Child care, child minding, or daycare is the caring for and supervision of a child or children, usually ranging from age six weeks to age thirteen. Child care is the action or skill of looking after children by a day-care center, nannies, babysitter, teachers or other providers. Child care is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, social and cultural conventions. Early child care is an equally important and often overlooked component of child development. Child care providers can be our children's first teachers, and therefore play an integral role in our systems of early childhood education. Quality care from a young age can have a huge impact on the future successes of children.

Usually children are taken care of by their parents, legal guardians or siblings. Cross-culturally, children caring for children is very common. This informal care includes verbal direction and other explicit training regarding the child's behavior, and is often as simple as "keeping an eye out" for younger siblings.[1] Care facilitated by similar-aged children covers a variety of developmental and psychological effects in both caregivers and charge. This care giving role may also be taken on by the child's extended family. In lieu of familial care giving, these responsibilities may be given to paid-caretakers, orphanages or foster homes to provide care, housing, and schooling.

Professional caregivers work within the context of a center-based care (including creches, daycare, preschools and schools) or a home-based care (nannies or family daycare). The majority of child care institutions that are available require that child care providers to have extensive training in first aid and be CPR  certified. In addition, background checks, drug testing at all centers, and reference verification are normally a requirement. Child care can consist of advanced learning environments that include early childhood education or elementary education. In this case the appropriate child care provider is a teacher, which requires a deeper educational training focused on children, aside from the common core skills typical of a child caregiver.

As well as these licensed options, parents may also choose to find their own caregiver or arrange childcare exchanges/swaps with another family