Basement vs. Main Floor

[mattsmom]

I totally understand! When I first started, I had the daycare in the main living room upstairs and the family room in the basement. It worked great for a while, but eventually I got sick of the daycare being the first thing that our company sees when they walk in the front door. We also wanted to have our main floor family room back. It was also easier to keep the daycare stuff contained to one place.
I think it might have been different if my own kids were younger and needed their own playspace upstairs, but my oldest is grown and out of the house and my youngest is 12.

We find it works better this way.

[AmandaKDT]

I have the daycare on both the main floor and in our basement, as well as in a spare bedroom. It works really well right now because my own children are still young (2 and 4 years old), so having the play rooms on both levels of the house works well as it gets used after daycare hours. I also like the change of scenery for myself and the kids of having different rooms to go to during the day. I like being able to sit in the sunny mainfloor living room in the morning.

But we have our family room in the basement and the main floor living room is solely for the daycare, so my husband can go downstairs and I can be upstairs with the daycare kids if necessary (though I can't say my husband tries to purposely avoid them). We came from a very small house before the one we live in now, so the spaced used just for daycare isn't missed.

I don't know, I don't think I would want to change what I have right now to being only in the basement, even though it does feel like there are toys and daycare stuff all over. But I try to keep things organized, maybe it will change as my own children get older. I would probably think about what was best for MY day, as opposed to my husbands, since he isn't the one that is home in the daycare all day.

[nschildcare]

My first go round with daycare it was main floor. My hubby hated having toys everywhere, etc. We didn't have the option of where as we didn't have a basement.

This time around I have it in the basement (well, our house is a split, so the lower level). I love it so much better. The daycare is the daycare. I still make full use of our home but the majority of daycare 'stuff' is down in the designated area. We eat in our upstairs living room and have naps up there, do crafts at the upstairs table, get to the outside through our back door, etc etc, but the majority of play and toys are in the lower level. I have done it for 2 years this way and my husband has never complained once.

I have had parents tell me that they like that I have a designated area for daycare that is separate from the rest of the house. So I guess it just depends on how you play that up and present it to parents.