SunflowerMama 11:58 AM 08-01-2011
So since opening I stuck with mostly preschool age (2-5). It was working great but then a family of mine got pregnant so I changed my age range to include infants.
I added an additional infant (3 months) about a month ago and will get dcf's infant in the Fall.
I'm now re-thinking my addition of infants and debating whether or not to go back to strictly 2+. The baby I added a month ago is AWESOME and his family is great and so is my dcf that just gave birth but I just feel more stressed with the babies here.
I'm always worried something could happen to the baby and it's just more tough getting things (crafts, circle) done with the older ones when I'm constantly watching the baby. The older ones are able to do so much on their own and it was so nice when all my group was like that but now I feel like I'm taking time away from the older kids to care for the baby and when I get a 2nd infant that will just be doubled.
The other downside is my ratio. I'm licensed so as I add infants my ratio, of course, is significantly reduced. So I'm losing income with the addition of the infants.
Have any of you agreed to add infants (or preschoolers if you were infants-only)and then decided it wasn't going to work for your situation? How did you tell the families? How did they take it and did they understand?
I haven't made any decisions 100% I'm just seeing if any of you have been in similar situations.
JaydensMommy 12:41 PM 08-01-2011
I decided when I started that I would take infants. So the first child I enrolled was 9 months and then I enrolled a part time 3 month old. After starting I realized it is just so hard to do ANY activities with my older group which includes a 2 1/2 yr old, 3 1/2 yr old and 2- 4 yr olds. And I wish that my group was just the older kids. Now I will no longer enroll children under 2. It's just hard to get the kids outside or even just do the crafts and preschool stuff with them when the baby is very needy.
cheerfuldom 12:59 PM 08-01-2011
Have you thought about increasing your rate on an infant?
erinalexmom 05:13 PM 08-01-2011
I started out with saying I will only take 12months and up. Then I got a 1 yr old. Now I have 2 one year olds and my nephew (who I watched before I started daycare) who is 10 months old. I have already decided NO MORE BABIES! I will continue to care for the ones I have but i will take no new kids under 2 and when this group grows up thats it. I also want to provide more of a "all day preschool" type of environment. So I havent let them go, but I can tell you that I am understanding of where your coming from
Auntie 05:36 PM 08-01-2011
Not sure what I would suggest to say to the parents but I totally get where you are coming from. No infants here if I were to do daycare in my home.
permanentvacation 09:28 PM 08-01-2011
It is your business (company). If you thought you would like to make changes, then realized the changes aren't working for your company, change them again to make your company work for you. One of the benefits of owning your own business is so you don't have to do what others tell you to do, you can make the major decisions regarding your work day, routine, clients, etc. So, you experimented with a business idea, realized that it really doesn't work for your business. So change things back to what worked for your business. Give the baby's parents a notice (if required according to the agreement/contract between you and them). If you want to be completely honest and explain yourself (not necessarily required, but might be nice), tell the parents the real reason you are terminating them. Let them know that after doing so, you realize that adding babies to your program really made it too difficult for you to do the things that you and the preschoolers are used to doing and that you really want to be able to continue doing those activities with the preschoolers.
In my opinion, it is difficult to have a variety of ages. It can be done. I have had a variety of ages for most of 20 years. However, the times that I had only school ages (just happened to get only school age kids for a while) or just preschoolers (again, just happened to get only preschoolers for a while), it was SOOOO much easier to work with one age group. I could really focus on the activities with no inturreptions from anyone ( the baby crying, the preschoolers arguing while I'm helping the older ones with homework, etc.)
Even though the baby's mother might get upset that you are terminating her, she might appreciate the fact that you want to offer the best care you can and have noticed that you aren't able to do that for neither the preschoolers or her child by mixing the ages. You want her baby to get the best care they can and you want the preschoolers to get the best care they can.
I said the above information believing that you are more worried about being able to tend to the different ages properly. If it is more about your income lowering because of adding the babies, then you might be able to change your rates to make it financially work for you. If you are providing arts/crafts, curriculum, etc. that you pay for constantly for the preschoolers, you won't have that expense with the babies and can take that in consideration when thinking of your income/expenses.
Basically, in my opinion, it's your company. Make it work for you. With any company, whether just starting, or trying to keep up with changes in the world (economy, changes in public needs, etc.) You need to monitor your company and see if it's working for you. If not, make the necessary changes. No, you don't want to change things constantly and seem like some flighty, confused, non-professional business person. However, every business needs some tweeking here and there.
permanentvacation 09:51 PM 08-01-2011
In the 20 years of my daycare, I've changed hours, updated/changed my contract/policies, changed the ages of kids, etc. I offered 24/7 care for a couple of years. At first, I thought, to get the clients, I would let them come and go as the parents dictated. The parents told me what time they worked and when they would drop off and pick up their children. So I had kids that were dropped off at 4:30 am, then anywhere from 6 am-11:30am those guys were picked up anywhere from 2:30pm - 6pm. Then my evening shift kids would arrive anywhere from 4:30pm - 6 pm. They'd get picked up between 8pm and 11pm. Then my overnight kids would get dropped off from 8pm - 11:30 pm. One of them got picked up at midnight, the other 2 got picked up at 7:30am. My schedule was ubsurdly crazy!!! One night the parent of the midnight pick-up was stuck at work and wound up not getting to my house til 2am!!! I had to be up at 4am for my early morning kids!!!! The 4 am dad (when picking his children up at 2:30pm) said to me, "Wow, you really look like sh*t!" That made me realize that I simply couldn't keep this routine up - even though I thought I was faking it through pretty well - and I really liked the income I was getting! So I immediately explained my crazy schedule to all my parents. I decided that my evening kids had to be picked up by 10pm and my overnight kids had to arrive by 10:30 (already dressed for bed by their parents - which I had been doing for them) and the overnight kids had to stay all night long til 7:30 the next morning no matter what time the parent got home from work. That way we could all sleep through the night from 11pm - 6am. (It's legal here to sleep overnight with 3 or less daycare kids overnight) It worked out. I kept all my kids. Some of them had to find a relative to get the child either to or from my daycare at my required time, but they figured it out and worked with the schedule that I decided would work for me and my business.
My contract is now a yearly contract that goes from Jan. 1st through Dec. 31st. That way I can make changes to it each year if I need to. Things such as changing my hours, rate of pay, policies, etc. I present each parent with a new contract around Dec. 15th. They have about 2 weeks to decide if they can agree to the changes and whether or not they want to stay with my daycare. So far, everyone has stayed with me - even when I raised my rates.
Typically when I changed the age groups that I watched, it happened when I would lose a child or terminate a child. I would place an ad and I simply started getting only calls for one age group and it basically happened on it's own. Then I would get down to only 1 or 2 of the other age group and would start commenting about them not being overly happy here because of the majority of kids being another age group. The parents and I mutually agreed to discontinue service for the benefit of the child.