DCM Annoyed With Me...

[SignMeUp]

It is challenging at my home, to have children picked up during naptime. Sometimes the parent forgets and rings the doorbell, and this does interrupt sleep. Sometimes it's hard for them to know precisely when they will arrive, and this makes it more likely that the child who is leaving will inadvertently wake the children who are sleeping or resting.
We have infants through preschoolers sleeping in various areas, spaced so that they can each get whatever level of quiet time or naptime is optimum for each child. Sometimes that is near the door, depending on our child care space. And we care if they get their optimum level of quiet rest or sleep time. It affects their afternoon and evening, and it affects how they treat others and how others view them. That in turn affects how they think of themselves. It does matter to us. We tend to be very connected to 'our' children and take a fairly parental-type interest in fine-tuning their days.

And it does cut into our so-called downtime. You know, the downtime where I am filling out daily reports, printing pictures for our bulletin board, formulating a new privacy policy so that I can continue to post the pictures, checking for and answering emails from parents, checking the internet in case any regulations have been changed and no one has bothered to tell us yet, but we will still be held responsible, planning & setting up our afternoon activities, filling out menus and meal counts, doing daily, weekly or monthly bookkeeping, planning meals for the rest of the week, writing out grocery lists and looking for the best buys & coupons so that I can hold my expenses down for my families, washing dishes and cleaning the baby's toys from the morning, sweeping the crumbs from the floor, searching the internet for the perfect song to accompany our next unit and drooling over the wonderful toys that I want to get to go with it, but those $$ will cut into my personal income even further and I will honestly probably do it anyway because I know how much my children will love it and learn from it. That downtime? Yes, it does cut into that too.

Would I ever refuse to let a parent pick up a child? Of course not. Do I ask parents to arrange their days (except for an unusual circumstance) so that they do not pick up during naptime? Of course I do.

[Annalee]

It is challenging at my home, to have children picked up during naptime. Sometimes the parent forgets and rings the doorbell, and this does interrupt sleep. Sometimes it's hard for them to know precisely when they will arrive, and this makes it more likely that the child who is leaving will inadvertently wake the children who are sleeping or resting.
We have infants through preschoolers sleeping in various areas, spaced so that they can each get whatever level of quiet time or naptime is optimum for each child. Sometimes that is near the door, depending on our child care space. And we care if they get their optimum level of quiet rest or sleep time. It affects their afternoon and evening, and it affects how they treat others and how others view them. That in turn affects how they think of themselves. It does matter to us. We tend to be very connected to 'our' children and take a fairly parental-type interest in fine-tuning their days.

And it does cut into our so-called downtime. You know, the downtime where I am filling out daily reports, printing pictures for our bulletin board, formulating a new privacy policy so that I can continue to post the pictures, checking for and answering emails from parents, checking the internet in case any regulations have been changed and no one has bothered to tell us yet, but we will still be held responsible, planning & setting up our afternoon activities, filling out menus and meal counts, doing daily, weekly or monthly bookkeeping, planning meals for the rest of the week, writing out grocery lists and looking for the best buys & coupons so that I can hold my expenses down for my families, washing dishes and cleaning the baby's toys from the morning, sweeping the crumbs from the floor, searching the internet for the perfect song to accompany our next unit and drooling over the wonderful toys that I want to get to go with it, but those $$ will cut into my personal income even further and I will honestly probably do it anyway because I know how much my children will love it and learn from it. That downtime? Yes, it does cut into that too.

Would I ever refuse to let a parent pick up a child? Of course not. Do I ask parents to arrange their days (except for an unusual circumstance) so that they do not pick up during naptime? Of course I do.

