Quote Originally Posted by Momof4 View Post
.... I call it 'assembly line daycare' when I have all 5 children under age 2....
But this is why you can set your budget to pay for the space regardless of age and not charge 'extra' because you are able and willing to have ALL your kids be this age group and fill an open space with any age child that comes along and you are not 'feeding' that age group and so forth. I agree that I would not charge 'different' fees if this was the case in my program either cause I would not have an 'argument' for it when discussing fees with clients in this model.

Premium space aside ~ my program I do not 'save' money serving infants because I feed them still cause I do not want to deal with parents sending 'jarred foods' well past when I think solids are acceptable and so forth and they often eat as much or more than preschoolers cause 'pureed' food tends to take more to get a 'serving' ~ takes me 3 apples to get 2 servings of pureed applesauce but not many preschoolers eat 1 and a 1/2 apples each at a snack and 5 oz chicken purees down into 1 serving meat but most 'preschoolers' you'd be lucky to get in 2 oz of solid chicken cause they are too busy to chew that long ... another reason why I like to make my own food because I can get them quickly OFF pureed food and onto solids verses dealing with 'jarred foods' being sent at 18 months!

Also my infants still get to do creative explorations, sensory and all the things that cost $$ that older kids do so I am not saving money on the 'program' expenses here the budget is the same for program supplies regardless of age plus maintaining their strollers, highchairs, pack n plays and so forth are major expenses where as a kid over 2 can eat at the table, can walk, they can rest on a mat on the floor or a couch if need be their only equipment expense is the 'some toys' which cost way less than highchairs / strollers / cribs and so forth cause my older crew seems to have the most fun with recycling verses 'toys'?

Ultimately like anything in your fees setting it is what you feel you can 'justify' to your client set ~ just like some people charge more for their service over all because they serve an all organic menu or they charge more because they choose to never have more than 3 kids in care regardless of their 'age' and so forth .... we all have varied reasons for why we charge what we charge and it is the clients job to 'research' and find out what they are 'getting' or 'not getting' depending on your point of view for the fee being asked.