How Can I...

[Hunni Bee]

...find out the demographics for childcare need in my area?

I really want to do second shift care, catering specifically to hospital/nursing staff. I plan to do a combination of first and second shift, being open from 12-12. I figure I can catch the people working 12-8 and then 3-11. We have a lot of large hospitals, and late-night retail in this area. At the center I work at now, we turn down about 2 families a month wanting evening or overnight care.

But, I finally found the archive of threads about second shift on here (most of them are tagged under "evening care" if anybody was wondering). And every post was about how risky and unpredictable second shift is, even if there's a lot of overnight work in the area. Most of the providers who do it said they only have a couple kids on second shift. So I'm getting a little nervous...

[Sugar Magnolia]

Maybe you can post a flyer in the employee lounge or somewhere in the hospital, nursing homes, late night restaurants and 24 hour retail places. Like a survey?

[Hunni Bee]

That's a great idea Sugar. I never thought about that...thanks so much! I will definitely do that.

All ideas are still welcome

[daycarediva]

I did evenings for two families (3-11s). They both had rotating weird schedules (one hospital, one retail) that resulted in one wanting to pay me 3 evenings one week, four the next, and the other wanting me to do one weekend a month. It was nuts! I was a rookie provider and will never make that mistake again. (It just wasn't worth it when I was working at 6am-11pm.)

One of the dcb's Mom's let him sleep in with her and wanted me to keep him up so that she could sleep (that's fantastic for a 2 year old to stay awake until 11:30-12)

There is a HUGE need for it in our area though, so if you were just working those hours and found the right families, it could work!