I agree that only you know your limits ~ in Ontario you are legally allowed to have 5 daycare children of any age in addition to however many of your own you may have and lots of providers are able to manage with 5 plus 2,3 or even 4 of their own children without any help at all.

Personally after having worked in ratios as high as 1:12 I prefer 5 as my maximum and actually just noticed this past summer that 4 children is 'perfect' for me in ways of ability to truly thrive in the program with minimal stress because there is not the odd man out syndrome of 5 children to be dealt with all day ~ they seem to either play nicely together or they naturally pair up into playgroups of 2 and no one gets excluded from play as that 3rd wheel so to speak ... although I do prefer the income of 5

Things to take into consideration when hiring 'help' if you plan to take on more children even if staying within the '5' ratios are does having that extra kid worth the hassle of having to recruit someone into your home, supervise them and take responsibility for their work, dealing with when they are sick and you are suddenly 'alone' with that many kids and you are not use to having to do it and most off PAY them at least minimum wage ... so for example if you are having to pay someone at least $10.10 an hour plus EI, CPP and other employer expenses and so forth not to mention your insurance ryder will likely go up if you have an 'employee' in addition to clients so lets say at least $12.00 an hour for the total 'expense' of an employee .... is it really WORTH the extra children in your program if you feel you need help in order to have them? Honestly when we break down how much we make PER CHILD / HOUR which lets say we are charging $35 a day and you plan on hiring help for 8 hours that work out to 4.30/hour you get per that child towards that persons wage ~ you would basically be loosing the income of 3 children in order to hire help into the program? And even if you only hired someone half time of 4 hours a day that is still the income of 1.5 extra child just for the persons wages ... plus you still need to FEED / PROGRAM for those two extra children which will eat up the remaining revenue for them?

This is why I always have a hard time fathoming why anyone hires 'help' in their program in the first place cause IMO it would just be easier to keep the lower ratio you can handle without all the hassle and accountability of having an employee .... unless I was taking a sick leave or maternity leave for a short term where I would not be truly 'working' in my program but wanted to hire someone to keep my clientele base so not as to have to start over ~ I personally would not be hiring someone on a permanent regular basis ~ it is just too much for little benefit ... if I am lonely from working by myself all day I would rather pair up with people at the park or playdates but still keep my autonomy of working 'alone'

As for insurance ~ remember that your insurance company while it 'claims' to be there to protect you is in reality a business out to turn a profit ~ they do not want to pay out if they can find a way to avoid it because it affects the shareholders profits ~ so make sure that you close any loop holes of interpretation by making sure it is clearly stated on your policy that your own children are in addition to that 5 you are covered for.... when you actually go to make a claim they will look for any possible way to 'deny' it by saying you did something to void your policy or that something was no 'covered' in it cause that is just how insurance works so make sure that your policy is VERY CLEARLY worded .... so in your case it should say that you have a home childcare ryder that includes 5 children PLUS your own because if it just says 'covered for up to 5 children' than they can argue when push comes to shove in a claim that if you had 7 children in attendance at the time of the accident that even though that is 'legal' you were not covered for that many children on the policy so therefore the policy is 'voided'

Also if you plan to hire an employee / helper into your program make sure you inform your policy holder and have this information added to your policy in writing because if you just 'assume' it is ok to have an employee and there is no written record on your insurance policy of an employee and something happens you risk your insurance being voided even if someone 'told' you verbally that it was ok ~ get everything in writing!!!!


Good luck in your choice!