Home Daycare

Information About Starting an In-Home Day Care

What exactly is Home Daycare?
There are three main ways that a family handles childcare while the mother is working:

• --Father, or another family member watches child
• --Child attends a Daycare Center
• --Child attends a Home Day Care

Whenever possible, it is generally agreed that the best care for a child is the child's own parent or another family member such as an aunt or grandmother.

There are times, however, where such a solution is simply not an option.

Enter the world of daycare.

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DayCare Center

A Daycare Center would be a place of business designed to take care of many children. They employ workers who usually have a certain age group, and take care of these children every day. Most centers have regular working week hours, and keep to specific schedules in order to maintain balance.

The workers are typically underpaid, with wages hovering around minimum wage. Because of this, rapid employee turnover is not uncommon.

Some centers offer preschool programs, with qualified teachers.

Most centers offer before and after school care for older, school aged children.

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Home Daycare

A Home Daycare is a small center, ran out of someone's home.

Each state has specific regulations regarding the registration, licensing, and ability of someone to operate such a center out of their homes.

Each state's regulations are different.

Click here for Requirements and Supplies Needed to Operate a Home Daycare

These settings are generally smaller than a center, and more personalized for the child.

They typically have more stability than a center because they have less employee turnover, and are in a home setting.

As a Stay at Home Mom, operating a home daycare can be a very good way to earn supplemental income, especially while your children are little.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages with running a daycare out of your home.

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Advantages

Many mothers see the advantage of being able to quit a job and come home to stay with their children the most powerful reason to consider running home childcare. But there are many other good reasons as well:

Staying Home
As you run your daycare, you are able to stay home with your own kids. They have you available to them all the time, you get to see them take their first steps and not hear about it from your daycare center. You get to play games with them, teach them their ABCs. They are socializing and have friends come over every day for a playdate!

Income
Operating a Home Daycare is a wonderful source of supplemental income. Many mothers actually make more money watching just a handful of children during the day than they did working and putting a child or two into daycare themselves.

Also, your state may pay you to watch the children of low income families. This is important to consider as you are looking to advertise your services.

Tax Advantages
By operating a home business out of your home, you are eligible to receive wonderful small business tax advantages. The money you spend on your business, including things like supplies, food, and insurance payments can be written off. You can even write off a portion of your housing and electricity bills.

Please check with your tax accountant for a list of expenses you can write off.

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Flexibility

There will be times while doing home child care that you will be able to do other things.

You can keep your house clean, and even work on other ways to supplement income while you run your daycare.

There will be times when the children are all asleep, or watching a movie,

or even while waiting for them to arrive in the morning. You can use these little pockets of time to add to your supplemental income in many ways.

Work on a Content Rich Website
Work on a website, either specifically for your Home Daycare or about any other topic to build a stream of residual income.

Sell on eBay
Garage sale on the weekends and list items on eBay during the week at naptime. The post office will pick up your packages directly from you home.

Surrogacy
I know many surrogate mothers who are also daycare providers.

Direct Sales or MLM
Build a Home Party Plan or Network Marketing business in addition to your daycare income stream.

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Disadvantages

Running a Home Day Care is not all peaches and cream. There are disadvantages as well.

Thankless Job
The biggest disadvantage to Home Child Care is that it is a relatively thankless job. It's hard work taking care of your own children, but then add in several other people's as well, and it gets harder.

You think your husband doesn't have a clue how hard you work all day long now? Don't expect that attitude to change at all once you start home daycare.

And the parents aren't much better. You are an employee to them.

Stressful
It can be stressful being the only person in charge of all those children.

There will be days they will cry all day, or smear poop on the walls.

You won't have anyone adult to talk to for hours.

There are several support groups online for daycare provider moms, but it's not the same as regular interaction with real people.

Long Hours
A typical home daycare runs from 6am-6pm. That's 12 hours a day. Five days a week. Every week. It can be difficult being completely tied down to working this particular schedule.

What happens when you get sick? What happens when your children get sick or need to go to the doctors? How about holidays or vacations?

With a little planning, and a backup person, these issues can be overcome.

Wear and Tear
Your house will get messy. Things will get broken, wallpaper will be peeled off.

Magic markers (which you never even knew you owned) will mysteriously end up in a mural on your bathroom wall. Kids will pee in toy boxes, and hide snacks under beds for ants to get to later.

Keep this in mind as you are considering this form of supplemental income.

Taken Advantage Of
You will be taken advantage of.

This is not an "if", but a "when".

For some reason, parents will not consider you as important as their car payment. You will be paid late, or told "oh I forgot my checkbook". You might have to deal with bounced checks.

Parents will pick their children up late, drop them off early, forget to send diapers, and will expect you to fix it all.

Are all parents like this?

Of course not. But many more than you realize are.

You will be put in the uncomfortable position of having to tell a parent that they need to pay you, immediately, or you will no longer watch their child.

Count on it.

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Here are more pages about Home Day Care to help you get started.

Starting a Home Day Care

Types of Home Day Care

Starting a Preschool Program

Alternatives to Full Time Daycare

Daycare Resources and Tools