Difficult Situation!! any advice would be great

[happyheart]

I really dont know where to start. I have been doing home daycare for over a year and am now 8 weeks pregnant with baby number 2. I told my dcp's during the original interview (when i wasnt even pregnant) I would take my 2 weeks vacation then take back all the kids, but now I feel like thats just not enough time. To be quite honest I'm not sure I want to continue doing home daycare at all. Im not sure how my 2 yo daughter will react to sharing mommy and daddy with a new baby and all the kids at home daycare. As well she already shares all her toys and playroom with daycare already. But thats not even the main problem, I feel completely taken advantage of by one dcf. I do not include breakfast yet they bring their kids unfed everyday and do not bring anything to give them, they leave their kids from 6:30am to 6pm on a regular basis which i feel is totally ridiculous, open to close everyday, not to mention their kids are not the easiest to take care of. I have a good relationship with my other dcm but her child is difficult as well. I just feel like hdc is not a good fit for our family anymore.
Im thinking I will probably go back to school and finish my degree once baby 2 is born and I wont be able to do hdc while doing school. Financially I need to keep all my kids until the end of my pregnancy. I just really dont know what to tell the parents. I keep changing my mind and dont want to tell them I wont be coming back in case I change my mind and dont want them to leave until the end of my pregnancy. Any advice or experiences would be great

[Dreamalittledream]

Wow, kudos to you for doing it all with pregnancy and little one added on! I too have a similar situation of a little one for whom it has gradually built up to a 7am drop off and 6:00/6:15pm pick up time in the 3 to 4 days she is here per week (all the rest of my pickups are 4pm). I am exhausted on the days of the late pick ups; I can't even imagine how tired you are. It leaves such little time in the evening for quality one on one with your family; I don't know about yours but my 3 year of goes to bed at 7:30 (it used to be 7, we bumped it because of the lack of time in the evenings)....so, trying to jam supper, cuddles, bath time etc in the sometimes 1 hour time frame in the evening frustrates my son and us as parents. I had to really sit back and think about my family and the reasons I chose to leave the work force...so I would not have to any longer deal with long work days and not seeing my children. My late pick up girl is sweet, but you are still 'on the job'. The good news is that this child was a temporary placement right from Contract signing last May....counting the days until February. My advice for you? I think you would be far more satisfied with the home daycare if it were a shorter day for you. But to go through the hassle of terminating then finding a new family when you're not sure if you will keep going...tough one for sure. Only you know what's right for you and your family.

[kidlove]

I wouldn't let them know too soon, considering, they may find somewhere else to go, leaving you high and dry with no income. If you do need the income through to the end of pregnancy, I think that one month notice would be more than enough to let them find another provider, not to mention by the end of your pregnancy you will be ready to be done, if that is what you want to do. I say...look out for yourself and keep quiet until the end. One month is plenty of notice! :) and good luck with everything!!!

[kidlove]

keep in mind also, When pregnant you go through lots of "ups and downs" emotionally....sleep on ALL things before making any rash decisions. :) pregnancy is enough of a change to get used to, I wouldn't go too crazy too fast.

[playfelt]

I a ssume in your contract that you have a minimum amount of time you need to give to change the contract. It will be obvious by half way through the pregnancy in that it will be harder to hide so parents will know for 4-5 months that you are pregnant and will start asking what your plans are.

Your parents are taking advantage of you and that is where to start. Most caregivers limit the day to 9-10 hours of care so at minimum they need to be paying for two hours of overtime each day. Chances are once you enforce the 10 hour limit they will find a way to pick up and drop off within the alloted time rather than pay. Pick a date and let parents know that as of whatever the date is that your hours are changing because you are being taken advantage of and then open later so you get more time to get ready in the morning (allows for morning sickness to subside or to eat a better breakfast yourself) and I would even close earlier in the evening or open early but close earlier too. Take the family you don't mind and work only their hours and expect the others to fit into them within reason.

As far as your daughter goes remember that by the time the baby comes along she will be used to sharing so it just means she has to share with one other person too. Sometimes we get so worried about things that we go overboard in trying to prevent something that what we really do is teach the child to be upset if that makes any sense. Assume she will be fine and deal with it after if she isn't rather than spending the next few months worrying about it. Just as we teach the daycare kids that they have to accept the new reality it will be the same for your daughter in that she can be as upset as she wants but the baby isn't going back where it came from so she will just have to accept it and nothing you can do can make it all better. It just has to be.

I get that you are setting your sights on a career change. Is it possible to start the courses in January in the sense of finishing the semester just before the baby is born which would shorten the length of time you are in school after the baby is born. You might find that financially the benefits of claiming the months in school on taxes would be beneficial.