Clients/parents have very little to NO common courtesy anymore. Why can't a client just follow the rules? I am so tired of clients/parents making providers like us out to be the bad guys. :confused:

[SignMeUp]

Clients/parents have very little to NO common courtesy anymore. Why can't a client just follow the rules? I am so tired of clients/parents making providers like us out to be the bad guys. :confused:

I always figure that there will be a learning curve with new parents. With some it is a steeper curve than with others
And with some it seems to be straight up hill
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[Blackcat31]

Yes I am for real, I am a parent not a provider (and I am using the term provider not to be disrespectful to anyone but to just categorize who I am talking about) although I have worked in centers before I got my son. I am registered here but I long ago forgot my login and password. I have read several times on this board that home providers "dont" allow pick ups during naptime. As a parent I wondered if home providers would actually go so far as to not open the door or not allow the parent to take the child if they showed up during naptime. I know at centers parents pick up children during naptime often with no problem. The impression that I have gathered from this board after reading it for almost 2 years is that providers don't want any disturbances or parents arriving during nap time not because the children need the rest but that the providers use that time as their downtime. I also find it a bit ironic that some providers on this board often complain about parents not spending time with their children and when a parent wants to come and get the child early they are told that its not a good time. Imho (and I know many of you are going to jump on me for having an opinion) the OP (no offense to you) could have just as easily said that was a wonderful idea for the kid to go spend time with Mom and told the Mom she would have the child ready if the mom text when mom was a few minutes away.

You are more than welcome to re-register or let me know your username and I can send you a password reset link.

Anyways....I'm glad you have been reading here for the last few years...LOTS of perspectives offered...

I think you missed the general guideline though for nap pick ups.

I do NOT allow REGULAR nap time pick ups and would refuse to enroll a child that requires an everyday pick up in the middle of rest time.
It IS too disruptive for the GROUP of children I have if its done everyday.

Of course NO provider would REFUSE a parent picking up at nap/rest time.....
Once in a while IF it isn't disturbing to others is not a big deal but the provider has to do what's in the best interest of the group not just one child..kwim?

Also, I don't see a whole lot of providers saying anything about no nap time pick ups because it bothers them and their need for down time...
(Please link posts where most of us have said that :confused

I KNOW that isn't even close to anything I have ever said about nap/rest time as I don't use it as down time so I don't really want to be painted with the same brush.

Of course, texting for pick up could have been one solution but you are forgetting that this mom ALREADY agreed to not pick up at rest time and was now trying to change the agreement and that is NOT fair. I am sure the water park was open all day and not just over nap time.

Like another poster said, why are YOU focusing on the provider and viewing her actions as wrong but not looking at the parent's actions?

That parent wanting to spend time with her child CAN NOT supercede the needs of others when SHE agreed to the rules of group care.

People need to stop immediately blaming providers and start holding parents more responsible for their actions. The provider is merely reacting to a parents actions.

[NightOwl]

You are more than welcome to re-register or let me know your username and I can send you a password reset link.

Anyways....I'm glad you have been reading here for the last few years...LOTS of perspectives offered...

I think you missed the general guideline though for nap pick ups.

I do NOT allow REGULAR nap time pick ups and would refuse to enroll a child that requires an everyday pick up in the middle of rest time.
It IS too disruptive for the GROUP of children I have if its done everyday.

Of course NO provider would REFUSE a parent picking up at nap/rest time.....
Once in a while IF it isn't disturbing to others is not a big deal but the provider has to do what's in the best interest of the group not just one child..kwim?

Also, I don't see a whole lot of providers saying anything about no nap time pick ups because it bothers them and their need for down time...
(Please link posts where most of us have said that :confused

I KNOW that isn't even close to anything I have ever said about nap/rest time as I don't use it as down time so I don't really want to be painted with the same brush.

Of course, texting for pick up could have been one solution but you are forgetting that this mom ALREADY agreed to not pick up at rest time and was now trying to change the agreement and that is NOT fair. I am sure the water park was open all day and not just over nap time.

Like another poster said, why are YOU focusing on the provider and viewing her actions as wrong but not looking at the parent's actions?

That parent wanting to spend time with her child CAN NOT supercede the needs of others when SHE agreed to the rules of group care.

People need to stop immediately blaming providers and start holding parents more responsible for their actions. The provider is merely reacting to a parents actions.

You go, BC!

