Thinking about starting an in home daycare in Arlington

[Anonymous]

Lately its been a pipe dream of mine to start an in home daycare in a few years when my children all become school age. Right now they are all in daycare because we can't afford to not have me working, but in four years, we'll be in a much different financial situation and that was when I'd was thinking of opening a small in home daycare. I really like the idea of taking care of 1 (at most 2) young children, and I like the fact that it'll allow me to be home basically whenever my children aren't at school. Ladies, please give me a reality check.
-- I am well educated (have a masters degree in engineering, have been working as a senior level engineering staff for 10+ years) and have a nice enough home in a good location (a townhouse in Clarendon, very close to several parks). Our living room would be the area I would keep any children I would be taking care of.
-- I would get licensed by the county.
-- I probably wouldn't be very expensive (whatever market is now I guess), and would offer healthy/homemade lunches/snacks to any older children.
-- I'd have insurance/whatever liability coverage is recommended for an in home daycare provider.
-- I have three kids, but no experience taking care of children other than my own. I'm sure I would have excellent references, but not from anyone who knows about my capacity to care for children other than my own.
Would you consider me for childcare?

[Anonymous]

It depends. As a mother of school age kids i am going to assume you will want time off when they are home on school vacations and over the summer. With a home daycare you really can't take much time off. Our provider only take off 1 weeks a year. I work a regular job and get 4 weeks a year. not to mention all the other benefits.

I also can't imagine that you would make nearly enough money if you currently have to work to support your family. Home daycares don't make much. With only 2 kids you'd may get $600/week total and that is before taxes. Personally i prefer my child at a daycare with a few more kids.

Unless you really love taking care of kids I can't see it as a job you'd want to do. Also keep in mind that caring for other's kids is a LOT different than caring for your own. I love my child more than anything, but in general I really don't like kids and the though of working at a daycare make me want to hit my head against a wall.

[Anonymous]

OP here, my husband is on track to be a partner at his lawfirm so vacations are pretty much not in the cards (I was thinking I would probably say federal holidays and the week between christmas and new years as my time off).

We'll have paid off our mortgage and have saved enough to fund college for all three kids in another two years. The plan was always for me to start staying home at that point (my husband actually wanted me to quit when we had our youngest, but I didn't think it was a good idea since we still had debt), so money really isn't a consideration.

Ideally I would only have one child (two if its a sibling situation) who would be in an infant/toddler so socialization isn't really a big deal.

[Anonymous]

I think there is a real need for day care in that area - especially for infants & toddlers. So I think there would be interest. I think getting licensed by Arl County would be top priority, and maybe you could do some babysitting type work (at your own house) to get some initial references?

Having 3 kids is a big plus as far as experience goes - my day care provider had 4 kids and seeing how her own kids behaved/acted was a reference in itself to me.

[Anonymous]

Hi. I have a home daycare in DC. We have some similarities in the sense that I also used to have a pretty white collar job (IP litigation attorney at a large law firm) that I hung up to take care of children. Currently, I watch up to 6 kids with the help of two teachers. We all have our CPR/First Aid certifications and various early childhood education training, and the teachers have CDA certifications as well.

Caring for children is my passion gig, which, like you, was made possible by my husband's bill-paying job.

So, I think I am in a good position to let you know that watching one kid will be super fun and doable, but more than two may be physically exhausting. It really depends on whether you are just babysitting, in which case I suppose you could also pay attention to your own kids after school, or providing engaging, child-directed care with observation-based assessments so that you can help the kids reach developmental objectives. (I think there is value in both, so I'm not in any way putting forth any judgment, btw.) For example, we take our kids out to parks and such twice a day for a total of about two hours, we go to the library twice a week for story time, we provide home-prepared meals, and all day long we play with the kids. I love it, but I will be honest with you, absolutely no housework gets done around here. The upside for me is that I get to spend time with my daughter and I have most of the weekends off.