But back to the question of taking the time off. It is polite to give the parents plenty of notice and expect that they may leave early which really isn't a bad thing for that last month of pregnancy to have nothing to worry about but your daughter, fixing up the baby's room and getting a few meals down in the freezer AND sitting and resting as much as possible meaning telling them two months before the baby comes you are not starting daycare back till summer at least - leave the date wide open so you have options means a month for them to find new care and a month for you to rest up.

As to the no breakfast that is more a case of putting your foot down and telling them it has to stop. Let them know at drop off that the kids are hungry and that it is the parents' responsibility to feed them not yours. Tell them how much the fee will be for breakfast and that it is paid upfront so you can shop for food. Otherwise morning snack becomes breakfast and snack every day becomes a dish of dry cereal and a glass of milk and served early. Not the kids fault.

By the way congratulations on the pregnancy.

[Crayola kiddies]

Do you have a contract? I think your first problem is your working too long. You need to shorten your day. I run from 6:45 - 4:45 ... I used to close at 5:30 and that was way to late for my family. Tell the family they must feed their child before arriving as breakfast is not provided and the next meal time is not till xxx oclock. Stay firm with that. Have you and your daughter chose some special toys that she doesn't have to share and keep them in her room or up where the daycare kids can't get at them and bring them out after hours and on weekends. The toys I have in my daycare are not my children's toys they are mine and that way there are no sharing issues.
Maybe if you make a few small changes like closing earlier, having a contract and stop letting parents take advantage it might make you feel better about things. Then you will geable to make the decision if it's still what you want to do. If you do decide to close you should give the parents at least 6 weeks notice.

[Lou]

First off, congratulations :)
I'm pregnant too and through my first trimester I would literally end up in tears at the end of the day wondering how I was going to do this. After some time passed,it got much EASIER. I also have a 2 yrs and a 7 yrs old.
I told my daycare families that when the baby arrived I would be taking 4 weeks off, and like you, decided that this timewas too precious to me and that I wanted more time off. I am now taking 10 weeks off and am feeling good about that. Enough time to get back into the swing of things, be completely healed (I always need stitches- boo), but not SO much time that it isn't doable for my clients as well. My clients know they are lucky to have me (I know that sounds conceded, but I pride myself on running an excellent program), and they all have told me that they have no plans on looking elsewhere and will make do so their kids can return. I still am prepared to lose clients if they just can't make it work, but such is life and I will just find new ones!
As for your current clients, it is very easy to see why you're burning out. You need to draft a NEW contract with new policies about length of time in care (9 hrs here), and coming to daycare FED and ready for the day-state clearly that you will no longer be feeding children before the scheduled morning snack time at 9:30am (or whenever you serve it!).
Before completely throwing in the towel, I would make these changes and have everyone agree and sign to them and take it from there. If they continue to disrespect you, your business and your home then GOODBYE!! HDC is not a great fit for everyone, this is true, but maybe with a bit of tweaking it will work much better for your family. Good luck!!!

[happyheart]

Thanks for all the great advice! Everyone in my family also agrees that I really need to put my foot down with this family because they are clearly taking advantage of me. Im really not even afraid if they leave we will make it work, I might even prefer if they did leave. I will definitely be changing my hours, I'm thinking 7 to 5 and definitely wont be doing breakfast any more either the new rules might force them out but i would be totally ok with that. I just cant continue sacrificing myself and our family time for their convenience.

[kidlove]

Good Girl!!!:yes::thumbsu p:

[Inspired by Reggio]

Yup ~ when I was new I started with a longer day similar to 'centre' hours of the 12 hour day trying to be flexible and accommodating to variety of families needs and quickly realized i cannot please everyone and be HAPPY MYSELF at the same time ... so I made two changes to my business plan!

First my 'program hours' are now a 9 hour day like anyone else works and that is what my 'fee covers' ... 7:30 - 4:30 of program time where I am 'working and on' so to speak and that is a LONG day as is.

I than chose to word it that I would be willing to offer 'extended hour service' on an as contracted basis at an ADDITIONAL FEE and this allows me the flexibility to choose as it fits my family to either work earlier in the morning or later in the evening ~ but I never do BOTH and I never allow my hours to get more than 10 hours in length total because that is my 'work life balance' threshold any more than that and I get burnt out! Families cannot just 'decide' to arrive before 7:30 or after 4:30 it has to be in writing on their contract ~ if they arrive late without permission they get charged $1 per minute AND they get a warning if late again their contract could be terminated ... my family time is valuable and if you do not respect that we are done!

