My mom ran an in-home daycare for 20+ years in our family home in Massachusetts. I was around 6 or 8 years when she started and past college when she retired from it, and I have two younger siblings as well. I realize I'm biased, but I think she did a fantastic job with the children and parents, really exceptional. As a bonus for me, all those families wanted to use me as a baby-sitter, and I loved taking care of the kids, so I made massive bank in middle and high school! Here's my perspective:
- At the time, I believe state rules allowed up to 6 kids at any moment in time, and no more than 2 of them could be under 18 months.
- She was typically pretty well booked into the the max number of kids, with several full-timers and also a number-of part-timers whose schedules combined like tetris to comprise a full-time slot.
- She charged the family the same amount every week for their time slot. If the daycare kids went on vacation or didn't come to daycare for a day or whatever, the family still paid the full weekly rate. My mom made a very good living off this business.
- My mom had a pretty long day, as I believe the earliest arrival kids came around 7:30 a.m., but more commonly 8 a.m., and the latest pick-up time was usually 6 p.m. Many people pressed their luck with picking up late, and my mom never got the nerve to charge them any sort of penalty/fee for that. Sometimes that even interfered with our family schedule if we had evening sports or events. There were a few years where she took care of a girl whose parents both worked an evening shift, so those days she was not completely done until 1 a.m.
- Our home was pretty much overtaken with little kids' things. The playroom needed to be cleaned up every single day at least once at night and often also around nap time. Our kitchen almost always had two high-chairs and sometimes also those seats that attach to the table and booster seats. Every one of our bedrooms had a crib or sleeper pen. Baby monitors galore. Even after my mom's workday with the kids ended, she had a ton of cleaning left to do -- playroom, kitchen table, all the kids dishes, sippy cups, bottles, etc.
- Sometimes we kids would get kicked out of our rooms so that the daycare kids could use them for naps. Sometimes the daycare kids climbed out and played with whatever things we left out in our rooms. Likewise, sometimes we would come home from school to find that we couldn't get into our rooms to get things because there was already a napping daycare kid in there. Each kid had a regular nap schedule, though, so my mom actually did a really good job letting us know in advance when our rooms would be occupied -- we kids would still sometimes get annoyed anyway.
- During summer vacation, when my siblings and I might have wanted to sleep later, we were often awoken by the noise from the daycare kids downstairs.
- There were strict regulations about safety in the home -- things like multiple points of egress in case of fire, first-aid kits, fire extinguishers, child locks on cabinets, where household items could/couldn't be stored, etc.
- There was some sort of food reimbursement program so that my mom would have to fill out a detailed schedule of all meals and snacks that she offered to the kids. There were requirements to keep good balanced nutrition, so it would be something like lunch had to have one protein, one vegetable, one fruit, and no more than one starch, or whatever. She turned in the full food schedule monthly, and then she would get a check from the state, I think based on how many kids, how many meals, how many snacks.
- My mom had to take certain classes and get various certifications each year.
- Make sure the families know that they are responsible for providing their own baby formula and diapers. My mom supplied all the other food/drink and supplies. Sometimes families also provided their own preferred crib, and the kids often brought pacifiers, blankets, toys, or stuffed animals, but you have to be careful to set clear rules about sharing (e.g., you can bring a toy, but you'll have to share it, unless it's a toy that just goes in that kids' sleeping crib).
Edited to add:
- As someone else pointed out, my mom set her full year's holiday/vacation schedule at the very beginning of the year. Very, very rarely did she deviate from that after setting it. I know she was pretty stingy to herself, so I think it was 10 paid holidays plus 1 or 2 weeks of paid vacation tops. In the very rare event that an unexpected day needed to be taken, most parents were able to make other arrangements. To the best of my memory, my mom only took 1 sick day in all of those years, and she got approval from the parents to have my dad and I be the caretakers in her place for that day.
