What Did You Used To Do That You Don't Do Anymore?

[Sugar Magnolia]

I no longer......

#1: Sweat the small stuff!!!!
Worry about where parents are and what they are doing while their kids are here.
Sand. (we are all 5 minutes from a beach)
Provide lunch (bring your own lunch here)
Worry about pleasing all the people all the time.
Special.
Discounts.
Hide my motorcycle from the disapproving eyes of parents.
Get upset when people leave.
There's more I'm sure.......

[llpa]

I have only been open 6 mos but I have 1. stopped battery powered toys or removed the batteries 2. Decided not to take infants under a year. 3. Decided not to take SA. Most of that came from being on here so thank you!! I am heading off issues before they begin happyface

[Annalee]

#1:
Worry about pleasing all the people all the time.
.

I have NOT mastered this but am definitely better at it.

[Angelsj]

I used to:

Be paid AFTER services were provided.
Take school age children
Be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Allow open to close attendance
Have a TV (and have it on all day )
Take the initiative and do 99% of the work to potty train kids
Write out daily sheets for babies
Accept babies under 12 months
Feel badly when enforcing a rule



Now I:

Don't do any of those things

I still do some of those things, even after 30 years. I do NOT do the bolded ones any more. Baby sheets? Please. I used to find those things all over my yard. Ick!
And I never did the TV or the feeling badly for enforcing rules. LOL I guess I am just "bossy" by nature.

[MrsSteinel'sHouse]

We have to write out infant sheets!!

I use to let babies sleep where they were (bouncy seat, swing etc)
I use to think that my home should be their home while they are here and they should be able to use all of my downstairs. Now they are gated to playroom. breakfast nook, kitchen, bathroom.
I use to worry more about planning, now I just have a plan in my head and if we move that way great if they are happily playing, great.
I spend a lot more time just outside.
I no longer entertain them.
I use to keep them to a schedule more... they played less, I worked more. Now, they have much more free play and they play better for longer.
I use to have way more toys and stuff out! They would dump and not play. Now I have less out and switch out as they seem to not be interested in an item.

[preschoolteacher]

I stopped doing...

1. Cloth diapers. Too much gross, too much extra work.

2. Discounts for early pick-ups. I used to give parents a discount if they picked up before 4:30 PM. I stopped doing that. Some parents were coming right at 4:30 PM every day, and as a result paid less than other families but had their kids in care longer. I have a daily rate now regardless of # of hours spent in care or pick-up time.

3. Interviews. I could have an interview every week if I wanted to. Care is very hard to find in my area. My waiting list is 50 families long, and if I took every interviewee who wanted an interview, I'd be spending so much extra time working every week. I only interview now when I actually have an available spot.

4. Part-time 2-year-olds who have never been in daycare before. I have had five PT 2-year-olds this year (most only come 1 day per week). Only one of them had a smooth transition to care. The others experienced various levels of missing mom/having a hard time playing with others/and so on. They ALL are doing great now, so it was worth it, but I don't think I want to go through all of that again... at least not all at once like I did this time.

5. Never getting a day off. I'm working 4 days a week now starting in June. I need one day to get out of the house, run errands, bond with my son, oh and get to the dentist... Things you just can't do after 5:30 PM M-F or on the weekends!

[LoraJenkins]

Hide my motorcycle from the disapproving eyes of parents...

All my daycare parents love that I ride a Harley. One even works at the local "biker bar" and lets me know about upcoming poker runs and charity rides. I am so glad I never had to hide it.

[spud912]

This is fun! I used to . . .

• Have business hours of 6:30 am to 6:00 pm (now I do contracted hours between 7:00 am and 5:00 pm)
• Do a daily progress sheet for each child, then I used to do weekly progress sheets. It was so much work and the parents used it to nitpick everything about my care.
• Do a weekly blog and then a private group Facebook page update for photos. The last time I posted several months ago, only 2 people viewed the photos and one of them was a past client. I'm not going to spend hours posting photos when nobody even looks at them.
• Daily worksheets, but the older kids all aged out and the young group I have now would not benefit at all.
• Give vacant spots to whoever interviewed and wanted it. Now I decide who is the best fit for us and ask a lot more questions during interviews.
• I used to charge a lot less and give discounts for various reasons. Now everyone pays the same.
• I get partial pay for my vacation time and cut their unpaid vacation time in half
• I used to have more toys out
• I used to have all my books out (back when I didn't have many)
• I used to have more battery-operated toys, now hardly any

[MarinaVanessa]

- I'm slowly getting away from battery operated toys (just have a few cars that make woo-wooh noises)
- I used to do business hours but now do only scheduled hours
- I used to have my themes planned ahead of time (every month was a set theme) and now I plan activities and themes (and still sometimes change them) as we go
- I used to bend my policies a lot and now I only do it if I REALLY want to, not just because I feel bad saying no
- I used to feel bad saying no

[cheerfuldom]

This is fun! I used to . . .

