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I gave notice this week
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<blockquote data-quote="mightymouse" data-source="post: 25656" data-attributes="member: 3437"><p>Heather, I too have the same concerns as Kris. My concerns are from first hand experience.</p><p></p><p>I have a friend who has had a home daycare for 4 years and she has had many struggles throughout. When she first opened, she kept her ratio down to the number that one adult could care for. Her husband was also certified and worked 2nd shift at his job so he was her backup most of the day for either the daycare or for their own 3 children if they were ill, had an appointment, or a parent was needed (or wanted for say a lunch date) at school.</p><p></p><p>Her husband then changed his hours to 1st shift which worked much better for their family, but not for the daycare. So she hired a full time assistant and kept a few more kids. If she or her assistant had an appointment or was sick, they had to find another person to help with the daycare in order to be within the DHS ratio. That's where I came in. She would call me, usually on very short notice to come over and I usually could do it.</p><p></p><p>Then about 1 1/2 months ago, she had to fire her assistant. I cannot help her full time because of my back problem, although I would love to, and the time I do help really causes me a lot of pain. In the last six weeks she has hired two assistants, one of whom was a friend, and they both flaked on her. She finally cut down the number of kids to where she just needs someone two afternoons a week and to pick up a pre-k child at school at 10:30 everyday. I told her I could do this but we have both been completely stressing out for the last few weeks because of schedule conflicts. Between the two of us our kids have soccer practice M-Th so one or both has to leave early. One of her children fell and broke her arm so she has had dr. appts. My children have had a well child check up, bladder infection, severe allergic reaction to antibiotic, upper respiratory infection x2, double ear infections, and a stomach virus all involving dr visits in the last 4 weeks. She goes to school at night but has 2 hours of evaluations to do every week during daycare hours to complete her degree. I completely forgot about and missed easy child child's appointment for evaluation beause I was too worried about our daycare schedules. I also forgot about difficult child's first evaluation appointment until they called to remind me the night before. I already had to reschedule this appointment because someone was sick on the original day and by the time I got the message it was too late to reschedule this one without being charged $50. Luckily one of the daycare kids had gone home with a fever the day before so he couldn't come back until he went 24 hours fever free. Oh and I forgot to mention that she had the stomach virus and had to completely shut down the daycare with no notice to parents which really ticked some of them off. I also have had the stomach virus 2 times and the upper respiratory infection. The last time I had the stomach thing, I absolutely had to go to the daycare after having diarrhea 12 times in one hour, otherwise a little girl would have been stranded at school. The daycare owner went to pick her up while I literally laid on her couch and did nothing if I wasn't in the bathroom. Thank God she has a great group of kids and she did take a few with her on the school run and nothing happened while I was in the bathroom and the kids were unsupervised. After I vomitted twice and had diarrhea countless times she told me to just go home. She had no other backup to call so she was over ratio and worried to death that DHS would show up to inspect and would shut her down, but she had no other option.</p><p></p><p>Sorry to ramble and give too much information for some, but I wanted to give you a good idea of the problems we face with a home daycare. The owner actually remarked the other day, "My career is not very flexible," and then went on to talk about how she quit her job and opened up the daycare so that she could be there when her kids needed her but she just can't be there for them a lot of the time and actually spends much less quality time with them now. She is actually looking into going back to her old job.</p><p></p><p>I too don't want to be the fly in your ointment, I just want to be realistic. One thing I would really ask myself is how reliable is your backup? They may seem very willing to help you now, but if your difficult child goes into crisis mode when she knows you are at home and you are needed several times a week at the school, will they still be so willing? Once you have called them several times on short notice to come over, will they quickly tire of it? I know a lot of stay at home moms but don't know of any that are willing to be at someone's beck and call every day.</p><p></p><p>You are in a very difficult situation and unfortunatly, I don't have any answers for you. I just hope you give consideration to all aspects of having a home daycare before you take the plunge. I too am single and I know I struggled with managing time at my deadline oriented job and caring for only one easy child. Add my difficult child to the mix and I don't know what I would have done. Sometimes I think God actually gave me my back problem so that I would have no choice but to be at home with my difficult child. Financially I am ruined, but at least I am there for him.