To develop the right amount of care, states would benefit from some demand-informed target. Yet even pre-pandemic, child care demand has been proxied almost uniformly as the number of young children whose parents are in the labor force as estimated via the American Community Survey (ACS). We assert that disrupting the assumption that only and all children whose parents are in the labor force need care allows states to refine demand estimates to account for unmeasured demand and parental preference in more realistic ways. Similarly, the field’s understanding of “supply” typically equates to the number of licensed slots within a place. However, long-running workforce shortages mean the number of children that a site could legally serve is not necessarily the same as the number for which it can realistically care, representing significant divergences between licensed and actual capacity. As with demand, refining child care supply estimates can yield a more pragmatic and actionable planning tool than now exists. Using data from the ACS, the Current Population Survey, the Early Childhood Program Participation Survey, the Household Pulse Survey, the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), and state administrative records, we propose a series of alternate specifications that refine traditional baseline estimates of demand to account for elements of parental preference in likelihood that a child will need a nonparental care. Similarly, we propose to utilize state administrative, NSECE, and workforce data to extend supply estimation beyond licensed slot counts to also consider desired capacity, unused capacity, and workforce shortages. These refinements will result in ranges of supply and demand estimates that can be leveraged by multiple on-the-ground stakeholders. A peer-reviewed paper and several non-academic tools, including a series of geographically specific factsheets, a single-page overview, and a webinar will support the field’s ability to engage with these alternatives. (author abstract)