[CraftyMom]

I'd like to add, the provider also said 1:30 doesn't work but mom was more than welcome to pick up at 1:00 or after 3:00. Mom decided those times didn't work for HER, then told her son it was the providers fault he couldn't go to the park.

Once the provider said the time wouldn't work mom had a couple of options. She could have come earlier or later. She also could have nicely said "I'm not able to get here until 1:30, how about if I text you 2 minutes out and it can be an easy hand off?" However, mom chose a different route of making the provider a bad guy. At that point I would have stood my ground also. Had mom chosen the previous route I would have said sure. It's all in the presentation

[nannyde]

Yes I am for real, I am a parent not a provider (and I am using the term provider not to be disrespectful to anyone but to just categorize who I am talking about) although I have worked in centers before I got my son. I am registered here but I long ago forgot my login and password. I have read several times on this board that home providers "dont" allow pick ups during naptime. As a parent I wondered if home providers would actually go so far as to not open the door or not allow the parent to take the child if they showed up during naptime. I know at centers parents pick up children during naptime often with no problem. The impression that I have gathered from this board after reading it for almost 2 years is that providers don't want any disturbances or parents arriving during nap time not because the children need the rest but that the providers use that time as their downtime. I also find it a bit ironic that some providers on this board often complain about parents not spending time with their children and when a parent wants to come and get the child early they are told that its not a good time. Imho (and I know many of you are going to jump on me for having an opinion) the OP (no offense to you) could have just as easily said that was a wonderful idea for the kid to go spend time with Mom and told the Mom she would have the child ready if the mom text when mom was a few minutes away.

You make good points. The way I do it is I don't take kids who need a drop off during nap but I do allow pick ups if the parent can manage a quick through the door pick up with no parent conferencing and an absolute quiet child enforcement.

If the parent needs to visit with me or wants their child to do an excited reunion at my door it won't work. If the parent wants to talk and be joyfully loud with their child once I shut my door then it won't work.

If the parent wants to have a normal pick up where they excitedly greet, snuggle, and talk to their child inside and on the way to the car and in my driveway... it won't work. If the parent wants to hang out in the driveway and set up a food service and.toy area for the child it won't work.

If the parent can text me three minutes before arrival, come up to the door and not ring the bell, refrain from conferencing completely, demand their child be quiet at the door, to the car, and quickly loads and gets out of the driveway quickly then I'm all for it.

It's very hard to find parents willing to be 100 percent compliant and require their child to quickly and quietly to the car. It's hard to find parents who can load and get out of the driveway quickly. It's hard to find parents who will keep their stereo off and refrain from anything above a whisper to their child until they pull out of the driveway.

It's also nearly impossible to find parents who come when they say they will. 99 percent of the time when parents say they will come early when they don't have to they don't. Often they not only don't come early but they change the pick up time multiple times requiring conferencing with every.single.change. The outcome is VERY often that they come later than their contracted time and there is conflict over the late pick up.

Providers policy out the nap pick ups because they turn out to be a bunch of work and very often end up with a late parent. The few times the parent actually comes early it is later than arranged. Also, the parent refuses to do a quick and quiet exit.

They think they are doing the provider a favor when in fact they are consuming a disproportionate amount of time and misbehaving while they are doing it.

Providers do a blanket no pick up during nap because it very rarely turns into an easy and early out. Most often they end up giving up a portion of their break and end up with the kids being disturbed because the parent is so badly behaved.

It seems like it should be a simple get the kid out the door early and have one less kid but rarely ends up resembling anything remotely like that.

