Infant teacher job description template (duties, qualifications, schedule)

Every section of an infant room posting does one job: help the right candidate recognize the room they would be joining and help the wrong one screen themselves out.

Infant care is physical, floor-level, routine-driven work — lifting, feeding, diapering, all day — and a posting that says so plainly lets candidates judge the fit before they spend an evening on an application.

The three sections below carry that weight — the duties, the qualifications, the physical demands and the schedule — and the template further down assembles them into a posting you can publish.

Key duties and responsibilities

Write the duties the way an infant day actually runs, from arrival to departure: the handoff from each family at drop-off, bottle preparation and feeding on each child's own rhythm, diapering and changing routines, safe sleep practices in the nap area, tummy time and floor play, outdoor and stroller time, and the departure handoff that tells each family how the day went.

These routines are the job.

A candidate who has worked an infant room will recognize them in a sentence; one who has not will learn more from this list than from any adjective you could write.

Say which role you are posting.

A lead infant teacher runs the room — the environment, the routines, the planning, and often an assistant teacher or aide — while an infant assistant teacher works alongside the lead.

The template below covers both; delete the lines that do not fit.

Name the age band precisely, too: "infant" can mean one age range in your program and a different one down the hall, and candidates coming from other centers will not know your cutoff unless you state it.

Then add the parts of the role that sit beyond the routines: keeping infants actively supervised indoors and outdoors, supporting language and motor development through talking, singing, reading and play, guiding behavior in calm, developmentally appropriate ways consistent with your center's behavior policy, family communication as your room assigns it — daily sheets, your communication app, conference nights — and the cleaning and sanitizing routines that keep a room full of floor-level children healthy.

Close the list with how the role fits your staffing plan: which breaks the teacher receives and who covers the room during them, whether anyone floats in, and what happens when someone is out.

If a break or transition leaves one adult alone with the room, your state's staffing rules govern that situation, so confirm them with your state child care licensing agency before you list it as a duty.

Minimum and preferred qualifications

Start the minimums from your state's rule, not from a template.

Where your state child care licensing agency sets qualification requirements for infant room staff — education, experience, minimum age, pre-service or orientation training, the background check — it enforces them against your license.

The title your state's rule uses for the role may differ from the one you post, and the words themselves vary — infant teacher, lead infant teacher, infant care teacher, infant/toddler teacher, plus assistant variants — so confirm with your licensing agency which title fits the role you are hiring, and phrase the line that way.

Phrase the requirement line the way the rule works: "meets [State]'s child care licensing requirements for [infant teacher / lead infant teacher]", plus your age band.

List the background check and any required training as conditions of employment, with the timing left to your state's process: "completion of [State]'s required background checks" and "[State]'s required pre-service or orientation training, completed on [State]'s timeline." Confirm before you post: the qualifications, training and background-check steps your state sets for the title and age band you are hiring are enforced by your state child care licensing agency, and they change — confirm them with the agency before the requirements go into a posting.

Keep the preferred list honestly preferred.

Previous experience caring for infants in a licensed center, ECE credits or progress toward an early childhood degree belong under "preferred" unless your state's rule for the title — or your program's own standard — actually requires them.

On the CDA, be specific about the setting: the Council for Professional Recognition offers the CDA in a center-based Infant-Toddler setting covering birth to 36 months, so where that matches your room's ages, that is the setting to name in your posting.

Requiring a credential your state does not require cuts out candidates who already qualify under the rule you are licensed against.

Physical requirements and schedule

Describe the physical work as the job's own essential functions: lifting and carrying infants from the floor, cribs and changing tables; working down at floor level for tummy time and play and getting up and down repeatedly across a shift; feeding, diapering and changing-table routines; standing, walking, bouncing and soothing for most of the day; and outdoor supervision, strollers included.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, physical requirements in a job description should describe those essential functions, and accommodation for applicants with disabilities is required unless it causes the employer significant difficulty or expense.

One line to leave out: a lifting weight written as a legal threshold.

No federal rule sets a lifting weight for childcare jobs, and no national licensing standard does either — a "must lift 40 pounds" figure is an employer practice.

If you state a number, present it as what the job itself demands rather than as a rule, and know that the ADA's accommodation obligation reaches it.

Employers with 15 or more employees are also covered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which requires reasonable accommodation of known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related conditions.

The schedule section is easy to leave vague, and a vague one is the hardest for a candidate to evaluate.

State the days and shift hours, whether the room runs year-round, whether opening shifts start before the first families arrive or closing shifts end after the last departure, which breaks the teacher receives and who covers the room while they are out.

An infant room is staffed around the children's needs all day, so the posted hours tell a candidate exactly what coverage you are asking of them — write down the schedule you actually run, not an aspirational one, so an accepted offer starts on the hours the candidate saw.

Before you finalize the hours, confirm the staffing your state's infant ratio and group-size rules require with your state child care licensing agency.

How to write the pay and benefits line

Write a range, not a shrug. "Competitive salary" and "depends on experience" leave candidates to guess — and a guess is not a reason to spend an evening on an application.

