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NO
You can't pay someone 2/3/4 dollars an hour to cover that kind of service. It's not enough money.
I have a staff assistant. It would cost me 15 dollars a day to watch the morning sleepers sleep and 25 dollars a day to watch the afternoon nappers sleep. That's 40 dollars a day. That's 200 a week and $10,000 a year. Then add another 1000 bucks to cover the employer portion of the taxes and now we are at $11,000
I would have to raise my rates 6.50 per kid per day to cover that. I promise you if I went to all my clients and said for an extra 6.50 a day I will have an adult watch your child sleep they would laugh all the way out the door. They may want it but they would only want it if it were free.
This is a PERFECT example of how we expect home day care's to do EXPENSIVE care of children yet the rates we can charge don't come CLOSE to the staff time cost of doing it.
We tell home day care's that something like this is for the "safety of the children" yet from the time the child leaves our home until they come back the "safety of the children" isn't being done. If it's a TRUE need of human babies it should be required every day regardless of who the adult is. It's the same baby. Either they need an adult watching them sleep or they don't. Which one is it?
Have you ever done home day care? I see you are a Nanny and a former preschool teacher but I haven't read about you running your own home day care.Comment
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My State DHS tried to implement rules that we couldn't do overnight care unless we had an adult awake thru the night and checking on the kids every fifteen minutes.
The Union put a screeching halt to that. They implemented some physical requirements of the home to accomodate overnight kids but were NOT successful trying to implement an awake adult at night.
A rule like that would have stopped all home day care at night because the cost of paying an adult to stay up all night would have been enormous and finding a provider who didn't work day shift to do it would have been impossible.
The Union enlisted the assistance of some of our corporations who have overnight workers who need home day care. Once the biggins got involved in it they backed down. Sad but I don't know if they would have been successful if they companies who had to hire the overnight workers wouldn't have stuck their noses into it.
Anyway... they backed off of it because the truth is that kids don't need an adult watching them sleep. If we are going to have regs like this there has to be MONEY to pay for it.
You said: Of course you don't put a price of a child. Ah well parents do. The put a price on the child everytime they allow them to sleep without an adult in the room. Money could solve it. They could pay money and have someone watch their kid sleep but they don't. NOT paying for it is as much of a "putting a price on children" as paying for it is "putting a price on children". It works both ways.Comment
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I think the heart of the matter is that providers are naturally held at a higher standard because they are providing care for someone other than their own child. Because you are responsible for someone else's child (especially because you are providing a paid service to do so), providers have a liability. And if a provider were to have a freak accident, unexplainable incident, or much worse while a child is sleeping then the speculation alone would be damaging to the provider.
I imagine this scenario: You provide overnight care and place little Johnny down for bedtime and go about your business. You go to bed. You wake up to find that little Johnny has vanished from your home. This news story breaks out in your local community via newspaper, local news stations, etc. The licensing agency investigates. The police investigate. Who knows who else is in your home questioning you and your family. You will not have a single answer to explain why little Johnny couldn't be found the next morning. What would that do to your business? What would that do to your reputation as a provider and individual? Would your other families pull their children from your care? Most likely.
So before jumping on your soapbox about how a parent doesn't stay up all night to watch their kid sleep or pay someone to watch their child sleep, think about the position you are in. You are a provider. You are being paid to ensure the safety and well being of their child. It IS YOUR responsibility and parents are expecting this from you as part of your service.
All states have different laws or regulations pertaining to monitoring a child while they are sleeping. If you aren't following the reg your state mandates, then you are falling short. If your state doesn't call for supervision of sleeping children, then you are still setting yourself up for the potential speculation of wrong doing if something were to occur while children are sleeping unsupervised. Simply saying "XYZ state doesn't require me to watch your child while they are sleeping" will do nothing for your reputation as a provider if something were to happen. CYA.Comment
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No I have never done home daycare nor do I plan on it. I put up with enough BS from the parents and licensing etc to last me a lifetime. Yes I am a current nanny. I am a private provider to one family. I am required to be there at 6:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. I work a hour away. Which means yes I get up at 4:45 to be on the road by 5:30. The mother that I work for works out of her home so she is home with me. She has even suggested that I take a nap with the little boy to freshen up. Am I exhausted? Yes. Do I nap? No because I AM GETTING PAID AND PROVIDING A SERVICE. I see no difference in working a day shift or a night shift. If you provide care for overnight then yes I believe you should have an adult AWAKE to watch the child. If you must pay for that adult to watch a sleeping child then you must as a BUSINESS. Pass that cost onto the parent even if it means an extra $5.00 or whatever you said. You only get what you pay for. By no means am I am a supporter of TX Licensing. I have said before that I think they are a bunch of hypocrites among other things. However while majority of the laws do indeed protect the child, they are also there to protect the provider as well. Texas law requires that an adult is AWAKE during the child's care time, at all times.
