, carries a QUALITYstarsNY rating, the state's voluntary quality-improvement program — worth a look if a quality data point matters in your decision, though it's the only one in the city with a public rating on file today. Because every listed option is a center, parents planning a Merrick search should expect fixed-schedule, classroom-based programs across the board; CloverMap's Merrick page lets you filter that full roster by age group and rating status in one place rather than cross-referencing multiple sources. Given the depth of preschool capacity relative to infant capacity, families with a preschooler in Merrick are likely to have more options to compare than families searching for an infant seat.