I did it for four years when I first started doing daycare.

I had pretty strict rules for it.

I wouldn't combine Monday through Friday kids schedules with any weekend day. It became a deal of constant requesting of schedule changes during the week and wanting the weekend for the same price.

I did not allow children up in the evening beyond seven p.m.. I didn't take kids who needed to stay up later. I didn't do the "stay up late because they don't have school" deal. I kept the same schedule I had for the evening kids during the week.

I didn't take infants that needed feeding from seven p.m. to whenever the parent picked up.

I didn't allow evening parents to go home after work and pick up in the morning. They had to pick up right after work. I had too many parents going out after work and then not showing up until the next morning or even afternoon because their alarm clock didn't go off or they couldn't hear the phone. If you let them go out after work and pick up the next morning you will have the kids for as long as they want you to have them the next day. Making them pick up after work could lead to them coming to pick up under the influence. If they brought the kids when they really weren't working and would just go out... you could end up with clients who came after partying.

The weekends are the most unstable shift. Most people don't want to work weekends and finding weekend work is the easiest for lower paying jobs. There was a lot of turnover in their work life which made for constant work schedule changes.

I found that most requests were for combination week day weekend schedules so I really limited the pool of potential clients. I could fill my Monday through Friday slots so there wasn't any reason to muddy the waters by adding the weekend to their possible M-F shifts.

I did not take the shifts of 10a-7p or 11a-8p. These kids took a half day slot and a half evening slot. I would rather have a full day kid and a full evening kid in the slot to make double the money. (I had this for my Monday through Friday kids too)

I did not take school agers who I didn't raise.

It was hard to find clients willing to pay more for weekend work. It stands to reason you would get more and some of them did get more because they worked the weekends but they wanted to keep that extra pay for working the weekends.

The advantages financially are huge. The time space percentage deduction dramatically increases which lowers tax liability. You only have to have one kid to make that happen.

The food program money was awesome too. In the early mid nineties I had 24/7 and my checks way back then were in the 1400 range. That helped a ton.

Once you get on your feet the weekend shift is the first to go just like any other worker.

It's very profitable with boundaries and limits on what situations you would take but it is a ton of work.

Edited to add: If you have kids who are in care or school Monday through Friday AND you have them on the weekend... you have kids who aren't with their parents awake very much. This leads to a lot of behavioral issues from both parents and kids. The parents can be highly indulgent and the children are starved for their parents attention. The evening weekend kids were easier because they spent the morning with the parents BUT sometimes they wanted a later bedtime because they wanted their kid to sleep in in the morning. They wanted to put them to bed when they got home so they could have "me" time. Just as it would a day shift kid... if the parents were away all day... the kids didn't want to go to bed when they got home from day care. The most successful ones were ones who kept their kid up a few hours after getting home and had a meal together and then went to bed together.

Reply