More in-home child care providers in Minnesota are shutting their doors, and many day care centers are closing, too, leaving thousands of parents scrambling to find places for their children to stay while they work or attend classes.

According to the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, more than 4,000 licensed in-home child care providers have called it quits over the last decade, creating a crisis in which families are in need of affordable child care options, but providers say rising costs make it unsustainable to stay open without raising prices even higher.

Amanda Rieder is one of them. The 32-year old, of rural Tyler — a small southwest Minnesota town of just over 1,100 people — says she’s ending her in-home child care services after eight years. As she went through a

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