When parents contact you MONTHS in advance

[mom-in-alberta]

Seriously, December? Or Sept '12??? WOW. Unless wait lists are insanely long where you are, that seems..... excessive. Lol
Anyway, honestly I think it depends on what you are comfortable with, and can afford. I also run under capacity, for a couple reasons. It allows me to take in part timers, when and how often I want. It also means that in the summer, when my kids are home from school, I am not running an illegal operation!
However, if I knew that I needed to fill x-number of spots to maintain my income at a certain level, and we were dealing with one of those spots I would absolutely charge someone to "hold" a spot. It would be non-refundable, if they chose not to take the spot, tough. I would not apply it to fees in the future, because I could have filled that spot immediately and had my full income.
In this case, I would probably go ahead and interview. But let them know that I was NOT guaranteeing a space. I would call them if that spot had not filled by a specific date.
Then again, you said that you don't really NEED that income, so perhaps you can be a little more flexible if you get a good feeling from this family. Sometimes, we gotta bend the rules a little!

[Spixie33]

Seriously, December? Or Sept '12??? WOW. Unless wait lists are insanely long where you are, that seems..... excessive. Lol
Anyway, honestly I think it depends on what you are comfortable with, and can afford. I also run under capacity, for a couple reasons. It allows me to take in part timers, when and how often I want. It also means that in the summer, when my kids are home from school, I am not running an illegal operation!
However, if I knew that I needed to fill x-number of spots to maintain my income at a certain level, and we were dealing with one of those spots I would absolutely charge someone to "hold" a spot. It would be non-refundable, if they chose not to take the spot, tough. I would not apply it to fees in the future, because I could have filled that spot immediately and had my full income.
In this case, I would probably go ahead and interview. But let them know that I was NOT guaranteeing a space. I would call them if that spot had not filled by a specific date.
Then again, you said that you don't really NEED that income, so perhaps you can be a little more flexible if you get a good feeling from this family. Sometimes, we gotta bend the rules a little!

Thanks Mom in AB....I have had people contact me 3 months in advance but never 6. I think there are quite a lot of daycares in our area but I guess they liked the ad and the pics I have up on daycarebear. Plus...she is a first time mom so I think she is getting nervous and not sure how soon to start looking etc since she isn't experienced with it.

I don't NEED the income so you're right that in my case I would probably bend the dates and let it ride out until she returns to work IF we were a good match. Good families are really important to me. I would rather lose income a few months and get a good family who is like-minded and reliable. I really don't want anyone to not stress me out or take someone who isn't a good fit just for desperation to get the $$ flow in.

I have contacted the lady back and asked her to set up an interview for next month. Why rush - right? lol we have plenty of time and seeing the child a month older is probably better