If I charge more for short term then I would fully expect parents to up and leave with minimal notice when they get a space in the center. They would do this to avoid the penalty of being short term.

You would be better off to charge more for under 2 spaces (which would be the ones leaving for care at 18months) as then they are not feeling penalized just for planning to switch to a centre later on.

Unfortunately while it is a big pain for us to transition a child just to have them leave 6 months later it is a fact of life for us. Fewer daycare centers take under 18months so naturally those families NEED to seek other types of care until their preferred type of care is available to them.

It does not mean they are poor clients or less worthy of our spaces and it doesn't really mean they should be charged more. We can do our best to screen some of them out...but I am not convinced we benefit from overtly over charging them. They will work around that and just keep it secret, which hurts us more when we suddenly have open spaces that we could have planned for.