Originally Posted by professionalmom:
My sick policy is that if the daycare child is sick, according to the policy standards, they do not come and the parent (but usually DHS since most have DHS) still pays for that day. If it's my family that is contagious, I take the hit and don't get paid. Which is why I hate to make that call to say, "hey, we have the flu". But I think that it's better to either close completely (when I'm the one with the flu) or give them that option (when it's my husband or daughter). It the best way to protect them.
Our home has an open floor plan and even with gates, I do not have the ability to keep a sick person "quarantined". Even with my own family. My husband or daughter can stay upstairs, but we don't have a bathroom upstairs and with the flu (vomiting and diarrhea) they need to keep coming down to the main flood (daycare area) to get to the bathroom.
The things that confused me was:
The comments about minor illnesses, when I posted that 3 of those were the flu, 1 was highly contagious (per the doctor) but not the flu, and 1 was a family emergency (and possible death). I said nothing about minor things like the common cold or the sniffles.
And for some reason people assumed that I closed to "take care of hubby". I had said that I gave the parent a choice, so I was willing to stay open. I have never "taken care of him". He's perfectly capable to taking care of himself! I was only concerned about exposing a child that had the weekend off and hadn't been here in 3 days. My concern was for the daycare child, not my husband.
Please remember, that on this forum we are all here to give advice and our personal experience and opinions. If you post a question then you need to expect to get a variety of answers. Of course no one knows all the details of your circumstances and I dont think anyone was trying to make you feel like you made the wrong choices when closing. But in the original post you asked us if we thought (based on your description) that 5 times in 5 months seemed excessive. So that is what people answered. There is no need to get defensive or think that others who gave their advice were not being supportive. Us providers need to stick together.