[hope]

Yes I am for real, I am a parent not a provider (and I am using the term provider not to be disrespectful to anyone but to just categorize who I am talking about) although I have worked in centers before I got my son. I am registered here but I long ago forgot my login and password. I have read several times on this board that home providers "dont" allow pick ups during naptime. As a parent I wondered if home providers would actually go so far as to not open the door or not allow the parent to take the child if they showed up during naptime. I know at centers parents pick up children during naptime often with no problem. The impression that I have gathered from this board after reading it for almost 2 years is that providers don't want any disturbances or parents arriving during nap time not because the children need the rest but that the providers use that time as their downtime. I also find it a bit ironic that some providers on this board often complain about parents not spending time with their children and when a parent wants to come and get the child early they are told that its not a good time. Imho (and I know many of you are going to jump on me for having an opinion) the OP (no offense to you) could have just as easily said that was a wonderful idea for the kid to go spend time with Mom and told the Mom she would have the child ready if the mom text when mom was a few minutes away.

Every center I know will not allow pick up during nap time. A parent will be allowed to get their child but they will not be a spot for that child the following day. If it were an emergency than it is understandable.

[KIDZRMYBIZ]

It is challenging at my home, to have children picked up during naptime. Sometimes the parent forgets and rings the doorbell, and this does interrupt sleep. Sometimes it's hard for them to know precisely when they will arrive, and this makes it more likely that the child who is leaving will inadvertently wake the children who are sleeping or resting.
We have infants through preschoolers sleeping in various areas, spaced so that they can each get whatever level of quiet time or naptime is optimum for each child. Sometimes that is near the door, depending on our child care space. And we care if they get their optimum level of quiet rest or sleep time. It affects their afternoon and evening, and it affects how they treat others and how others view them. That in turn affects how they think of themselves. It does matter to us. We tend to be very connected to 'our' children and take a fairly parental-type interest in fine-tuning their days.

And it does cut into our so-called downtime. You know, the downtime where I am filling out daily reports, printing pictures for our bulletin board, formulating a new privacy policy so that I can continue to post the pictures, checking for and answering emails from parents, checking the internet in case any regulations have been changed and no one has bothered to tell us yet, but we will still be held responsible, planning & setting up our afternoon activities, filling out menus and meal counts, doing daily, weekly or monthly bookkeeping, planning meals for the rest of the week, writing out grocery lists and looking for the best buys & coupons so that I can hold my expenses down for my families, washing dishes and cleaning the baby's toys from the morning, sweeping the crumbs from the floor, searching the internet for the perfect song to accompany our next unit and drooling over the wonderful toys that I want to get to go with it, but those $$ will cut into my personal income even further and I will honestly probably do it anyway because I know how much my children will love it and learn from it. That downtime? Yes, it does cut into that too.

Would I ever refuse to let a parent pick up a child? Of course not. Do I ask parents to arrange their days (except for an unusual circumstance) so that they do not pick up during naptime? Of course I do.

There it is. Right there. Well put! And, yes, my playroom is right there at the front door, in what would have been our home's living room. I didn't used to have this restriction for the first 10 years I did daycare, but it has been in place since this DCF started. Pick-ups during that time complicates a day that is already complex enough. And to the unregistered poster, I celebrate the DCM or DCD that can/will spend some extra off-work time with their kid, just make it before 1:00 or after 3:00.

[SignMeUp]

It's also nearly impossible to find parents who come when they say they will. 99 percent of the time when parents say they will come early when they don't have to they don't.

Oh yeah. This for sure. And the child 'pays' by being miserably unhappy because their parent has backed out on a promise.

Providers policy out the nap pick ups because they turn out to be a bunch of work and very often end up with a late parent.
Providers do a blanket no pick up during nap because it very rarely turns into an easy and early out.

And this is why most providers end up formulating this policy. And in fact why many of our 'blanket' policies are in place - a parent or parents do something that causes unacceptable issues, so providers need to make a policy over something that used to be considered common sense.

[CraftyMom]

Also, I don't think a lot of parents who are requesting pick up/ drop off at nap time are thinking of anyone beyond themselves and their own child. They don't realize the snowball effect it has.

