Originally Posted by Unregistered:
From the parent perspective, I get that you want to charge by the spot, but that "spot" I'm paying for had better darn well be available every single day if I want to use it for a few hours. It's not a matter of parents don't get it, it's a matter of I only want to pay for 3 days when that is what I need. I do not want to pay for 5 days when I'm not using all of them. I don't care if it's paying to save a spot or not.
Think of it this way...when you go buy a new book in your favorite series, would you like it if you had to buy the whole series just to get the new book? NO. It's a service, you say....well, say you take your car for an oil change that takes 20 mins, would you like the mechanic to say you have to pay for an hour of service because he only counts his "spots" by the hour, and not by what you actually need? NO Why is daycare the one place that thinks you need to pay for 5 days if you're only using 3 of them?
We understand that, AND the mechanic thing has already been touched on so I won't go there. It wasn't a great example.
IF you want drop in/casual care, some or most daycare will offer that, but you're taking a chance of not having care on the days you need. IF you want 3 days a week, you need to find a childcare center/home that offers that for you.
When you enroll in daycare, you are taking a spot whether you use it or not. More daycares would probably be willing to do drop in care if we weren't limited on numbers. But if every daycare could do this, I guarantee you the rates would double. For a casual I had, because some weeks she came 1 or 2 days, other weeks she came no days, her rate was 40/day. Normally my average rate is about 21/day. She didn't pay as much for full time, but she paid nearly a full time rate when she was here 3 days a week. If mom was sick one day, she brought her a different day. But mom was fully aware that if I had interesting in a full time spot, she would have to bump up to full time, or lose her spot.