Originally Posted by SignMeUp:
I think it can go county-by-county or even licensor-by-licensor.
I have had quite a few variances over the years, sometimes like what the poster asked about. (More recently, no variances were allowed in my county, although now there is a variance form on my county's website, so who knows? It's not like they tell us anything 
) Anyway, this is a bit historical, since variances have not been allowed here for probably 10+ years.
The way I looked at the ages/numbers was this:
Within my license that allowed 12 children, 10 under school-age, I was asking to have 1 extra child under age 1 year.
That would also be 3 under age 2 instead of 2 under age 2.
There was no "moving one child up to this category" and "moving another child to this category". It was simply having one extra child under age 2, within my normal license capacity of 12.
We were always limited to a variance request of no more than 30 days. They let us count the actual days, so three days a week for ten weeks would be okay.
I believe that they would ok a longer variance, but then it had to be vetted by the state as well as the county.
And we always had to state how/why this would not affect safety or the care of the children.
Under this I included items such as:
Children and parents were all familiar with me and my childcare.
Children would all remain on the first floor during all childcare hours.
Evacuation crib was in an accessible location.
No additional children would be accepted into care during the course of the variance, even if they fit within my license.
Also I always had a very clean record. No safety/ratio/supervision violations ever.
^^^ This is how it is here except we have been given variances freely in the past and present and the time limit has usually been 12 months.