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mightymouse, post: 25656, member: 3437"] Heather, I too have the same concerns as Kris. My concerns are from first hand experience. I have a friend who has had a home daycare for 4 years and she has had many struggles throughout. When she first opened, she kept her ratio down to the number that one adult could care for. Her husband was also certified and worked 2nd shift at his job so he was her backup most of the day for either the daycare or for their own 3 children if they were ill, had an appointment, or a parent was needed (or wanted for say a lunch date) at school. Her husband then changed his hours to 1st shift which worked much better for their family, but not for the daycare. So she hired a full time assistant and kept a few more kids. If she or her assistant had an appointment or was sick, they had to find another person to help with the daycare in order to be within the DHS ratio. That's where I came in. She would call me, usually on very short notice to come over and I usually could do it. Then about 1 1/2 months ago, she had to fire her assistant. I cannot help her full time because of my back problem, although I would love to, and the time I do help really causes me a lot of pain. In the last six weeks she has hired two assistants, one of whom was a friend, and they both flaked on her. She finally cut down the number of kids to where she just needs someone two afternoons a week and to pick up a pre-k child at school at 10:30 everyday. I told her I could do this but we have both been completely stressing out for the last few weeks because of schedule conflicts. Between the two of us our kids have soccer practice M-Th so one or both has to leave early. One of her children fell and broke her arm so she has had dr. appts. My children have had a well child check up, bladder infection, severe allergic reaction to antibiotic, upper respiratory infection x2, double ear infections, and a stomach virus all involving dr visits in the last 4 weeks. She goes to school at night but has 2 hours of evaluations to do every week during daycare hours to complete her degree. I completely forgot about and missed easy child child's appointment for evaluation beause I was too worried about our daycare schedules. I also forgot about difficult child's first evaluation appointment until they called to remind me the night before. I already had to reschedule this appointment because someone was sick on the original day and by the time I got the message it was too late to reschedule this one without being charged $50. Luckily one of the daycare kids had gone home with a fever the day before so he couldn't come back until he went 24 hours fever free. Oh and I forgot to mention that she had the stomach virus and had to completely shut down the daycare with no notice to parents which really ticked some of them off. I also have had the stomach virus 2 times and the upper respiratory infection. The last time I had the stomach thing, I absolutely had to go to the daycare after having diarrhea 12 times in one hour, otherwise a little girl would have been stranded at school. The daycare owner went to pick her up while I literally laid on her couch and did nothing if I wasn't in the bathroom. Thank God she has a great group of kids and she did take a few with her on the school run and nothing happened while I was in the bathroom and the kids were unsupervised. After I vomitted twice and had diarrhea countless times she told me to just go home. She had no other backup to call so she was over ratio and worried to death that DHS would show up to inspect and would shut her down, but she had no other option. Sorry to ramble and give too much information for some, but I wanted to give you a good idea of the problems we face with a home daycare. The owner actually remarked the other day, "My career is not very flexible," and then went on to talk about how she quit her job and opened up the daycare so that she could be there when her kids needed her but she just can't be there for them a lot of the time and actually spends much less quality time with them now. She is actually looking into going back to her old job. I too don't want to be the fly in your ointment, I just want to be realistic. One thing I would really ask myself is how reliable is your backup? They may seem very willing to help you now, but if your difficult child goes into crisis mode when she knows you are at home and you are needed several times a week at the school, will they still be so willing? Once you have called them several times on short notice to come over, will they quickly tire of it? I know a lot of stay at home moms but don't know of any that are willing to be at someone's beck and call every day. You are in a very difficult situation and unfortunatly, I don't have any answers for you. I just hope you give consideration to all aspects of having a home daycare before you take the plunge. I too am single and I know I struggled with managing time at my deadline oriented job and caring for only one easy child. Add my difficult child to the mix and I don't know what I would have done. Sometimes I think God actually gave me my back problem so that I would have no choice but to be at home with my difficult child. Financially I am ruined, but at least I am there for him. [/QUOTE]
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