Home Daycare Mama's!

[MyKzooFamily]

I have 'babysat' children for a while, and just recently had watched an infant full time as kind of a daycare situation. After she no longer needed daycare, I decided I really wanted to have a home daycare in my home. My son is 2, and really needs kids to play and interact with. With just me, he gets bored and just gets into trouble all day. I love kids, and we are in an excellent part of the city where all the daycares are completely full with waiting lists.

I'm taking online classes to get my CDA, and I'm working on my CPR/First Aid certifications and getting all my paperwork done for inspections, finger printing, and all that good stuff to be a licensed provider (they are really strict on that here).

My question is.. what do you do when you have a baby? I'm due in April with a surrobaby. So although I do not need maternity leave (and I will have my Mom here to help me with anything), I was planning on a home birth with a midwife. Now, if I could start my daycare sooner.. I could see how much it would cost me to deliver in a hospital (insurance does not cover surro prenatal care or deliveries). I kind of did want a hospital birth so I could get demerol .. even though my last birth was natural. But the cost of that may not make it worth it. So I'd be back to doing a home birth.

Wether you home birth or go to the hospital, do you close your daycare before you are due? Or do you have a back-up child care provider that takes over when you go into labor? This will not be my last pregnancy, so I will have the same problem in the future. My next birth will most likely be a hospital birth, though (since it will be my baby, and covered by Ins).. but I am still wondering how you work that around having a home daycare.

Thanks!

[doodah]

I am due in May with #3 and also had my second while being a daycare mama. It is different since your baby is a surro baby but here was my situation.

With DD2: I worked up until I went into labor. I did have a backup plan should I have gone into labor during daycare hours and all of the parents were aware that should I call them, they would have to pickup their kid ASAP, at least within one hour but preferably 30minutes. I had an emergency contact for each kid so there was two to three people lined up for each kid should they need to be picked up asap. At the time, my sister was working with me and a few days after I came home from the hospital, she was taking over the daycare kids while I recovered. This was a very bad idea because the house was small and I had a difficult environment with which to recover and a very high needs and ill baby. I should have just closed the daycare for a full maternity leave and not worried so much about accommodating the parents. I have since put myself on the top of my own priority list (in a good way). I also took an unpaid leave.

Fast forward to baby #3 due in May. We have since moved to a much bigger house where the entire daycare set up is in the walk out basement. I am trying to find a daycare assistant to take over during my maternity leave but so far, I already fired one person. The parents are aware that the plan is for me to close for five business days once the baby is born and after that, the assistant will take over the daycare for the next three weeks doing as much as possible downstairs while I recover upstairs. I realize this will still be somewhat inconvenient for me but this is the compromise I have come up with. The first week will be paid vacation, the next three the parents will pay as normal and I will pay a good part of that to the assistant so I will be essentially unpaid. After that, I will keep the assistant on as much as I feel it is necessary. It depends entirely on how my recovery goes and how demanding my infant is. At this point, if the parents do not want to work around my personal life to a certain extent, they are welcome to find another daycare at any time and I will be just fine replacing their child after my maternity leave.

I would start advertising now for kids (providing you feel ready to) and let them each know what specific plan you have for maternity leave. You don't have to provide backup care but you do have to let them know what you are capable of doing and when you will commit to being back to work. It is up to them whether they want to work around your schedule or not. I had one parent want to come to my daycare really bad and she had her daughter watched by a teen girl and waited for me to open a spot after the maternity leave. I have now had this little girl for well over a year and we are both very happy with the arrangement so there are parents out there `who could work with you. Overall, I would suggest to have some private time to recover unless you have a dedicated daycare space and a reliable helper. Good luck mama!

[MyKzooFamily]

Thanks for all the good Info!! I was thinking of just letting them know that when I DO go into labor, they need to have their child picked up within 1 hour, or I would call them the night before to let them know that I wouldn't be available the next day. I have pretty long labors (32 hrs and 20 hrs) so I'm expecting another long one. But you just never know!! I am due April 16th-ish.. so I thought about closing down April 1st, and then resuming May 1st, or calling parents earlier if I was ready to start watching kids again.

Because we do live in a desirable neighborhood, and I think I would have a pretty nice daycare I would think parents would be OK finding back-up care or a babysitter for that time and then returning after. But I know I wouldn't have any problem filling spots after if spots were available. I would ideally like to start watching children as soon as I get licensed (which hopefully won't take more then a couple weeks from now).. but I wonder if it would be worth it to just wait until after April. We will be getting taxes back in March, so we could make-do until after the baby is born for me to open the daycare.

We are REALLY hoping that hubby gets a job he interviewed for because with a little more money, we are hoping to rent a bigger house so we can have a seperate 'daycare' area, since our house is pretty small. With a seperate daycare area, I can watch more kids, and I can feel more comfortable watching kids in my home, yet not having the daycare invade my 'home space'. I would love to watch kids starting now.. but the laws here are really strict with being licensed first.. so have to get that all done!

[doodah]

I have longer labors too and the 1 hour thing worked out fine because I went into labor at night the first time and over the weekend the second time. With so much in the air, I would wait at least till the dust settles before interviewing. No one is going to want to put up with a maternity leave, possible move, and whatever else you have going on. But at least you can get started by finishing all the licensing requirements. Having a separate daycare area makes a billion times difference in the job!!