I normally don’t quote unregistered…but you said it right on!Comment
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I think the heart of the matter is that providers are naturally held at a higher standard because they are providing care for someone other than their own child. Because you are responsible for someone else's child (especially because you are providing a paid service to do so), providers have a liability. And if a provider were to have a freak accident, unexplainable incident, or much worse while a child is sleeping then the speculation alone would be damaging to the provider.
We run that risk every day. There's always something that could happen that would ruin your longstanding career in one day. The longer you do this the more you realize that today may be the day that something completely beyond your control could happen and wipe you out of business. Just an accusation of negligence or abuse could shut you down.
Watching the kids sleep could decrease your liklihood somewhat of the sky falling in but really it's just one area where there could be something catastrophic happen. It doesn't rise above other risks like having day care parents bring in a child who was ill at home, a child that they injured or had an "accident" at home and put that "failing" child under your watch without telling you about it at all or minimizing what happened and just telling you to keep an "eye" out on the kid. That's a REAL possibility.
I imagine this scenario: You provide overnight care and place little Johnny down for bedtime and go about your business. You go to bed. You wake up to find that little Johnny has vanished from your home. This news story breaks out in your local community via newspaper, local news stations, etc. The licensing agency investigates. The police investigate. Who knows who else is in your home questioning you and your family. You will not have a single answer to explain why little Johnny couldn't be found the next morning. What would that do to your business? What would that do to your reputation as a provider and individual? Would your other families pull their children from your care? Most likely.
I don't do overnight care now but when I did I had a Security System on in the house with motion detectors. I'm awake now whenever the kids are in the house so I stand the same risk everyone else does of someone breaking into the house. Now that our DHS has posted online our names, address, phone number, and a "directions map" to every home day care there is definitely a chance we could be targeted. The State decided to put that risk out there for us so we have to either deal with it or quit.
So before jumping on your soapbox about how a parent doesn't stay up all night to watch their kid sleep or pay someone to watch their child sleep, think about the position you are in. You are a provider. You are being paid to ensure the safety and well being of their child. It IS YOUR responsibility and parents are expecting this from you as part of your service.
See here's where your thinking causes so much distress and imbalance in home care. For some reason "society" thinks that when there is a few dollars an hour between two people for the care of a kid that that really really small amount of money commands that the child be in an environment of DO WHATEVER IT TAKES no matter how much it costs ... no matter the price to the business... Well let me tell you: Somebody has to PAY for "do whatever it takes" and three dollars an hour doesn't cover "do whatever it takes".
We entrust our public school system with the care of our children every day. They do not "do whatever it takes". My son is allowed out of his room to go down the hall by himself every day without adult supervision. He's allowed on a four acre playground with hundreds of kids at recess and TWO adults on the playground supervising them. TWO for two hundred kids.
He's in a classroom of 26 kids and one teacher. If you do research to find out what is the best adult to child ratio for school aged kids you will see that the best MAXIMUM adult to child ratio is one adult for fifteen kids. Year after year he's in a classroom of 25 plus kids. My school district KNOWS that this isn't good for kids. They KNOW that their education is comprimised by these low numbers but year after year they do the SAME thing knowing FULL WELL it is the WRONG THING TO DO.
The reason in all of these situations is because of MONEY. You have to have the MONEY to do the "best interest" of the chldren. If you don't have the MONEY then you do the best you can with what you have. Like what you do at night with your baby. You don't have the MONEY to have someone watch your baby sleep so you do the best thing you can without money... you put up monitors or sleep in the same room... but what you DON'T do is stay up all night and watch your baby sleep. You don't do it because you don't have the money You can't throw three dollars an hour at this and solve this in YOUR world. How can you think that you can throw three dollars an hour at it in my world and have it solved?
All states have different laws or regulations pertaining to monitoring a child while they are sleeping. If you aren't following the reg your state mandates, then you are falling short. If your state doesn't call for supervision of sleeping children, then you are still setting yourself up for the potential speculation of wrong doing if something were to occur while children are sleeping unsupervised. Simply saying "XYZ state doesn't require me to watch your child while they are sleeping" will do nothing for your reputation as a provider if something were to happen. CYA.
