What Made You Decide to Home Daycare?

[laundryduchess@yahoo.com]

for the record,.. I loved the novel. =-)

[kidkair]

I started because I was running out of nanny jobs and was sick of bending to others' rules. I wanted to care for children in my own house. My family and boyfriend(now husband) were very supportive and helped out a lot. I have no children of my own and my husband and I agree that we probably never will. The daycare kids are our kids.

[Blackcat31]

Hi! I started doing family childcare because I was working at Head Start as an Assistant Teacher/Home Visitor and was really not happy with the way things were being done. I also had a 3 year old son who was really a momma's boy and on top of that the Head Start center I worked in was 30 minutes plus from my home. Iam the oldest of 6 kids and am a natural caregiver. My husband is 4th of 5 boys and his mom ran a 24 hr 7 day a week daycare.
One day, I decided I wanted to run a child care center in my own way and told my husband. His first response was "NOT in our house!" We decided to buy a separate house and run a child care there. We purchesed a small home in town near an elementary school and I have been in business for 16 years now. It was the best decision I ever made!
My kids grew up in my own dayccare and when they didn't want to come to daycare they went home. (my husband works from home). My daughter, now 22 was a great help and my son, now 19 did great. It was a nice way for my kids to socialize and play and yet still maintain their own private spaces at home. If I had to do it over again, I would have done it sooner!
I currently have a full boat of kids and recently went back to college to finish my Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood. I do it all on-line and it doesn't interfere with my work at all.

[broncomom1973]

I started daycare because while on maternity leave after having my 3rd child, our daycare provider increased her rates 50%, yes 50%. I had been working part-time (3 days/week) as a lab nurse at a family practice clinic. I tried to find alternate care for my children but couldnt find part-time daycare for 3 kids. At the time they were 3 mos., 17 mos and 4 years old. My dh and I tried to find someone to come in to our home to watch them but really had some scary people respond to our ad. One of the more "normal" applicants listed a reference whom I called and the reference did not speak very highly of her and her childcare skills. While talking to her she suggested I start my own daycare and from then on I started considering it. I returned to work after my 12 weeks of maternity leave was up and gave my 2 week notice. I have only been doing this 1-1/2 years now. I do love being home with my own children, but it can definitely be trying taking care of the other kids. It is getting easier, but initially I about went insane. My 1st dcb was 12 mos old and had never been away from his mom. He was still nursing, slept with her and his dad and was basically a mess (of course I didnt learn about his napping issues until I had to deal with them, mom never mentioned it during our interview). I literally couldnt step more than 1 foot away from him for over 2 months or he would sob uncontrollably. He did not know how to sleep in a pack-n-play cause he was used to nursing himself to sleep with his mom for naps. He screamed bloody murder at nap time for 8 weeks. Keep in mind that I had a 6 month old myself and this dcb's mom wanted me to do all kinds of baby massage and rocking him and every other thing you can think of during naptime when I had my own infant who was still nursing and I was barely able to find the time to care for him because I was trying to take care of this high maintenance dcb. So, I started off with a not so pleasant experience, . Ironically, he now is my best napper. I have over the course of the year "dismissed" 2 dcb, one was an infant who screamed constantly the other yelled out randomly (I think he had tourettes) and I seriously was getting heart palpitations from the screaming and the happy yelling boy so I dismissed them both and became a much less stressed out person. Things are good now. I do miss the benefits that I had while working as a nurse. The PTO, retirement, health insurance, life insurance, and all the other little benefits of working for a large employer. But, you cant beat being home with your own kids during these first years. I know that when the two younger ones get old enough to start school, I will have some decisions to make as to whether I want to stay on as a daycare provider or go back to the medical field. I really do enjoy the relationships you build with these little people. It really is amazing to watch them grow and learn. I look back at pictures of my daycare from last year and all of these kids have changed so much, it's amazing. Also, as someone else mentioned, I love just being at my home, and not having to get out in the cold mornings. I like not being stressed over "getting ready" in the morning because my a.m. routine has been drastically reduced since being home. I can shower, throw my hair in a clip, throw on some comfy clothes and start my day. I also can adjust my day as to how Im feeling if necessary which couldnt be done at my former job, . When the kids are good, it's all good, when they're naughty, it can sure be bad, . I do know this, I am definitely one of those providers that can only take care of 5 or 6 kids at a time. I dont know how those of you who care for 6,7,8,9,10+ kiddos do it. You most certainly have my respect.

[MMk9987]

The reason that I want to open up my own child care facility is because I would like to become a stay at home mom and be there for my son 24/7 I did work at a daycare from 2008 2009 then in feb 2010 i had my son. but then i noticed something I loved being a mommy so much I did not want to miss out on any of his first. so i noticed that I sort of gave up on looking for a job. and I live with my mom and she said to me you have to look for a job we can not afford for you not to work. so then i just told her ill open up my own daycare she said fine.

[DCMomOf3]

I started because I was a SAHM and a pg friend of mine convinced me to watch her baby. I still have DCG too.

[nikia]

Hi all. I had a really bad experience in a home daycare one that could have ended in my child being taken or hurt extremely bad. I pulled my kids immediately and had some high school girls watch my kids (it was summer two years ago). A month after I did this I lost my job because of the economy. I was very nervous about finding a new daycare after what happened and I figured losing my job was Gods way of telling me to start the daycare I thought about opening. I was extremely lucky and the day I lost my job and mentioned to a friend my thoughts on doing a daycare I had 3 kids. My friends kid and she found two more that knew me and were unhappy with their daycare. Its a lot of hard work and like someone said your house is always chaos. There are also many great things about this job too though.

[KEG123]

99% being that I am a mom and I stayed home with him for 18 months but then could not afford to not work anymore, so have been working the last 1-1.5 years. Well, we are wanting to expand the family but still keep up with the income....Also, my mom did daycare for a long time (10-15 years) so I was raised in this environment and at age 6 when my brother was born I was dubbed "little miss mother" since I was so naturally nurturing.