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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>How To Handle Maternity Leave
Kiki 08:31 AM 04-29-2012
Two questions here, one is regarding a current family, the other is regarding my own!

1-How do you handle maternity leave for families? The family that I have had for the longest in my care is expecting in August, and has let me know that yes, she does plan to return to work, and plans to bring the new one here along with her older daughter. She informed me that she only has 4 weeks of leave with her work, now here is my oops. I have poured over my contract all morning, and silly me, I NEVER put in a section regarding holding fees, I'm not sure why I didn't, probably just thought I'd never have a parent that was expecting another. (hardy har har I know) Any thoughts on how to handle this with her? I don't want to shock her, but I also don't want to be holding 2 spots for a month without having something to really guarantee their return on my end.

2-What about your own personal maternity leave? We are expecting our last addition towards the end of this year , and I haven't announced it to my families yet. I want to make sure I have everything set pretty firmly in stone before I move forward with an announcement to them, but I'm not sure on a few things.
How many weeks off is acceptable? Since I am in home, and don't plan on watching enough kids to have need of an assistant, the parents will obviously need to find back-up care during this time.
Has anyone ever done any form of fees during their own maternity leave? (Heck have any of you even had to take it while doing day care out of your home?!) Doing a fee while I'm on my own leave seems kind of...dirty to me, but I don't really know how others have went about it. Maybe the best way to do it, is to just make sure all of my parents are up to date on payments?

Obviously my mind is in overdrive, I'm starting to ramble! Any input would be great.
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Blackcat31 10:34 AM 04-29-2012
I've never been preganant while doing child care so I cannot answer that part, but for maternity leave for current families: what I do is, if the infant space is immediately open and available, they get 1 week for free where I will save the space.
The second week is given at half rate and anything after that is full pay to hold the space.

This ONLY applies to families I already have in care and to the infant space only.

The older children (or siblings) get the first week of absence at half rate so they can bond with sib too but no more than that, any other absences or drop in attendance requires full pay or they lose their space.

New infants coming in must pay for the space whether they use it or not as soon as it is available. Infant spaces in my area can have waiting lists up to a year so they are hard to find so people are more than willing to pay.
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