The military child care crisis has been well-documented for years, but the Pentagon is now testing new pilots that could quietly change which families get help first.

These programs focus on capacity, staffing, and moving families off the waitlist.

For more than a decade, the military has studied its child care shortfall, commissioned audits, tracked waitlists, and reached the same conclusion: demand is predictable, but capacity is not. Facing persistent staffing shortages and mounting pressure from service members and families, the Department of War is now testing specific child care pilot programs. These pilots aim to more quickly distribute limited child care slots by changing eligibility or prioritization criteria and by introducing new forms of care delivery. As a result, some families may move off waitlists sooner depending on the pilot's eligibility rules.

For some service members, the strain has already moved beyond logistics and into retention.

“Child care is the only thing that has made me consider leaving military service,” Army officer Erin Williams said when describing her experience navigating the system. “The logistics and constant stress that come from child care are truly the hardest things I’ve had to deal with.”

That tension, between mission readiness and family sustainability, is the elephant in the room taking a seat at the kitchen table.

Why Military Childcare Waitlists Don’t Move, Even When Centers Exist

The military child care system is often described as an infrastructure problem. In reality, it is a workforce problem, and families feel that distinction immediately.

A 2024 Government Accountability Office review found that the military services reported approximately 6,200 child care worker vacancies as of September 30, 2022. Those vacancies directly limit how many children existing child development centers can serve, regardless of how many classrooms are physically available.

The RAND Corporation has reached a similar conclusion. In a staffing assessment released in 2025, RAND found that military child development programs were meeting a declining share of total demand over time, with coverage dropping from roughly 81% in early 2020 to 74% by late 2022 in installation-level data.

For families, that data translates into waitlists that barely move forward or take two steps back.

“The only direction we went on that list was down,” Army Sgt. Anthony Castorina said of his son’s placement status.

That stagnation forces families into constant contingency planning, often without clear timelines or reliable alternatives.

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More Families Cite Childcare Disruptions

Even when families secure child care, stability is not guaranteed.

Military spouse Payton Kinnison lost her expected on-base child care placement just weeks before returning to work. With no immediate alternative available, the decision was abrupt and costly.

“I was in a panic,” Kinninson said. “I had to quit my job. And I had to find a work-from-home job because I had nobody to watch my twins.”

Another parent, identified as A.T., reported his family’s own disruptions in military child care, describing the fear of scrambling for last-minute care after a spot was rescinded with minimal notice.

“It’s been an absolute nightmare,” she said. “Because who do you trust in nine business days to take care of your kid?”

These moments, the sudden losses, frozen waitlists, and compressed timelines are why many spouses experience the military child care crisis not as a policy debate but as an employment cliff.

Why the Pentagon is Changing Its Approach Now

For years, the default solution to the military child care crisis was straightforward: build more on-base Child Development Centers.

That strategy remains, but is no longer sufficient on its own.

In 2025, the Pentagon began rolling out Department of War child care pilot programs designed to expand access by creating new ways to provide care, adjusting how families are prioritized, and testing alternative service delivery in high-demand regions and for families whose schedules do not align with traditional child care hours.

Rather than relying solely on base infrastructure, the department is now layering multiple approaches:

• Partnerships with the Armed Services YMCA and other nonprofit organizations to open new child development centers more quickly
• Off-installation child care supported through fee assistance
• In-home care pilots for families working nontraditional schedules

Each pathway addresses a different pressure point, but each has its limits.

CCYH: Childcare Designed Around Military Hours

Among the most spouse-relevant military child care pilots currently underway is Child Care in Your Home (CCYH).

CCYH is a Department of War fee assistance pilot program that helps eligible families pay for 30 to 60 hours per week of in-home child care, offering support specifically for nontraditional schedules such as evenings, weekends, or rotating schedules.

A CCYH provider must meet the following requirements:

• Be a US citizen or lawful permanent resident
• Be at least 18 years of age
• Have a high school diploma or equivalent
• Read, speak, and write English
• Follow applicable federal and state labor laws, including income tax regulations
• Attend a virtual orientation session
• Have current first aid and infant/child (pediatric) CPR certification
• Complete all required training
• Pass background checks

For military spouses working in health care, aviation, security forces, emergency services, or other shift-based roles, CCYH reflects a long-standing reality finally acknowledged at the policy level: the military operates on schedules that most child care systems were never built to support.

Capacity is limited, and eligibility requirements are specific, but the design is intentional.

MCCYN and Off-installation Care

When on-base care is unavailable or impractical, many families turn to Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood (MCCYN) and related off-installation fee-assistance options.

These programs allow eligible families to access civilian child care providers when military child development centers are full or geographically unworkable. MCCYN helps spouses maintain employment during a PCS, a long commute, or an extended waitlist period by providing access to community-based care.

The trade-offs are real: availability, cost, and provider quality vary widely by region, but for many families, these programs serve as the system’s only release valve.

Why The New Child Care Options Matter

When child care is unstable, military spouses become the system’s default shock absorbers.

National survey data shows that about 43% of active-duty spouses who need child care in order to work report that care is unavailable or that waitlists are too long, making child care access one of the most persistent barriers to military spouse employment.

The scope of the issue is not small. As of 2023, reporting indicated roughly 12,000 children were on military child care waitlists, even before accounting for PCS churn, infant-care bottlenecks, or regional cost-of-living pressures. The biggest driver? A caregiver shortage of about 4,000 staff members needed to care for that number of children.

Regardless of stigma, rumor, or gap in an individual’s level of awareness, military spouses don’t leave their careers because they lack ambition. They are most often pressured by the demands of military life to pause their careers, including the burden of adequate child care for military families.

Building The Plane As We Fly It

The Pentagon’s child care pilots represent a meaningful shift: an acknowledgment that the military child care crisis cannot be solved solely through construction.

But pilots are, by definition, selective. Each has specific eligibility rules, funding limitations, and logistical snags that come with implementing a new program in targeted locations or among targeted populations, meaning not all families can access them immediately.

Without sustained workforce stabilization, even well-designed programs risk falling short.

“It’s really setting families up for failure,” said Kayla Corbitt, founder and CEO of Operation Child Care Project. “This is happening at almost every installation, but they're not telling anyone."

That transparency is critical. Families need to understand not only what programs exist but also who qualifies, where capacity is limited, and how prioritization decisions are made.

What to Watch Next

Two factors will determine whether these efforts deliver lasting relief:

First, whether the Department of War can stabilize the child care workforce, recruiting and retaining enough qualified professionals to operate both existing and expanded capacity.

Second, whether pilot programs translate quickly into staffed, usable slots in the communities facing the most acute shortages.

If those two lines move together, the military child care crisis may finally shift from chronic to manageable. If they don’t, access will simply be redistributed, helping some families while others remain stuck on the waitlist.

Suggested reads:

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