Good luck to you!! Sounds like you've put a lot of thought in this -- I wish you the best!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, my husband is on track to be a partner at his lawfirm so vacations are pretty much not in the cards (I was thinking I would probably say federal holidays and the week between christmas and new years as my time off).

We'll have paid off our mortgage and have saved enough to fund college for all three kids in another two years. The plan was always for me to start staying home at that point (my husband actually wanted me to quit when we had our youngest, but I didn't think it was a good idea since we still had debt), so money really isn't a consideration.

Ideally I would only have one child (two if its a sibling situation) who would be in an infant/toddler so socialization isn't really a big deal.

This is a strange plan to me. You didn't want to stay home with your own kids but you want to stay home with someone elses? I would find that strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, my husband is on track to be a partner at his lawfirm so vacations are pretty much not in the cards (I was thinking I would probably say federal holidays and the week between christmas and new years as my time off).

We'll have paid off our mortgage and have saved enough to fund college for all three kids in another two years. The plan was always for me to start staying home at that point (my husband actually wanted me to quit when we had our youngest, but I didn't think it was a good idea since we still had debt), so money really isn't a consideration.

Ideally I would only have one child (two if its a sibling situation) who would be in an infant/toddler so socialization isn't really a big deal.

This is a strange plan to me. You didn't want to stay home with your own kids but you want to stay home with someone elses? I would find that strange.

OP here, I don't want to quit my job in this economy while we still have debt (a mortgage and saving for the kid's college). Although daycare is expensive, we still are able to save enough with me still working to be on track to have paid off the house in two years if I keep working. If I quit and stay home, I think it would make my husband stressed out about being the sole provider (whereas when we're essentially living rent free in two years, his job would just need to support our living expenses, which would be under $1200/month since the kids wouldn't be in daycare anymore, so if he's unemployed for a few months its not a huge deal). It might be strange, but its been our financial plan.

[Anonymous]

I'm confused, sorry. Really not trying to be snarky - but isn't taking care of one or maybe two kids being a babysitter or nanny, rather than a daycare? I wouldn't want to be the first at any daycare, and this whole plan seems odd to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused, sorry. Really not trying to be snarky - but isn't taking care of one or maybe two kids being a babysitter or nanny, rather than a daycare? I wouldn't want to be the first at any daycare, and this whole plan seems odd to me.

OP here, I probably should have clarified that I'm starting an in home daycare (which typically have less than 3 kids). Its not a nanny service since I would be operating it out of my home (instead of working outside the home), and I don't really know what the difference between a daycare and a babysitter is other than you pay one hourly and the other usually has fixed hours. I'd want to limit it to 1 at most 2 kids so that I don't have to hire extra help when my children come home (I think the regulation is you can have 4 or 5 kids including your own if some of them are above a certain age, I don't remember exactly though).
Thanks for all of the feedback everyone! Its given me a lot to think about, though I won't be quitting my job ay time soon anyways.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to think about is whether you'll want to enroll your kids in any after-school activities: Brownies/Scouts, music, sports, dance, karate... As the parent of one of your charges, I'd be delighted with outings to the sprayground, library or B&N train table. I'd be less thrilled with my child being taken along in Mom's Taxi for Jackson's tai kwon do class.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you're envisioning a situation where you are the only care provider. That would turn me off - to me, one of the advantages of daycare is that you don't have a single adult responsible for multiple kids all day long with no breaks and no backup when something goes wrong. My son attended a daycare with 2 full-time care providers (owner + assistant) and 6 kids and I am far more comfortable with 6:2 than 3:1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another thing to think about is whether you'll want to enroll your kids in any after-school activities: Brownies/Scouts, music, sports, dance, karate... As the parent of one of your charges, I'd be delighted with outings to the sprayground, library or B&N train table. I'd be less thrilled with my child being taken along in Mom's Taxi for Jackson's tai kwon do class.

This is a VERY good point. I turned down an otherwise appealing daycare because the owner often takes the charges along to go pick up her granddaughter at school.