How Do You Juggle Growing Families?

[rjskids]

What do you do when you are full and then one of your families has another child? If you don't have a space do you then end up losing a family? I'm already worried about this cause there is a family interested in my care but they don't need it until JANUARY! I know I can't just hold a spot for them for the rest of the year!

[MarinaVanessa]

Yes this is a toughy. If i were full and a current family were to have a baby I had no room for I would make the choice to let them go. That's just my personal preference because the way I see it is if I let another client go so that I could take this clients new baby and this client for whatever reason decided to leave my DC I would end up losing 2 clients instead of 1. If I were to let the expectant family go (or with new baby) then I would only be losing 1 client. Not that I speak from experience though so I'm interested to hear what others think.

[daycare]

I am in this situtaion right now.. My DC is full on some days but not others.. Yeah was stupid and allowed PT..

so I have a family that already has two kids here and are having baby #3

they asked me to take baby #3, knowing that I dont take babies.

Well I dont have a spot for this child for the days that they would need care. So I would have to go out and hire someone, as well as increase my DC LIC. I sat down did the math and there is no way that I could do it. I would have to take on too many other children to just cover the cost before i would make a profit.

I am looking at more than likely loosing this famoly, but i am ok with it because i want to close all of my part time spots anyways..

One other idea that might work, is that if they are part time and you have other part time kids, maybe you can move some kids around to make it happen. also a year in advance is way too long to hold a spot for anyone. I will hold a spot for 3 months max and they will pay a holding fee for it

[SilverSabre25]

Yeah I have this problem...one dcm is due mid June and wants to come back at the end of August, another DCM is due end of August and won't be bringing the baby until Januaryish, and a third DCM is TTC. Plus my babe is due any time now and I can only have three under age 2.

In this case, i let time take care of some of it...DCM1 told me that she is only planning on coming back with both kids two days a week. Yeah...that's not going to fly for me...sorry...not enough time to adjust...especially when her older boy is the Anxious Boy I've posted about AND she's keeping him home with her from now until August.

[Blackcat31]

I give priority to families who use the most days. Whenever a situation comes up where two or more families want the same space then it is given to the family who provides me with the most income and for new litle ones (same family though) who want to "reserve" space the family who pays for it first gets it.

If a 4 day a week family wanted space in Jan and a 5 day a week family wanted the same space, I would offer the spot to 5 day a week family first, if they pass the 4 day a week family has the opportunity to take it.