A range with a real floor and a real top lets a candidate decide in seconds whether the job fits, so state the basis — hourly or salaried — and what moves a teacher up the range, such as infant room experience, a credential or added responsibility for the room.

Benchmark the range before you write it.

In BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey for May 2025, childcare workers (SOC 39-9011) earned a U.S. median of $16.82 per hour ($34,980 per year), and preschool teachers except special education (SOC 25-2011) earned a U.S. median of $18.34 per hour ($38,140 per year) — an infant teacher title can sit in either occupation depending on the title your state's rule and your program use, so treat both as category benchmarks rather than infant-teacher pay.

Both figures are national, and your market is local: the infant teacher salary tables from the same survey are where you price the range for your state, and your range should leave room between your infant line and your toddler, preschool and lead lines so the path upward stays visible in the posting.

In eight states, pay disclosure in the posting is not optional for covered employers. Our research verified pay-disclosure laws in eight states, each attached to the job posting or advertisement itself and set in the state's own law:

• California — employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in any job posting (Labor Code 432.3).
• Colorado — the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act requires employers to disclose compensation in all job postings and notices, internal and public, including benefits information.
• New York — Labor Law 194-b requires businesses with four or more employees to list compensation ranges in postings for jobs, promotions and transfers.
• Washington — employers with 15 or more employees must disclose the wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits in each job posting (RCW 49.58.110).
• Illinois — employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale and benefits in any specific job posting; a hyperlink to a public page with that information satisfies the rule (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25)).
• Minnesota — employers with 30 or more employees in Minnesota must include a good-faith salary range in job postings (Minn. Stat. 181.173).
• Massachusetts — since October 29, 2025, employers with 25 or more employees must disclose wage ranges in job postings.
• Vermont — employers with five or more employees must include the compensation or range of compensation in any advertisement of a Vermont job opening.

Tracker reports add Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii, Washington DC, Maine, Virginia and Connecticut (from October 1, 2026), with Delaware scheduled for 2027 — our research did not confirm those against the state sources, so treat them as unconfirmed. Confirm before you post: pay-disclosure laws carry their own definitions and their own employer-size thresholds — except in Colorado, where the law applies regardless of employer size — and they change, so check the current rule with the state agency that administers it before the posting goes up.

Note that three of the verified states reach past pay — Washington asks for a general description of benefits, Illinois for pay scale and benefits, and Colorado's disclosure covers benefits information — so the benefits line of your template needs writing before you post, not after.

Mistakes that shrink your applicant pool

The template can be perfect and the wording around it can still cost you candidates.

Check each of these before you publish.

• Wording that signals a protected-trait preference. Under the laws the EEOC enforces, a job ad that shows a preference based on a protected trait is illegal — the EEOC's own examples are an ad seeking "females" or "recent college graduates," which may discourage men and people over 40 from applying. Infant room postings asking for "young, energetic" or female-only staff are exactly that pattern. Describe the job — the room, the routines, the schedule — and leave age, sex and other protected traits out of the ad.
• No pay line. In California, Colorado, New York, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Vermont, the law makes pay disclosure — and in three of them the benefits description — part of what a covered employer's posting must carry; every state but Colorado covers only employers at or above its own size threshold. Elsewhere, and below those thresholds, an empty pay line asks candidates to apply blind — state the range, and let candidates self-sort on the spot.
• A lifting threshold written as a legal rule. No federal rule or national licensing standard sets a lifting weight for childcare jobs; a number in your posting is your center's own practice. State the job's actual demands instead, and keep the ADA's accommodation obligation in view — and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act's, for employers with 15 or more employees.
• Another state's requirements. Qualification minimums are set state by state, so a requirements list copied from a template written for a different state can misstate your own. Keep the "[State]'s licensing requirements for [title]" placeholder until you have filled it in from your licensing agency's rule.
• Credential inflation. Requiring a degree or credential your state does not require for the title removes candidates who qualify under the rule you are actually licensed against. Put the CDA and ECE credits under "preferred" unless your state's rule or your program genuinely requires them.
• Vague duties. "Must love babies" could describe any applicant in the pool. The duties list from the template — feeding, diapering, safe sleep, floor play, family updates, arrival to departure — is what lets a candidate tell whether they have already done this job.
• A title with no search terms in it. Use the words candidates search — "infant teacher," "lead infant teacher," "infant room teacher," "infant care teacher" — and the age band, rather than an internal level name.

After you post, run the posting like a live process.

Answer every application, including the declines — a posting that goes quiet can teach candidates to skip your next one — and refresh or re-post when a listing ages.

Read your own ad from the other side before it goes up: the duties list against the room as it actually runs, the schedule against the coverage you really need, and the pay line against what you would accept.

Our infant teacher jobs board shows what live postings look like to candidates, and the full process — where to recruit, what to pay, how to screen and interview — is our guide to how to hire an infant teacher.

This page is employer information, not licensing or legal advice. Job-ad and accommodation rules come from the EEOC, pay-disclosure rules from the state agencies that administer them, and staff qualification and staffing rules from your state child care licensing agency — confirm the current rules with each before you post.