Infants

[CountryMommy]

I've started advertising my dayhome starting in October and I've gotten tons of replies so far. I get calls and e-mails daily. Problem is, I don't have infant spots available but the majority of people who have contacted me want to enroll their infants in my dayhome.

I now know why my friend child care provider filled up her dayhome in a week. She doesn't follow the age restrictions and was able to fill up with infants. I am determined to follow all regulations and provide quality child care, but I've had to turn away almost a dozen families because of this. Is it normal for infant care to be in such demand? Will I have a hard time finding families that need child care for their preschool and school aged children?

[playfelt]

It is normal in any area to get more calls from people just starting out looking for childcare (infants) than for families with kids that have already been in care.

Are you sure how the regulations apply in the sense of here in Ontario for instance if you are with an agency then the age restrictions apply. If you are private there are no restrictions so you can take extra infants.

[Momof4]

I too receive all calls from mothers returning from their maternity leaves and almost always start children right around 1 year of age, which I prefer anyway. I have only accepted 2 year olds twice and one worked out very well but the other 2 year old had very bad habits already and was terminated. Playfelt is right, in Ontario it's better to be unregulated so we can accept the families we really want.

[Inspired by Reggio]

I am not sure the regulations in Saskatchewan off top of my head but if they are anything like Ontario than yes infant care is always going to be the highest in demand because they have the lowest ratios of child per adult in a regulated setting .... in regulated care infants cost the most to offer service to because of the staff wages and the space they occupy needing 'separate' sleeping space and so forth in fact from my experience in regulated centre budgeting offering 'infant care 'even at the very high costs that they are results in the program being in the 'red' ~ centres who choose to offer minimal infant spaces do so not because it makes them money but as an 'investment' in those infants growing up to fill their preschool spaces and so forth where they can make money by keeping the preschooler when the family has another 'infant' verses loosing them because the client wants siblings together and if the centre does not offer infant care they risk loosing the family

Many centres in my home town do not even offer infant spaces at all anymore cause they had to tighten their purse springs and it was not worth it to be loosing money in that program so this drives up the demand even higher in the unregulated home childcare industry because regulated home childcare are limited to two children under the age of two as well.

I empathize with you ~ I too choose to follow the rules even though I am no longer regulated with an agency and frequently turn away infant clients because I am at my max of two children under two ... however the perfect clients are out there they just might take a few weeks longer to find ... I have always been able to maintain a full enrollment 98% of the time unless I choose to be low for other reasons besides not wanting an infant ~ aka do not like starting a new child over the summer because I love to able to travel and do not want to deal with transition a newbie out and about.

[CountryMommy]

I'm in Saskatchewan and the age regulations apply whether or not you are licensed.

I would love to be able to take on more than 2 infants for the same reason that Momof4 mentioned (less bad habits, etc). I guess I'll just have to keep turning families away...

[kidlove]

I am only allowed to have two infants at one time and to be honest, thats all I can handle at one time, while providing quality care. honestly prefer to have only one infant per day. There does seem to be an amazing amount of babies right now? Hmmm! kind of scarey, I always wonder if that doent mean we will have a loss in population (war, illness and such) high population spurts seem to hit during those times. hmmm, I would continue waiting for older kids to come along, you take on too much for the sake of a paycheck and you can find you will get burned out. I do believe those age limits are set for a reason, you provide better quality of care if ALL your time is not set on crying babies.