No. My State doesn't require us to watch babies sleep. They use very broad terms like "careful supervision at all times". We interpret what carefull means and what supervision means. I know some States have specific rules like check in them this often or be in the same room with them or on the same level. My State just gives a blanket code that covers their arse.
I'll give you some aditional math on this.
I have a friend that owns a couple of Centers. She is allowed to have one staff in each room for all kids ages two and up. She has two infant rooms where she has to maintain ratios at nap just as she does during non nap BUT the infants are being paid at an additional 10 dollars per day.
So she has 96 two and ups. She has 24 kids in four classrooms. Each classroom has one staff who costs ten dollars an hour with salary and employer portions. Her naps are two hours long. She spends 20 dollars per day per class for nap. That's 80 dollars a day. 88 parents pay for this so the daily cost per parent is .83 cents per day to cover nap.
She can easily build her naptime fees into parent fees because the cost per parent is so low compared to the cost of this in a home day care. It would cost me over six bucks a kid every day to cover the cost.
The Centers LOVE naptime because they make a huge profit off of that time of the day. It's the most profitable time of the day because they don't have to have ratios met as long as they have one adult in every room as opposed to two to four adults.
I'll give you one more quick thought. You know the number one cause of death in children under five is motor vehichle accidents. Every parent every day brings their kid to me via car. It's happened thousands of times where children start their day with their parents doing the most dangerous thing they could do in a day. Ride in a car.
If we are going to save lives and "do the right thing" then why don't we start there? If you are going to choose between having an adult watch a healthy child sleep or keeping the kid out of the car which one would be "in the best interest"?
See we don't do what's in the best interest even when we KNOW it would be better or safer. We do what is realistic and what we have the MONEY to do.
I can't find clients willing to pay me to have an adult watching their kid sleep. If I ask them ... do you want to pay 30 dollars a day and have an adult checking in on your child every fifteen minutes during nap but not staying in the room... OR 36.50 a day and have an adult IN the room watching your kids chest rise and fall every second of nap... I promise you that I would not get a single solitary parent that would agree to the higher rates.
It would cost me that amount of money to offer that service. I can't offer it within the 30 dollars a day cuz that 30 dollars is going to all of the other services I offer that I can't change. I have to have a roof over the kids head. I have to have food prepared. I have to have clean laundry for them. I have to have my yard mowed. I have to do repairs on the house. I have to pay for electric. That 30 dollars a day is taken already so if I do this I have to FIND parents willing to pay for it.
I can't.
What you don't see as a non day care provider is that these kinds of "do whatever it takes even if you don't get paid cuz it's in the best interest of the baby" scenarios get slammed onto us year after year yet the money for the care of kids rises at a very slow stagnant below the cost of living increase year after year. When I first started doing care there was NO expecation that providers "educate" children. It never crossed my mind to even do play doh with them. My job was to babysit kids. I could have my whole day just having the kids PLAY just like they did in my generation and my parents generation.
Then bit by bit it started... they should have SCHOOL too on top of your care and supervision. The pressure to do this and the regulations that followed became more and more yet the salary the average provider gets doesn't cover or barely covers the increase in the cost of living that goes to the hard costs of operating (like electric, food, mortgage, laundry soap, dish soap, paper products etc.).
Now the ante is even higher. Now it's "just not safe" for a baby while in child care to sleep without an adult watching them even though EVERYWHERE the child goes once they are thru my door it's perfectly safe. Now we are to do direct care during the one two hour break we get a day to do non direct care stuff like book keeping, laundry, cleaning, parent contacts, etc. Now we have to do that stuff when there are no kids in the house making our day another two hours long.. thus MARKEDLY decreasing our hourly wage again.
I can tell you from someone who has done child care for 31 years that the responsibility for TIME CONSUMING harder work tasks becomes greater and greater every year. They are all cloaked in "do whatever it takes for the best interest of the baby" yet most of us can't find a single client who is willing to fairly compensate for THAT level of care. We can build "fair compensation" that will actually cover the cost of it but then we price ourselves right out of the market AND we end up with a 12 hour day that leaves us exhausted and not wanting to continue the business because it is TOO much. We have a house full of kids who don't have that level of care anywhere else under anyone else's care but when they are with US for a few dollars an hour THEN they are so valuable and so needing of these things that the provider MUST do them regardless of fair compensation.
