Even once she’s found a solution, it can be quickly upended. Williams is preparing to spend an entire month’s salary on child care so she can attend an upcoming field training while her husband is deployed.

Mia Reisweber, who works remotely in higher education and whose husband is also in the Army, said she’s been on a perpetual loop of child care waitlists for the past eight years. When her first son was born, she spent around a year on the waitlist for the base’s child care center and had to fly out her mother to help bridge the gap so she and her husband could return to work. When she learned she was pregnant with her second child, she immediately got on the waitlist for care at the Military Academy at West Point, two years before she anticipated her family might move there.

“The second I knew I was pregnant, and I mean the second, we were on the waitlist. That was, for me, a bigger priority than even making a doctor’s appointment,” Reisweber said.

Reisweber said she’s seen varying levels of support when it comes to addressing child care needs and supporting working spouses.

“We’ve got our pockets of supportive senior leaders who get it and who’ve endured the struggle themselves,” she said. “Then we’ve got the people who are like, ‘Just make the spouse stay home and take care of the kid.’”

The biggest barrier to expanding the number of children the Army can care for has been a shortage of workers, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Vereen, whose responsibilities include overseeing the Army’s child care operations. For the Army, which has around 4,500 children on its waitlists, about 23% of its child care positions are vacant, though that is an improvement from 2022, when about 37% of jobs were unfilled.

To help recruit child care workers, the Army has been offering bonuses of around $2,000, increased its wage to an average of $18 to $33 an hour, and begun offering discounted child care to workers at its centers along with access to lower-cost groceries sold at some of its bases’ commissaries. The Army also recently began offering weekend child care in 20 states for Army Reserve and National Guard members.

“We are seeing a difference, and what we’re doing is making a difference when it comes to trying to get employees,” said Vereen.

One disadvantage the military has is the lengthy hiring process prospective employees can encounter, since the military requires its child care workers go through a background check and get clearance to work on a base, he said. That can add one to two months to the hiring process, time when workers can get competing offers from other employers.

The Air Force, which has about 3,700 children on its waitlists, has also started offering child care workers free tuition at its centers for one child and 25% off for additional children. The Air Force has proposed spending $40 million to construct new facilities and is working on other efforts to increase space and the number of providers.

Members of Congress have also proposed legislation to address the child care needs of military families, including a Senate bill intended to help child care providers near military installations boost their staffing. A bill in the House would pay for child care while a military spouse looks for work, which could help families that can’t afford child care because only one parent is working but are unable to get a job because they don’t have child care.