There’s a childcare crisis in Wyoming. Some 285 daycares have shuttered in the state since 2011, leaving many parents unable to join the workforce. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow nannies and babysitters to care for two families without needing to be licensed.

“All this bill does is provide a new exception,” said Rep. Mike Yin (D-Jackson) who introduced the bill to the House’s Labor, Health and Social Services Committee. “If you're watching over up to two families, up to four children with no more than two of them under the age of two, you can have a nanny.”

Under current laws, they can legally only care for one family.

Abigail Boudewyns is a Cheyenne parent whose infant required oxygen for the first year of his life. She was forced to leave him at a daycare under unsafe conditions.

She looked into hiring a nanny but she told lawmakers, “Well, to hire a full time nanny, you're paying $18-24 an hour to get someone that's talented. So you're looking at $4,000-5,000 a month. Currently I pay $2,000 a month [for two kids]. So by allowing two families to pool their resources to hire one person, you're going to bring that cost more in line with what child care would be if you were to put them in a center.”

The Wyoming Women’s Foundation’s Micah Richardson supports the bill.

“ What we really appreciate with this bill is that it does have a cap to it so that we're really still thinking about the safety of those kiddos. I don't know about you, but if I have more than five kids, four or five kids at my house running around is a little bit overwhelming,” said Richardson.

Last year, the town of Dubois lost its only daycare, and other communities are in a similar crisis with no one to care for their kids while they’re at work. A recent study found that around 10,000 Wyomingites can’t work because of a lack of childcare.

The bill passed out of committee unanimously and now moves to the House for consideration.