Wanting to Leave Center Care

[Cherry_rain]

Hi there! I’m new here. I’m an infant care provider and I’ve been working in a center for almost ten years now. I’m thinking about leaving center care and doing license exempt infant care at home. My center just enrolled 7 new infants at the same time and hired a co-teacher to work with me who has no experience with infants. This has been extremely stressful and I feel like it’s not good for the babies. So I would only like to have two infants at a time in my home.

The things that are holding me back are:
1) how much can I realistically charge per infant? Do you charge by hour or monthly? I don’t want to be rich! I just need to make at least enough to cover rent ($1200/mo).
2) when school starts up I would need to be able to transport my own children their schools nearby. One is 2 minutes away and the other is five minutes away. It doesn’t seem realistic to expect that parents would only need care for the time that my kids are in school so I’m trying to figure out if I could have them give permission to take their babies with me to pick up my kids. That seems unlikely to me.

Has anyone dealt with these issues? I would really appreciate any input.

Thanks so much!

[Cat Herder]

I have been in business for myself for well over 25 years and the going rate in my area for infants, full-time, 50 hours per week, formula/meals included, is $145.00 week. We are only legally allowed 2 under 12 months of age.

I would recommend getting licensed and taking toddlers and preschoolers as well.

[Cat Herder]

Oh, all you have to do is make your opening time after the time your kids need dropped off. I opened at 8 am for years and stayed full. That is not generally an issue.

8-6 is a pretty normal operating range.

[Snowmom]

I'm in a larger city/population area.

My rates are around $200/week for any age. It does vary based on pick up time they contract- it can be a little lower or a little higher depending.
I charge weekly, but do have some families who choose to pay bi-weekly and some monthly. I don't give any discount for that. It's just whatever they prefer with a minimum of weekly (before care).

In regards to travel: that's tougher, especially with infants (ugh, infant car seats...yuck).
Personally, I would not be ok with enrolling my own children in a small daycare that travels by car with my child. But, some people don't mind at all.
Are you opposed to your kids taking the bus or is that not available?

[sammie]

Hi there! I’m new here. I’m an infant care provider and I’ve been working in a center for almost ten years now. I’m thinking about leaving center care and doing license exempt infant care at home. My center just enrolled 7 new infants at the same time and hired a co-teacher to work with me who has no experience with infants. This has been extremely stressful and I feel like it’s not good for the babies. So I would only like to have two infants at a time in my home.

The things that are holding me back are:
1) how much can I realistically charge per infant? Do you charge by hour or monthly? I don’t want to be rich! I just need to make at least enough to cover rent ($1200/mo).
2) when school starts up I would need to be able to transport my own children their schools nearby. One is 2 minutes away and the other is five minutes away. It doesn’t seem realistic to expect that parents would only need care for the time that my kids are in school so I’m trying to figure out if I could have them give permission to take their babies with me to pick up my kids. That seems unlikely to me.

Has anyone dealt with these issues? I would really appreciate any input.

Thanks so much!

This is really going to depend on the area you are in. I am in a metro area where infant spots are hard to find. I charge $275/week which is the middle range for home child care in my area. I would do some research for your town/city to see what you are able to charge.