Ironically I found when I made these changes the families who HAD been leaving their children in care 10 plus hours suddenly when it was going to cost them 'extra' to do so went out and invested in second car seats so that the one parent could drop off and the other parent pick up cause that was than 'cheaper' than leaving their kid in care for so long ... people IME often leave their kid in from open to close cause they are wanting their 'monies worth' and when you CHANGE that for motivation for them to it being cheaper to stay within 9 hours than them make it work ;)

I do not offer breakfast either ~ if your child arrives to program on an empty stomach they are waiting until 'morning snack time' at 8:30 to eat ... breakfast is a parents responsibility and IMO a routine that needs to be established early on in life so kids learn to get up and give themselves time to eat before school / daycare / work .... for too long now we have become this society of 'rush rush out the door' and nutrition is taking a backside to this ~ IMO time to make it a priority again!

As for the maternity leave verses closing up shop ~ congratulations on your newest addition and I agree with the other ladies ~ I would wait on making that decision and make the HOURS change first and if you loose this client whose sucking your passion out of you with their behavior you might find yourself reevaluating what you LOVED about being home with your daughter and being able to be home with the second one as well ~ perhaps a combination of going to school part time / online versions so you can balance both!

[happyheart]

I totally agree that they are trying to get their moneys worth. Many times these parents have dropped their kids off in work clothes and come to pick them up with their house clothes on right before closing time, as if they were sitting at home waiting to pick the kids up. And other times they have said oh i have a drs appt after work so ill see you when im done or have gone grocery shopping before picking up their kids. I just dont understand why someone would even want to leave their child at daycare for 12 hours, especially whens its not necessary. I think the dcm just wants her husband to have to help her with daycare even if it makes absolutely no sense. The more I think about it the more confident I am becoming in putting my foot down with this dcf. I think I will change the hours and the breakfast rule as well as a few other policies that have been causing problems and see how it goes before I decide to close permanently. Hopefully not feeling so disrespected will bring back the passion I had about doing hdc in the first place.

[Crayola kiddies]

I think that's a great idea !!!!

[happyheart]

So I re wrote my contract and Handbook to accomadate my new hours and new rules. I've changed my hours to 7:30-4:30, I think the extra time in the morning is going to be huge for my well being, it will give me more time to get to the gym in the morning and get myself and the family ready for the day. I am also including a provider maternity leave provision in my handbook. I will be taking 16 weeks minimum and I don't expect them to come back after this time but will take them back first if they decide to return over new clients. I will no longer be providing breakfast at all, I didn't realize how much time and extra clean up this was causing. Babies and toddlers are messy eaters even if they are eating only cereal and banana lol. If they come unfed they will be waiting until 9:30 for morning snack. I will also be contracting hours on an individual basis and made it very clear in my handbook that their hours are not determined by my open/close hours and by their contracted hours only. Im not sure if this will change how im feeling about home daycare for our family but it will definately make things easier now that im pregnant and need to really put my foot down. I'm going to give them the updated handbook and contract with the changes to be effective immediately and the contract to be returned one week after it is given. I'm actually kind of hoping that the uncooperative parents will leave because of the changes but will see how it goes.

[mimi]

Wow from indecision to firm and consise. You rock! :thumbsup: I think with these changes and realising you are able to make strong decisions in your business so you and your family will benefit that you will continue your daycare even if it means finding new families after your mat leave. Congratulations on your pregnancy.

[Crayola kiddies]

Generally you should give 2 weeks for the changes to take effect to allow the parents the time to make the necessary adjustment .... Such as broaching it with the work place to get different working hours or to buy another car seat so one parent can drop off and another can pick up.... This notice would be equal to the notice you require for termination by either party. Any contract not signed by a certain date would signify that care is no longer required. Will a 9 hour day be enough for parents to be able to drop off and commute to work? .. Where I live I have to open early (6:45) to allow enough time for parents to get to work with the rush hour traffic and I'm closed at 4:45 which is a 10 hour day but not one family uses the full 10 hours.

[happyheart]

I know 2 weeks notice is generally the norm but I know with these parents they will use that 2 weeks to their full advantage and bring their kids 12 hours every day. I know they both have car seats in their vehicles as one will often do drop off and the other will pick up, knowing where they work i'm sure they are not able to trade out the car seats during the day. I feel like I have put up with enough from them and i'm not willing to risk them bringing their kids 12 hours for the next 2 weeks just so they can "get their moneys worth". The hours the mom works she would have more then enough time to drop offand pick up within the new hours if they did need extra time they can pay more for it. She just chooses not to pick up at a reasonable time right now because they are taking severe advantage of my kindness and generosity. I am not willing to sacrifice my time with my family or my house and my own perosnal time any longer. If they don't like it they can feel free to go find a provider who has no backbone who is willing to be taken advantage of for $3 an hour 12 hours a day per child. Its just not worth it to me at this time anymore.

