How Late At Night Do Your Parents Contact You? My Turn To Vent

[permanentvacation]

My current daycare kids all leave by 5:45pm. All of my parents give me their next week's schedule by the last day of the week that they pick up their child at the time that they pick their child up. Except one! She texts me whenever she thinks about it - even - in my opinion late in the evening. I have told her and her husband that I have a horrible time sleeping and that the slightest noise wakes me up then it takes me HOURS to fall asleep again. I am fully aware that she does not know what time I choose to go to bed each night. But I feel that she should contact me during business hours - not 4 hours after I close!!!!!! Last night I was exhausted. I went to bed at 6:30. Couldn't fall asleep til after 8:30. She texted me at 9:40 - which of course woke me up! I couldn't get back to sleep til after 4am!!! I was supposed to get up at 6:30 to be able to take a shower before work. Since her text kept me awake all night, I couldn't get out of bed until 7:15, which meant no shower. I am EXHAUSTED right now and could fall on my face dead asleep on the floor!

No other daycare parent call me after hours. My phone hardly ever rings at night. I leave my phones on though because I have a daughter off in college and if anything happens with her, I want her to be able to call me.

I thought - in the middle of the night last night - to see about getting a seperate cell phone just for daycare and only give my parents that number. Then I can turn that phone off when I go to bed.

So, do you guys have parents that call you after business hours to discuss business related things or give you their child's schedule? How late do they call and what do you do to keep them from calling too late? Do you have a seperate business phone line?

[Springdaze]

dont they have the same schedule every week? Thats one reason I tried not to give the parents my cell phone number. I dont want to be bothered after Hours. leave a message on house phone, I'll listen to it when Im ready! Do you have them sign in and out? Jump them then to get the schedule.

[permanentvacation]

I don't like to give my house phone # out on my ads because they can get my address with it. I give my cell out on my ads then when they call, if I feel comfortable with them, I give them my address. But even if I gave my house number, if they called me late, it would wake me up.

I do ask this particular mother and father for their following week's schedule when they are dropping off/picking up their child. They always say they don't know and they will have to call me over the weekend with it!

Their schedule changes just a bit every week. The mother gets different days off work each week, (so the child stays home different days) and the time she has to be at work varies by an hour on different days. Also, the father doesn't work, so the child will randomly stay home with dad on different days. That irritates me to no end! They will text me one night - often at a bad time - to tell me that they child is coming early the next day - typically an hour before anyone else. I get up just for them - only for them to call me 15 minutes AFTER the child was supposed to be here to tell me she's staying home with dad afterall! UGH!!! So, on those days, they woke me up at night to say they are coming early, then make me get up early for no reason because they let the child stay home afterall!

[laundrymom]

I would CALL HER at 4am to let her know you got her message but have been awake since she left it and are unable to care for her child today. That next time for her to text inside business hours only.

[permanentvacation]

I thought a few times last night between 11:30 and 4 am to text her back saying 'ok'. Just to let her know that I had received her message about what time she'd be here this morning. I just couldn't bring myself to be that mean! But I thought about it many times throughout the night!

[laundrymom]

I would seriously tell them you need to know by pickup on Friday, or after 8 am on Monday. That you aren't available on weekends. If they call or text on weekend, send it to gm and deal with it AFTER you open on Monday.

[laundrymom]

Why are you being mean if she broke your policy???~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~€€€€€€€€€
Here's my backbone. You can borrow.

[Ariana]

I explicitly state in my contract and in my initial e-mails to families that my home phone is for emergencies ONLY. An emergency would be if the child is very sick or other emegency situation and won't be coming to daycare in the morning. If it is a non-emergency they can e-mail me or txt me on my cellphone and I turn my cellphone off.

My cellphone is pretty well exclusively for daycare but other people do have the number.

[permanentvacation]

Yeah, I'm going to have to let them know that they are not to contact me at all after business hours. She is going to have to do like every one else does and give me her schedule for the next week by close of business on Friday.

I had always told people that they can call me after business hours to let me know if their child was not coming the next day. For example if their child got sick in the evening and therefore unexpectadly were not going to be coming to daycare the next day. But this particular mom has gotten to the point that she texts me almost daily as to whether or not the child will be coming the next day.

So, apparently you guys don't really have this problem with your clients - huh?

[LittleD]

I get and send texts after hours. I think the latest was 9pm. But I am usually up til 11pm anyways. And I have NO problems falling back to sleep even of they woke me. Most of the time they will text me in the morning before they come

[PitterPatter]

My current daycare kids all leave by 5:45pm. All of my parents give me their next week's schedule by the last day of the week that they pick up their child at the time that they pick their child up. Except one! She texts me whenever she thinks about it - even - in my opinion late in the evening. I have told her and her husband that I have a horrible time sleeping and that the slightest noise wakes me up then it takes me HOURS to fall asleep again. I am fully aware that she does not know what time I choose to go to bed each night. But I feel that she should contact me during business hours - not 4 hours after I close!!!!!! Last night I was exhausted. I went to bed at 6:30. Couldn't fall asleep til after 8:30. She texted me at 9:40 - which of course woke me up! I couldn't get back to sleep til after 4am!!! I was supposed to get up at 6:30 to be able to take a shower before work. Since her text kept me awake all night, I couldn't get out of bed until 7:15, which meant no shower. I am EXHAUSTED right now and could fall on my face dead asleep on the floor!

No other daycare parent call me after hours. My phone hardly ever rings at night. I leave my phones on though because I have a daughter off in college and if anything happens with her, I want her to be able to call me.

I thought - in the middle of the night last night - to see about getting a seperate cell phone just for daycare and only give my parents that number. Then I can turn that phone off when I go to bed.

So, do you guys have parents that call you after business hours to discuss business related things or give you their child's schedule? How late do they call and what do you do to keep them from calling too late? Do you have a seperate business phone line?

I have 2 lines, home and cell. Parents are welcome to call either or text as long as it's a decent hour. I do not allow calls after 8pm or before 7am but I have been called at Midnight even 1am to be asked stupid questions. Flip side I have been called at 3 am to be informed the child wouldn't be here at 9am! Client said they knew they would be waking me up but said they didn't want to risk forgetting to call because they didn't want to pay the fee for a no show. That made me want to slap her with a calling fee but I had no idea how to go about that and have never heard of such a thing. If this is a repeated problem for you I would attach a fee.

I feel for u as I know what it's like to have to function on little sleep. It's not fair to us but some people are just very rude and inconsiderate of others. As much as I would love to return the call on another day I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I hope you get some rest tonight!

[dEHmom]

can you ask them to email you the weekly schedule? instead of phoning or texting?

one of my families has a varying schedule, and so mom just either writes it on my posted calendar, or emails me. If anything changes she just discusses it with me at pickup, or through email. If i don't hear anything from them, I assume its the regular schedule.

[dave4him]

Can you turn the sound off the text messenger?

[permanentvacation]

Well, I decided to get a new cell phone and new number just for my personal use and use my current cell phone - with the number that my parents have just for daycare. So, I am going to get, for the first time, a touch screen 4G cell with internet access delivered Wednesday. Of course, I have to pay $90 more per month for this, but I will finally have a phone comparable to my teenager! (haha!) and be able to turn off my old cell whenever I don't want to receive calls from daycare parents.

Thanks for letting me vent and giving me suggestions here.

[Daycaremomof2]

I would tell her to please not call you after (insert time here), and send a written reminder to all the parents, or put it in a monthly newsletter.

Have you tried melatonin for your sleep? It is a natural sleep remedy and did wonders for me, and its non-addictive