It gets old. It's not fair to put this HIGH level of "do whatever it takes" when the kids are with us but say it's not necessary AT ALL when they walk out our door. If a kid needs an adult watching them sleep then they need it 24/7. If they need a "developmentally appropriate activities" life then they need that when they are home with their parents. If we are going to eliminate everything that is a true risk to the kids then they shouldn't be in cars. If we are going to say they must have the best nutrition then we need to REQUIRE that parents feed them that way or be subject to their world crashing down around them if they don't.
It has to be for EVERYONE having the children not just the three dollar an hour worker. We need to stop pretending that it's okay to continue to add onto the providers the "best interest of the children" when no one else is expected to do it and few are willing to pay for it.Comment
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See that's where you can tell you haven't done home day care. It doesn't work like that. I can go to my parents tomorrow and say that Former Teacher says their child must have an adult watching them sleep and the salary you are paying me won't cover the 50 bucks a day that's gonna cost so I need you guys to fork over another 6.50 a day.
They would say NO. You are assuming there are clients out there who will pay the fee for day care PLUS the additional fee for this. You can say to add it to my fees but once I do I loose all my clients and I can't find clients to come in at that rate.Comment
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You get what you pay for. If it concerns the welfare and safety of their child I am sure that any NORMAL parent would understand. IMO the only parent that would have a hard time are those parents who don't give a rat's behind about their child and who complain about EVERYTHING.
As for that comment because I said...don't know if you were serious or not, but I don't make the rules/laws. In any event, the rules/laws are there for a reason. Again I am not defending licensing but I think that requiring adult supervision AT ALL TIMES during childcare is one of the better laws they came up with.
I am not going to sit here and aruge with you since you obviously seem to have an answer for everything. You stated your opinions, I have stated mine. Life goes on.Comment
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I am sure that any NORMAL parent would understand. IMO the only parent that would have a hard time are those parents who don't give a rat's behind about their child and who complain about EVERYTHING.
NO
You have parents who are willing to pay for a low child to adult ratio. Parents who are willing to pay for a good dedicated day care space. Parents who are willing to pay for healthy home made meals. Parents who are willing to pay for top of the line safe equipment and toys. Those parents who are already paying for the REAL hard costs of a good operation and staff are not necessarily going to be willing to pay for something that they NEVER do themselves. They are not going to pay for something that the child NEVER has the minute they walk out the door from day care.
Home day care is a small group of customers/clients. There isn't enough parents to cover the cost and there isn't the high adult to child ratio like the Centers are allowed to have for THIS particular issue.
My day care parents love their kids. They picked me and I'm the highest paid day care provider in my area. They get a one to four ratio and a whoppin 150 square foot per child of dedicated day care space. I have the safest play pens ever made. I have huge collections of very excellent devlopementally appropriate toys for their kids to use every day. We have one adult for every four kids. They CARE enough to pay for THAT. They can AFFORD that but they wouldn't trade a one adult to eight kids, small house, small amount of activities/toys for each kid, and low nutrtion meals for the service of having an adult watch their kid sleep when they don't watch their kid sleep.
I do "room chedks" every fifteen minutes. I go into both sleeping rooms and do a visual check on each kid every fifteen minutes. This takes me about a minute. If I have a kid that I'm feeling not so great about then I bump that up to every five minutes for that kid AND put a audio/video camera on that kid that has night vision so I can see their every move. If I think they are getting sick or acting off then I camera them.
I also have a vent system in this house (ddn't plan this it just came out that way) that magnifies sounds from the two basement rooms. When a kid is even talking to another kid I can hear it from where I hang during nap. It's actually annoying it's so loud. If one of them starts to cry during nap I can hear it without a monitor and I fly into the room. It's so unusual for me to have a kid not passed out from start of nap to end of nap that any noise from the rooms is going to put me on alert and get me down there to see what the heck is going on.
I also have TWO egress windows down there. One in each room. I can get to the kids and get them out in seconds.
I have the safest possible sleeping arrangements for them. I don't use blankets or allow ANYTHING loose on their bodies. I don't allow ANYTHING in bed but the child. My play yards sit one inch off of the floor so the furthest a kid could "fall" out of one of them is 27 inches.
I have both wired and battery operated smoke detectors and both rooms have "fire walls" in the walls and ceiling. Both rooms have all doors be solid core doors.
To me... that is careful supervision. Careful supervision includes EVERYTHING you do to maintain safety. It doesn't mean you have to have your eyes on the rise and fall of every kids chest every minute of sleep.
My parents know my safety routine and they think the fifteen minute checks are rediculous. They can't believe I do it. They all tell me they don't do that and they never would. They don't like the idea that I'm going in and out because they believe it will interupt the sleep of their kid. I have to assure them that the kids may not sleep thru that at their house but they do in mine. They are used to me doing it so they sleep thru it... until about the end of nap and then I do wake them up sometimes.