[happyheart]

Thanks mimi!!!!

[Lou]

NICE!!!! Please keep us posted to their reaction! SO glad you're putting your foot down!

[happyheart]

@Lou, I will definitely let you know.

[jazmic]

oh i have a drs appt after work so ill see you when im done

Uhh... sure. See when you're done. But my late fee kicks in 15 minutes after closing time. $5 for the first 15 and $2 for every 10 minutes after that. So yeah, sure. See when you're done and we'll see how much your late fee will be.

I hope you have a late fee in your contract! That would put an end to that!

[happyheart]

I do have a late fee ive never been strict with it but ive been pushed to my limit so im putting my foot down with these people. I just cant believe how disrespectful some people are tht they would leave their kid with me for 11 hours then expect to go to a drs appt and not have to pay extra. I would never do that to someone so when I made my handbook and contract I didnt think about these things.

[Judy Trickett]

Do what works for YOU and no one else. This is YOUR life, YOUR time with your family and baby. Daycare parents will always do what is in their best interest with no regard for the provider and you should do the same. We need to get out of this guilt and what is best for everyone ELSE mentality. We are people too and we deserve to have a happy life that we WANT.

In the same respect that WE figure it out when a dcfamily suddenly gives us notice so will the dcfamilies figure it all out if you take more time than you previously stated or quit all together.

[jazmic]

Definitely kudos for putting your foot down! :)

[happyheart]

I gave everyone the revised Handbook/contract and newsletter highlighting the changes so I guess we will see how it goes once they've had a chance to review it!

[Lou]

Awesome!!!!

[happyheart]

SO I got a call tonight from the dcf that I was having problems with. They were extremely disrespectful to me personally attacking me and my age. Saying I was a bad business person, I wasn't smart, etc etc. I never once said anything negative to them (trust me I could have said ALOT) and yet he felt the need to personally attack me. It was really horrible to experience, I had never done anything but take good care of their kids. They accused me of not caring for their kids and that their kids would be devastated to have to leave, when really they didn't have to leave they would have had to pay an extra $10 every day that they wanted to drop them early or pick up late. But that is their choice, they are the ones devastating their kids, not me. I was just putting boundaries around what I expect from clients in my daycare and what they can expect from me. All in all having them gone is a huge weight off my shoulders. I'm happy it worked out this way, but I'm pretty sure that it's going to be hard to fill their spot being pregnant now and already showing a little bit :mellow:

[jazmic]

I know it will probably be hard to lose that income, but remember that you have to put yourself and your baby first. No matter what they throw your way, stay on the high road! :)

[happyheart]

So true, I stayed on the High road and am very proud of it. The things he was saying were so mean and uncalled for it showed his character not mine. I'm still in shock a little bit over how mean and personal it was but I'm feeling so much relief right now that I won't have to deal with them again. I didn't realize how much they and their kids were stressing me out. By the end of the day I would have horrible tension headaches just from all the stress. I 'm happy I put my foot down and I'm happy with the way it all worked out :)

[mimi]

They had a temper tantrum because you were forced to set firmer boundries because of their lack of respect for your policies, you called them on it and now they are angry they are not incontrol any longer. Good for you for not stooping to their level of name calling and stayed professional. You called it right when you said a raise in their d/c rates was up to them if they continued to be late. Regarding the phone call, I would not stay on the line listening to insults, I would just wish them well and hang up.

[Lou]

Good for you for taking the high road!! They were very much taking advantage of you before and now they are going to have a hell of a time finding someone else who will watch their kids for nearly 12 hrs per day without having to pay overtime. I half wonder if they will come crawling back, but now that you know their true colours, I can guess how that will go, lol. You will feel so much better now!

[Inspired by Reggio]

I agree good for you for taking the high road and maintaining your professionalism ~ it is hard specially when someone is throwing a tantrum at you ... some people just do not like being called out on their poor behavior even when it was done in a professional manner by just explaining that 'should you wish to continuing using 12 days of care I am going to have to charge a premium because my fees initially were based on an average 9 hour day cause it never occurred to me someone would choose to leave their child here for 12 hours I am open and expect to pay so little for that many hours of service' ;)

Do not let people like that get to you .... the first year or so in this business is a learning curve as you perfect your contract and policies and learn from people like THEM on how to protect yourself and your business ... grow from the experience and move on!