Honestly, I've never been comfortable with the idea of having someone fill in for me. Maybe I'm a bit over the top with this, but I don't want to be in the position of having to vouch for anyone else where my business is concerned. The potential liability is soooo huge, for me, it's a chance I'm not willing to take. I just book off the odd personal day and take vacations (up to 5 wks) with the understanding right from the first interview that this will be happening. Parents will need to have a back up plan in my daycare.

So far as actually getting someone in, I couldn't begin to imagine how to do that. Maybe if you could get your hands on a back up list from a daycare centre? There are ECE's who do back up, float and temp work, but I'd imagine most of them just do that until they get a full time job. I did, back in the day. As an ECE myself, it's probably something I wouldn't have considered unless I was really needing work. The problem there is that if you get one, she's bound to be gone in fairly short order, as soon as she gets a position somewhere else. I think reliability will be an ongoing concern for you. Of course, I may be way off the mark....it's been known to happen