Caregiver Maternity Leave

[Lou]

Hi Fellow Caregivers,
I'm not in this predicament yet, but my husband and I have been discussing possibly becoming pregnant later this year. I have 2 other children, but opened my home childcare when I was ready to return to work after my youngest soI've never dealt with this before!
Obviously, when you're running your own childcare business, you can't just up and leave for a year without losing all your income (no mat benefits!), or losing all of your clients!
I'm curious to know how others handled taking time off when a baby is born!
Thank you!

[Play and Learn]

You can buy into EI as a personal business now (in Ontario). But start doing it ASAP!!!!

I'm in the same predicament as you, but will probably be taking approx 5-6 months off when the time comes. Luckily for us, this money is savings for us, and not paying for bills!

[momplus6]

Remember though if you use EI benefits you have to pay into them for the rest of the time you are self employed. Also it would be 55% of your income that means the taxable portion so if you made 30,000 but after deductions you only made 14,000 you only get EI on that portion! So If they divide that monthly cut in half you are looking at probably just over 500 a month but thats only if you made the 14,000. So do the math on if the EI is worth it might be worth it to put money into a high interest savings account. Also you have to pay your portion of EI plus the employer portion which is 1.4 times the employee amount. Also I believe you have to pay into for a year before you can claim. I haven't looked that closely into so it could still totally be worth it. You can always call the gov't and they should be able to give you some info on it

[KingstonMom]

I took 2 weeks off and my husband took the 9 months parental leave so now there are two of us home all day everyday. I couldnt quite do it alone with a newborn, so I like the situation we have now. 2 adults, 7 kids. (2 of our own).
I kep all my parents, as they were able to get last minute back up care for that time I was off.

If your hubby is not enjoying the idea of being your "helper" for a few months, then I would suggest you take at least 3 months off after baby is born. It would be so difficult running daycare, getting no sleep, plus your own children at home keeping you busy! ouch!
you could let your parents know once you are pregnant with an expected due date, and if the can find alternate care for a few months, fine, but maybe advertise a little later on with the expectation that you my lose some families.

[playfelt]

Depending on how old your other children are there is a different way to look at it too. When my son was born I was doing daycare and my others were 18m and 3 so home all day with me. I went back to work after a week but only with those age 2 and up so had 3 of my 5. I had to care for my own kids anyways and the having their "friends" to play with actually made the day go smoother because I could sit and watch them have freeplay plus there was enough action going on that I didn't fall asleep which I might have done if my own kids had been parked in front of the tv or something. If you have to play with them you might as well get paid for it. With my fourth my girls were in school and my son was half day junior kindergarten. I also had 4 others that were also in school afternoons and one sibling that was 14 months old. We struggled through the mornings, and then I paid a high school student to come and help out when the gang got home from school and that gave me a chance to rest a bit and then I got supper ready, fed myself and then as soon as hubby got home went for a nap while he fed the kids. Paying the sitter for two hours was more than worth it.

Another option is to do just before/after school for the year so you have the bulk of the day to yourself and can nap when the baby does. But again this only works if your own kids aren't in the home. If you can find someone to help out for the first two months it gets a lot easier from there on.

[Lou]

Thank you for all the input ladies!

[waterloo day mom]

You could also try for a spring or summer birth and hire a university or college student for those months.

[Lou]

I like how you think waterloo day mom....