Help: change of schedule

[kelleyg19]

Hi guys,
I just had a mom text me asking me if we could change our agreement. When she started in January we agreed to Tuesday-Friday full days. The last few weeks her son has only been coming three of the four days, but she has still paid four days. In her text today she stated change would be to three days a week (Monday Thursday and Friday) and wanted to know if she would still have to pay four days. I am fine with changing the days, but not sure what to do about the pay. Help please?

[torontokids]

That's a hard one. Her needs have changed, it just depends if you would like to continue to care for her child or not and fill the other two days or look for someone fulltime. I see it like this you could either
1) Inform her that's not a problem and let her know your part time rate (make it higher of course and maybe she'll stick to 4 days or agree and you are still better off as you can fill the other 2 days and come out a head.

2) Stick to your original agreement and let her know that you don't offer care for less than 4 days per week as it is not worth it to you financially.

[sunnydays]

Might be hard to fill a Tues, Wed space....but it depends on if you want to be full every day, if you want to change the agreement, if you are easily able to find a full-time child to replace this one, etc. Personally, I would not allow a client to change it as I would not want to find a 2 day a week child...but that is just me.

[kelleyg19]

Ehhh this is so hard. I already have a little boy that comes on Wednesday and Friday in addition to the family above. Financially for me it would strain me losing that extra days pay, but then I also feel bad that she is paying for a day they aren't here. I don't want to lose this family as it has been hard to get clients lately.

[monkeymama]

If you have space on the other day, I would do it. I would have her sign a new contract and only be responsible fore 3x a week...1 day isn't that big a deal to potentially lose a client over...I just had the opposite happen. My favorite family who has been with me since the beginning want to start slowly transitioning from pt to ft. Im really pleased, and as a good will gesture I have allowed them to only pay my drop in rate when they bring her any additional days.

[Smitty]

I had a family start out at five days then went to three days but insisted that in the spring they would go back to five days. so since i wanted to keep the little one i said fine. then i found out that they had no intention of returning to five days so i said i had to charge a bit more. then they said that they only wanted two days. i dropped them. they were too much. they were also really mad and said they came to a home daycare because there were less rules and regulations then a centre. i told them they chose a home daycare so they could take advantage of one. no loss to me.

[Fun&care]

they were also really mad and said they came to a home daycare because there were less rules and regulations then a centre. i told them they chose a home daycare so they could take advantage of one. no loss to me.

Love it smitty, awesome response!

It really depends on what you want to do. Part timers really can drain you financially if you don't handle it well. Finding someone to fill for Wednesday -Thursday sounds like it might be difficult, could they change to mon wed fri, so you can fill tues thurs? And I would charge a bit more too.

[SecondAve]

I once told a family that they could do that as long as we could find another family to fill the off days, before X date. They were able to find someone before I did. Worked out well for both of us.