Originally Posted by nannyde:
Iowa is pretty much in the middle with the regs. The issue with the infant numbers is the misconception that infants are harder than two and ups. I don't believe that is true for experienced providers who have physical space. My staff assistant and I could easily run eight infants under the age of 18 months. If we worked side by side in the same baby room in a center we would be allowed to or rather expected to.
My state allows four infants for each staff in the infant rooms in centers. All of those infants can be newborns. If you are in a home child care you can't have more than three under 18 months alone or four under 18 months if you have the second co-provider who has to qualify to be a co-provider.
My experience is that they get harder as they get older. To me, infants are the easiest by far and school aged kids are the hardest and require the most supervision and adult involvement. I think the thinking is that infants require so much adult time but in my setting the two and ups require significantly more adult time than the infants. As the kids here get closer to five their needs supercede the infants by a LOT.
Our state is 2 under the age of 2. Unless you have a helper you can have 4, but you still can't go over your total ratio. At this point it isn't profitable to take 2 full time 24+mos to add 2 more infants and pay a full time helper.
This is my experience too! I could easily take 4 infants myself. Every year they get older the harder it gets! When I took new school agers, I charged higher than the non school agers. The only reason I charge more for my infants is not the amount of work, but that my slots are limited so I can demand a higher price.
If I could add more infants, I would gladly give up the rest of my other 24+ mos slots.