How many DCP's?

[Brittany]

How many of you only accept 2yr+ kiddos? Do any of you only do pre-school age, like 3-5? Curious if this is possible when looking to fill slots.

[Controlled Chaos]

I am easing into this. Prek and toddler activities are my favorite and I am little over infants just now Hoping to take only 18m-5y in the future. Since 0-23m is considered infant in my state, 18m spots are still in short supply so I don't forsee having trouble staying full. I think it depends on your program and how difficult it is for you to stay full now.

[Unregistered]

I take 18months-3yrs. Here most children go to preschool at 3 yrs old so I offer an introductory preschool program. I did make an exception to accept a 12month old but only because it is a former family (their 2nd child) that I love working with and they referred a lot of wonderful families to me. Other than that I tell families must be at least 18months and if I have space based on licensing.

[Second Home]

I only took 2 yrs + for a long time ( years). But as the kids were going off to school there were no new clients calling for that age to fill those spots. Everyone was looking for infant .So I started taking 9 months and up last fall.

[Thriftylady]

I prefer the preK 3-5 age. I think 2 and up isn't so bad to fill depending where you live. I don't like having infants, to much can happen and that scares me. I like having kiddos that can tell mom and dad what happened at daycare.

[Brittany]

Thanks for the input I have a ton of infant experience, but in larger group settings I much prefer preschool age. I ran across a post that had mentioned they only do pre-school age, and I wasn't sure if it was common or not.

[nothingwithoutjoy]

I went into fcc knowing I was going to homeschool my daughter, so started with infants and toddlers and have been slowly increasing the age range. As of this year, I only accepted new 3-yr-olds and up, with an exception for a 2-yr-old sibling.

I have spaces now, and am finding it very difficult to fill them; I get lots of calls for 15 mo.-2 years, but rarely from families with older children. They're usually all set by then. Not sure yet what I'm going to do about it. I've kind of been holding out, hoping for more homeschoolers (I have my 7-yr-old and a 6-yr-old who comes 2 days/week), but they all want 1 day/week, which I don't want to do. I'm too picky at this point! I may give up and accept more 2s. I love that age; just didn't want such a huge age range--I wanted more of a peer group for my daughter.

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

I'm 2.5-5 (occasionally a young 2, but very rarely, and I only take 1-2 2's at a time out of 12).

I live in a very small community, I have the strictest policies, and I am the highest priced but I never have more than 1-2 spots open that I am trying to fill at a time (most of the time, it's just a 2 day a week spot).

[lovemydaycare0912]

In my area all calls I have ever gotten have been mainly for children 2 and UNDER. I get a few calls here and there but there are a lot of preschool programs probably cheaper than mine to make more sense for the parent. Plus I prefer the younger ones. The older kids drive me crazy.

[Ariana]

I am finding it so difficult to find children 2+ that I might close my doors in June. I am so tired of continually looking for kids and especially typically developing kids.