I'm doing the best I can with what I know with the resources I have. I can't afford to have an adult in each room watching the rise and fall of each kids chest while they breathe. I can't relocate the kitchen to the nursery so I can get lunch dishes done while they sleep and I can't leave the breakfast lunch and snack dishes till the end of the day so I can do them at six o'clock at night when all the kids are done. I can't have three hours of work to do at night after these kids leave because I can't do anything while they are here but eyeball each one of them every second. There HAS to be some reasonable comprimise. That comprimise is checking them at nap on a regular basis, setting up the physically safest posssible sleeping environment, and having the sound of each room clear to the provider either by the house set up or monitors, and direct supevision for any child showing any kind of possible problems. The other comprimise is that the money they pay "extra" for service here goes to a second adult that I do not have to have at all so that ANY time the children are up there is an adult within a few feet of them at all times. My children are NEVER left alone in a room when they are awake. Not even for one minute. I put our staff dollars into that cuz that's what the parents are willing to pay for. They are not willing to pay for that while their kid is sleeping.Comment
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nannyde, you said,
"He's in a classroom of 26 kids and one teacher. If you do research to find out what is the best adult to child ratio for school aged kids you will see that the best MAXIMUM adult to child ratio is one adult for fifteen kids. Year after year he's in a classroom of 25 plus kids. My school district KNOWS that this isn't good for kids. They KNOW that their education is comprimised by these low numbers but year after year they do the SAME thing knowing FULL WELL it is the WRONG THING TO DO."
once again, that would take more MONEY also....except that money comes out of taxpayer's pockets - taxpayers that may or may not have kids. NOBODY wants to pay more taxes EVEN if "it's in the best interest of the children."
anyhow, daycare and school isn't even a good comparison as far as ratios. school children are older than DC children and require less "care" if any as far as feeding, changing, etc. for the most part, it is a group of children all the same age (which makes a difference) and they're being taught instead of "cared for." they can go to the bathroom by themselves. the teacher doesn't have to cook for them, feed them, or clean up after they eat. there is a nurse on site if someone gets hurt or needs to change clothes. there's a janitor to clean the bathrooms or pick up a spill or vomit. it's WAY different. i've worked in daycare and in the classroom and the classroom requires way less physically demanding work which allows more time for supervision and....dun dun dun.....teaching.Comment
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I'm not making the comparison based on the care of the kids. I'm making the MONEY comparison. The school district knows that the ratios are way too high but they don't spend the money. The taxpayers say no to the MONEY. We understand we aren't doing "the best interest of the children" because of the money.
With home day care society expects us to just DO it even if the money isn't there to cover it. I've seen this with preschool education expectations. Doing "developmentally appropriate programs" costs money. It is harder work. Bit by bit over the years the salary for home providers hasn't changed but the expectation that we should just "DO IT" because it's in the "best interest of the kids" increases year after year.
We don't expect parents to do the "best interest". We don't expect the school to do the "best interest". Somehow with child care that's being paid at a few dollars an hour NOW it's time to do whatever it takes. Do it whether you are paid or not because it's for the children.Comment
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I wish I was paid a few dollars per hour, my rates come in under $1.75 per hour, less per child if 2 kids from 1 family. I agree with you. Our pays ****s, yet the expectations from us are high.Comment
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I think the way it SHOULD be, is that no ONE provider should be allowed to care for children around the clock. If you provide services 24 hours per day, there should be a daytime provider and an evening provider. One to supervise day shift, one to supervise night shift. If you are being paid for children during the daytime, and recieving the same rate for children at nighttime, they should be offered the same level of care and supervision as the children during the daytime.
If you do nightime care only, you should sleep during the day and be up at night, just as with any other "graveyard" shift at any other job. Why would a provider charge a rate that is the same as a daytime rate when they are doing FAR less work.....I do think that this is why some providers do nighttime only....same pay for far less demanding work.
I honestly think that family child care should not be allowed to operate around the clock without the stipulation that one provider does not work more than 12 hours in a day....it is not healthy for the provider and it is not safe for the children.
And, while it may work out to earning $3.00 per hour PER CHILD, we do not make three dollars per hour when you add all the children together.....we make WAY more than $3 per hour, or we wouldn't be in the field. Of course, I have expenses to take out of that, but so does the average worker: commute time, clothing for the job, DAYCARE, etc. So, it's not fair to make parents think that THEIR $3.00 per hour is not enough.Comment
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