Example: Parent picks up during nap and accidentally rings the doorbell. Luckily no one wakes up. Parent comes in talking, provider signals to please whisper and points to the sleeping children. Provider scuttles child to the door as parent turns to continue talking, asking about child's day. NOW one child has woken up. Parent realizes and apologizes, then leaves. Provider reminds woken child nap is not over, try to go back to sleep (at this point children have only slept for a half hour.) Child is unable to go back to sleep, can not keep quiet, provider brings him to another room, which unfortunately is in close proximity to sleeping infant, but is the only other option. Provider does her best to keep child quiet so everyone else can sleep, but infant wakes up (only slept 20 min). Provider now has a crying infant who desperately needs sleep AND a whiney 2 yo who has had a disrupted nap. This wakes another child, then another until ALL children have woken up, with only a 20-40 minute nap, when they normally sleep 2 hours. Provider has not been able to get a single one of them to nap. The rest of the afternoon is shot, all children are out of sorts from missing nap. Parents are sent home with children who are over tired, a few of them fall asleep on the way home. Parents are texting provider, upset that their child is taking a nap at 5:30 and will be awake all night because of it. Other parents are texting about how their child is a grouchy monster from missing nap. The next day 2 parents report that their children went to bed way to early since they missed their nap and in turn woke up way too early the next morning, which caused them to be tired and ready for nap too early, creating yet another whiney environment.

So you can see how "I don't see what the big deal is if I pick up my child early" snowballs into unnecessary disruption for ALL involved...the provider, the daycare children, the parents and the family members in the children's homes. Let's say there were 5 other children, each with 2 parents and 2 siblings, and the provider has a husband and 3 children. This parent has now created a disruption and added whining and grouchiness to 30 people's day!!!

In fact the ONLY person who is happy is the parent that picked up early.

Since the child was picked up before nap it is quite likely they didn't nap at all. So actually, that would mean NO ONE is happy, even this parent because now she also has miserable child for the rest of the day (this is my theory of how the day went for this parent)

True story, and the reason for my no pick up during nap policy.

Parents think "Geez, what's the big deal? One less child to take care of, right?"

WRONG!!

[Unregistered]

Every center I know will not allow pick up during nap time. A parent will be allowed to get their child but they will not be a spot for that child the following day. If it were an emergency than it is understandable.

That certainly is not the norm where I have worked or the two centers my child attended. I picked up numerous times during nap time with no issues from the time my child started the centers at 6 months until he graduated from preschool at 5.

[hope]

That certainly is not the norm where I have worked or the two centers my child attended. I picked up numerous times during nap time with no issues from the time my child started the centers at 6 months until he graduated from preschool at 5.

I am only stating what I know. I have toured a few centers for my older child and I know many parents with children in centers that this topic has come up. Why do you believe that only in home daycares don't allow pick up during nap time and centers do then? I really am curious.

[Unregistered]

Yes I am for real, I am a parent not a provider (and I am using the term provider not to be disrespectful to anyone but to just categorize who I am talking about) although I have worked in centers before I got my son. I am registered here but I long ago forgot my login and password. I have read several times on this board that home providers "dont" allow pick ups during naptime. As a parent I wondered if home providers would actually go so far as to not open the door or not allow the parent to take the child if they showed up during naptime. I know at centers parents pick up children during naptime often with no problem. The impression that I have gathered from this board after reading it for almost 2 years is that providers don't want any disturbances or parents arriving during nap time not because the children need the rest but that the providers use that time as their downtime. I also find it a bit ironic that some providers on this board often complain about parents not spending time with their children and when a parent wants to come and get the child early they are told that its not a good time. Imho (and I know many of you are going to jump on me for having an opinion) the OP (no offense to you) could have just as easily said that was a wonderful idea for the kid to go spend time with Mom and told the Mom she would have the child ready if the mom text when mom was a few minutes away.

My impression is that when they say "not allowed" that there is something in their contract that states that parents will agree not to pick up at nap time, unless an emergency. IMO if you signed a contract, while a parent (Without a court order or suspicion of drugs/alcohol or imminent danger to the child) wouldn't PREVENT you from getting the child, it is RUDE to knowingly ask the provider IN FRONT OF the child, no less, to break their contract for YOU.

