I do a one week deposit which eventually gets used for the child's last week of care. It is a non refundable deposit.

I have held spots 3-6 months with just that fee in place and no weekly fee

Usually we do the one week deposit and then the parent pays at the end of each week. Therefore if worse came to worse and the parent tried to skip out of paying I have 1 weeks of pay regardless and wouldn't be out of pocket