• Have business hours of 6:30 am to 6:00 pm (now I do contracted hours between 7:00 am and 5:00 pm)
  
• Do a daily progress sheet for each child, then I used to do weekly progress sheets. It was so much work and the parents used it to nitpick everything about my care.
• Do a weekly blog and then a private group Facebook page update for photos. The last time I posted several months ago, only 2 people viewed the photos and one of them was a past client. I'm not going to spend hours posting photos when nobody even looks at them.
• Daily worksheets, but the older kids all aged out and the young group I have now would not benefit at all.
• Give vacant spots to whoever interviewed and wanted it. Now I decide who is the best fit for us and ask a lot more questions during interviews.
• I used to charge a lot less and give discounts for various reasons. Now everyone pays the same.
• I get partial pay for my vacation time and cut their unpaid vacation time in half
• I used to have more toys out
• I used to have all my books out (back when I didn't have many)
• I used to have more battery-operated toys, now hardly any

Exactly (to the bolded). I dont find ANY benefit to me or to the child for me to use infant daily sheets. This is for the parents. I found that either parents threw them away without looking at them or carefully scrutinized them to look for mistakes the provider made. I had a parent term because my assistant fed their child one jar of food instead of two jars....several months before they even mentioned it to me. It was one day when she was handling meals while I was gone and obviously made a mistake, although not a huge one and not one that could not have been remedied. It never happened again after that. They kept the infant report/mistake until they needed it as a weapon. NEVER mentioned it to me for weeks and then termed and used that as a reason. Now I do not do infant sheets unless a parent provides the sheets for me to fill out. Only had one parent take me up on that and this is the kind of mom that saves everything, documents everything. Thats fine. But I am also very vague and minimal on the report. I am not going to detail every diaper, every mood, toys he played with. Unless he is sick or causing disruptive behavior or in distress, there is nothing else to say about his day. He's a baby, he chewed on toys and flapped his hand and threw a ball, LOL not anything unique or out of the ordinary.

[mim]

Accept kids in Jammie's and change them after breakfast. I no longer do that. I have kids that come at 4am and they must be dressed and have went potty at home so I can carry them to the nap room and put them back to bed.

[LysesKids]

I use to…
Be paid AFTER services were provided.
Take school age children
Be open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Have the TV on most of the day
Feel badly when enforcing a rule
Have parents send packed lunches

Now I…
Get paid Friday before
Take babies under 2 only
Available between 7a-7p but contracted hrs ( limit 10)
Sold the TV and do Music only ( radio/Computer)
Terminate care when a parent disrespects me or my rules
Cook healthy meals for my babies ( no jarred food ever)

[Chellieleanne]

I have to say, even though I have only been doing this 9 months( has it been that long already?!?) I haven't changed much though.

I started rotating toys instead of leaving a bunch out all the time.

I don't text parents through the day on what their child is doing unless there is an issue or a really cute moment I have to take a picture of for them. I started out doing this and it was just a pain for me.

Other than that I haven't changed much.

[Unregistered]

Before: get paid monthly AFTER service was provided. I still have a dcf hat owes me $1300 (in collections)
After: paid weekly before service

Before: Allow fluxuating schedules or allow parents to switch/add days
After: only do fixed schedules, with some extra hours added every once in a while. I'm changing this soon to only permanent schedules. I'm tired of figuring extra hours/billing.....

Before: not stand up for policies
After: stand up for them AND not feel bad

Before: kids played every where, livingroom, dining room, kitchen, foyer
After: playtime in the living room only. Eating, coloring, games at certain times in the dining room.

Before: open living room.
After: furniture pushed in. Less running space

[Thriftylady]

Mine is after shutting down my daycare for years and now getting back into it. The parents made me quit before, not the children so I am trying to change my ways.

Then: Took payment after services
Now: Prepayment
Then: Had a bigger house with a family room, living room, large kitchen, and play room they had run of. Well the kitchen was limited.
Now: I have a much smaller house. We have the living room and sleep/playroom that also is part taken by office. We have the dining room that is used for meals/crafts and the older kids can do go puzzles and such there when I have a mixed group littles can't go in there unless I am in there.
Then: No handbook and a very vague contract.
Now: A handbook I am probably still adding to and a very detailed contract stating all the details for each family.

I will probably come up with more .