Starting A Home Day Care

[TracyLuis 0]

Luis and I are currently buying a home (YEA!!!) and I am going to start a day care. I have extensive child care experience, but no business experience.

Any advice from the business saavy??? (No...I'm not crazy...unless you take into account how crazy I am about my son, which is why I want to work from home in the first place )

[brnidokiegurl 0]

check your state first to see the requirements you will need, then be prepared for the parents more than the kids..

[broma25 2]

Make sure you get LOTS of insurance!!

[BMJ 0]

I have often thought of opening my own in home preschool. First I would make sure that you are not the only adult there, it is always better if you have someone else there to verify that nothing is going on that shouldnt be going on. Make sure anyone you hire to help you, you check them out very carefully.

Once you have all your ducks in order, and all the legal things (licenses and stuff like that) taken care of you can set up your daycare your way! Make sure you write up a contract that you make all parents sign stating your expectations. Make sure they provide you with emergency numbers, be clear if you will take kids that are potty trained or not. Will you be providing lunch? Snacks? Make sure parents give you an allergy list for their children. In some states you need a food handlers card to serve food to kids.

If you will have very young children make sure you get down on all fours, crawl around the house, and make sure that you are able to see things from a young child's view to childproof the house.

After all safety checks are done, think about if you will be more like a babysitter or a educator. Will you be teaching the kids? Will you have lesson plans? How many children will you have? How big do you want your center to be? Check with the state to see what their teacher child ratio is. It varies from state to state. In Washington we are allowed for preschool 1 teacher for every 10 children, toddlers and wobblers is 1 teacher for every 7 children, and infants is 1 teacher for ever 4 babies, however, in Oregon their ratio is different and for tods and wobs they have a ratio of 1:5. So be sure to check your state's guidelines.

Advertise... it is one of the biggest problems I see with new In-Home daycares. Many people do not do enough. If your daycare will be a small one and you know people who need childcare you might not need much in the way of advertising. However, if you plan on having many kids and hiring other people to help you, you would be better off investing a bit of money in advertising. Get on a search engine. Now adays a lot of daycares are "going green" and they have several websites online for daycares that are considered "green friendly" they are always looking to add any they hear of so this is one way you can advertise. You can also make your own webpage if you know how. If you do not know how, you might want to visit a local college/university and ask around in the computer department if there is anyone who would like to make a bit of money by making your webpage, they might even do it for free if they get the ok with their professor and can do it for extra credit or one of their class projects. When I was taking an XHTML class at my university we had to design a business website.

Put up well made flyers at stores (be sure to get the store's permission), put an add in the yellow pages, another idea is one that my mother (who was a real estate agent while I was growing up) use to do. Every year to advertise she would get calendars made (who doesnt need a calendar?) since yours is going to be a daycare, have pictures taken of kids (be sure you have the parent's permission if you take pictures) playing at your daycare, then go pass them out in the neighborhood. Another idea is magnets, you can even make your own now - supplies can be found almost anywhere to make them, I have made some by buying business cards and business card size magnets from Wal-Mart. You can look up addresses in the white pages and send out letters advertising your business.

Another thing you can do is invite everyone to an open house so they can tour your place. Have food and drinks, maybe rent a machine to make cotton candy or snowcones, maybe a bounce house (be sure if you do this you get the parents to sign a concent form before the kids jump in the bounce house.)

Be ready to answer any questions the parents have, these questions might include will the kids take naps? what kind of food is served, etc.

Good luck in your business venture! I have included a few links about getting a daycare started, I hope they help.

Rebecca

http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol40/daycare.htm

http://www.daycareresource.com/startyourowndaycare.html

http://www.fabjob.com/DaycareOwner.asp

http://www.moneymakingmommy.com/daycare/index.htm

Edited May 22, 2008 by BMJ

[TracyLuis 0]

EXCELLENT suggestions

Thank you for puting so much thought into your reply, BMJ. I wil take it all into consideration.

[aidan80 9]

Actually my wife is in the process of setting up her own business, not child care but birth related and she's doing really, really well! Google is your best friend!! She found a local organization that gives free advice for people starting up, getting loans, business plans, laws.. etc Google if you haven't already and see whats in your area. Some of the other things she's done to keep start up costs down are:

Printed business cards, some really good tear away cards out there for under $10 per 120 sheets!

Used basic html/java web template, we updated it added logos got some hosting and a domain name!

Looked at various printed publications to target the baby audience.

I'd also recommend from job experience if your starting up a day care, call your city/county planning/zoning agency to see what the rules are also check with your fire department as you might need an inspection. Of course the other poster hit many nails on the head epically the insurance nail!! From dealing with the public every day I can tell you lots are nice.. many are just sour.

Good Luck!

Edited May 23, 2008 by aidan80

[TracyLuis 0]

Nice

I'll look into all this.