I am no longer a daycare provider, but I did it for 8 years.

Regarding the hourly charge, I agree that it doesn't make sense. What your clients are paying for is to secure their child's spot at daycare. Daycare provders are only liscensed for a certain amount of children, and you charge a weekly/monthly rate b/c you can not.at the drop of a hat. find someone else to fill the time slot that is left open when a child only needs care for a couple of hours one day and 10 hours the next day. Am I making any sense?

BTW, I stopped doing daycare in August of 2003. I lived in Howard County Maryland and my rates were:
$200 per week for infants up to 2 years.
$175 until potty trained
$150 until Kindergarten aged
$130 for kindergarteners (they are only gone 2.5 hours a day and you still have to feed them all the meals/snacks.
$90 for before and after school.
$125 for school-agers during summer/vacation or
$30 per day for drop in for vacation days.

This was a while ago, and at the time, I knew a few providers in my area who were charging more. And I was thinking about charging all of my full-time kids $200 per week, b/c infants may be more work in some ways, but the other kids are more work as far as cirriculum/routine planning and cost more for supplies, food, etc...

I really miss doing daycare and have been thinking a lot lately about doing it again. But I live in an apartment now, and can not run a business out of here. My baby is now 10yo, and I REALLY miss having babies and young ones around.

Good luck everyone!

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