Is My Service Considered Average, Good or Great?

I provide service for a shift worker. DCM just called me out of the blue one afternoon to see if I would be interested in caring for her child. I prayed about it and in a few short days dck was placed in my home.

I never work past 5:30pm (except for one oops when the pickup arrangements were messed up). The earliest drop off so far has been 8:30am. I only watch her child along with my own children and I do NOT plan on adding more children. DCM drops off dck 4 days or less out of the week M -F. I get her schedule the week before. She only pays the days that dck is here. It's a flat daily rate no matter the hours. My flat daily rate is close to but less than a local daycare centers full time weekly rate (if you break it down into individual days). Some days she is here about 4 hours and on other days for 9.

The thing is, sometimes my kids are sick and so I have to let her know to find backup. And I do want to take vacation days and such, but I feel guilty about asking for days off since that means she has to find backup. I don't want to be a pain in the rear provider. I guess if I know that I am providing a good/great service I won't feel so guilty? I'll add that they are a good and nice family and dck is sweet.

[Josiegirl]

I have it written right in my handbook of policies that every family needs to have back-up care in case I'm closed. I stress it to them how important it is. I don't take a lot of time off but after years and years of neglecting my own health(mental and physical)I realized I needed to put myself back into the equation of my own life.
My own kids are grown and gone and I hardly ever get sick(probably built up a brick wall immunity Haha) but I have appointments and me time I'm now scheduling into my life.
Never ever feel guilty about taking time off. If you took advantage of that(missing days all the time) it would be one thing but normal days off you need to do.

[LysesKids]

I too have it in my written policies that parents need to have a back up plan in place for days I am closed, including power outages or unexpected illness; I also have set days I close for vacation - 5 days every 5-6 months unpaid plus I close for 6 Federal Holidays. I explain that this is to keep me from getting burned out ... going into my 15th year in FCC, I need a break from my 60 hr work weeks every now and then lol ( yes you read correctly, 60 every week)