*****
(PS YOU is referring to "the parent" and not you personally as I suspect you are not whom the OP was speaking of)


To YOU (the parent) it's just a 1/2 hr or a 'couple minutes' disturbance. To ME, the mom whose child got woken up, it's a HUGE deal. To ME, the mom whose child was left unattended, no matter how brief, so YOU could be greeted to come get your kid early, that's a problem. To ME, as the provider, 4 other cranky kids for several more hours and the subsequent inevitable questioning I would receive as to "Why is my kid not wanting to sleep/is misbehaving/has been crying (OR WHATEVER)? What happened at daycare!?" YES providers WANT you to spend time with your kids. It's up to you to be smart about how you schedule things. Just because we want you spending your time with your kids, does not mean we want our daycare to be a revolving door all day long. Most providers do full day care, so that kids routines are NOT disturbed as much as possible. Furthermore, what the OP's parent did was rude. She tried to make her the "bad" guy and place "blame" when in reality, the mom could just come over a half-hour earlier, since SHE admitted she was working in the evening anyway. So the burden here, is on the parent. Instead, she gave up and said "Oh, Johnny, the provider won't LET you" making the provider the BIG meanie, when in reality, that's not actually even true! The provider didn't stop mom from taking her kid out, that was a cop-out response so she didn't have to say no AND she didn't have to feel obligated to take the kid to the activity (No doubt that kid harped on mom til she gave in, then she regretted giving in--what an easy way out to blame DCP!)

What goes on in a center cannot be compared to what goes on in a home, but as a former DCP and also transportation assistant, I used to have to sign in/out kids all the time and at one particular CENTER I did transportation for, one time I arrived at NAP...--Note: Mom never told me what time THEIR nap time was, and ours was at 1PM so I thought theirs was the same. Nope theirs was 12-1:30pm:
...On the door a BIG sign would say ""NAP TIME" please return after 1:30PM. Thank you for your understanding!" They wouldn't unlock the door unless I had already arranged it and even if I asked ahead (only in VERY special circumstances), sometimes, they'd say they could not accommodate my or a parent's request, that they would have to arrive before/after nap.

It's all about what you signed in your contract. If you signed the paper, you have to abide by the rules. You will NEVER be "DENIED" your child, but you could be held to whatever consequence is outlined in the contract. Parents shouldn't be rude, rather, they CAN and should plan activities during a time they KNOW is not a disturbance to others (And you darn well know nap time WOULD be because if YOU were giving YOUR kid a nap, and the doorbell ring at that time, YOU would CRINGE and be upset at the 'interrupter')

Oh, FTR: I allowed for nap time pick up at my home...the parent would text me when she was at the door and I'd wake up the kid, take them to the end of the hall and deliver to the parent. Luckily, my home was set up in a fashion I could greet her, release child AND not leave the nappping kids. But most of the homes I have toured are not set up the same as what I had set up, and many of the DCP's I interviewed napped toddlers in one room, babies in another with gates up, but none of the rooms were near the front door.

[Mom of 4]

It's also nearly impossible to find parents who come when they say they will. 99 percent of the time when parents say they will come early when they don't have to they don't. Often they not only don't come early but they change the pick up time multiple times requiring conferencing with every.single.change. The outcome is VERY often that they come later than their contracted time and there is conflict over the late pick up.
.

I am laughing at this because it is SO true AND, funny, I told my children's new Day Care Provider that I'd arrive at 4:30 (instead of 6:30, our usual pickup time) and she said "OK, see you then" But I don't think she really believed me

because


at 4:27 I get there and she's like "Oh, wow, um you're HERE!" and had just started to feed the kids a late snack. I said "Yeah, I told you I'd be here at 4:30" and she said "Yeah I know, but, that never happens!" LOL Then told me about another parent who said she'd also be there at 4:30 and just a couple mins before I arrived, she called and said she'd be there at 7:45PM (AFTER the Daycare Provider CLOSES!) So her early became a late, and after hours pickup! The provider told her she closes at 6:30 and she'd have to contact her backup. I just thought *what.the. heck. I am so glad I don't do child care anymore!"