Personal Limits for Daycare Providers

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I have been running a home daycare for decades and it’s a very rewarding job. And learning to set personal limits for daycare is one of the best things I’ve done. We are just one person and we sure can’t do everything.

Burnout in childcare is real. It happens because we are caretakers and we put other’s needs before our own too much so that we don’t meet our own needs. But we are the ones who are responsible for our mental, physical, and business health. We can’t put that in other people’s hands. They aren’t going to ever put us first. And we can’t take care of others if we don’t take care of ourselves. So setting Personal Limits for Daycare is top priority.

This is your wake-up call. You can change your life and love what you do.

Daycare providers

I was recently talking to a friend who has also been a home daycare provider for decades. She is incredible. But she’s on the verge of tapping out. And why? Because parents don’t respect her daycare rules and she isn’t making them. She needs to set Personal Limits for Daycare.

So they don’t think they need to. She is letting them drop off before she opens and after breakfast so she has to make breakfast twice every morning. They are interrupting her activities. She is letting them pick up late with no regard for her evening plans. She even asks if she can have time off to go to the doctor.

Girl, you need to run your business. And when you need to go to the doctor, you TELL your parents are closing. Their priority is their own family and rightfully so. You set the tone of your business and you make expectations for your clients. If they don’t meet them, tell them again. If they don’t respect that, then there are plenty of other people that would love to have your services.

One way to set personal limits for daycare is to make sure your paperwork and business are in order. It helps you streamline your work if it’s not disorganized and chaotic. It will reduce stress and make your days go more smoothly.

Also having a set schedule for your day with the kids helps tremendously. Kids need routine and so do you. You’ll feel more in control and have a better handle on managing behavior if the kids know what to expect in each part of the day.

Taking regular vacations is important for your physical and mental health too. You deserve to take a break and you’ll like your kids and their parents more if you do things that don’t involve them once in a while. Daycare is your job, not your life.

You don’t have to even go anywhere, today I have a vacation day and I’m sitting in the garden writing. I love to write and I love to support other daycare providers so writing this for you is a blessing to me and very relaxing. I’m soaking up nature before the weather gets too hot.

Make rules that work for you and stick to them. This is a very important part of setting limits for daycare providers. You can’t do everything forever. You can’t be everything to everyone. So decide what works for you.

Is summertime with school agers your worst nightmare? Then stop doing that. If you don’t enjoy babies, then take ages 2 and up. If you are a night owl, do nighttime care. Everyone is different and each of us has things we excel at and things we really enjoy.

One of the main keys to staying successful for a long time is doing what you love. If your jam is messy art, then find families who don’t expect pristinely dressed kids at pick-up time and mess away! Do that all day every day if that’s what you love.

If you want to do nature study all the time, promote that and do it. If you want to do all flash cards and worksheets, there are parents out there who will eat that up too. DO IT! Plugging your heart into what you are doing will make you a much better provider than trying to be all things to all people. It just doesn’t work.

So start by deciding what makes you feel alive and make a plan to work towards that. If it doesn’t include kids, it’s time to look for more satisfying work. If it does, decide what ages you really enjoy.

Stop that, I didn’t say decide what parents need and you don’t want to disappoint them. They would much rather have you doing what you love than bending over backward until you break. That could either mean quitting or snapping and neither of those are good for their kids, right?

What ages do you enjoy most? What activities are the most fun for you? There is about every kind of parent out there and you will draw the people that will want what you’re doing if you advertise it. Set your parameters. If you want to do birth to 1, start telling people now, in 2 years you will only do that. Put it out there and it will happen if you stick to it.

People need a warning, but if you don’t feel like you can wait a year to say goodbye to rowdy school agers, don’t. If you need to make a change now, do it, just give as much notice as you are able because families are depending on you.

Choose your focus. There are so many choices:

• Montessori
• Play-based
• Structured preschool
• Part-time
• Overnight
• Evening care
• Mom’s day out
• Nature-based
• Sensory based
• Special needs care
• Waldorf
• Reggio
• Primrose
• Faith-Based
• Language Immersion
• Forest schools

What do you think is important and what is satisfying to you? Deciding that is up to you. Then start focusing on that and learning more about it. Once you understand what you want to do fully, start advertising it. You may lose families, but there are always families that are a better fit waiting.

You were made for a certain thing and you already have an inkling of what that is. Set up all your paperwork and things to reflect that area of focus. Get all your ducks in a row so things run smoothly and start planning a daily routine for it. You are going to be so happy you set these Personal Limits for Daycare.

Over the years I have done several things to better my situation. First, I stopped taking babies. I love babies, but being in charge of them for 10 hours a day is something I don’t love. Spit up, bottles, and all that isn’t my bag of tea.

I love to play in the garden with kids and do art. I don’t like having to stop what we are doing because the baby is crying. And I HATE trying to keep toddlers and older kids quiet while a baby naps. No thanks.

I told my families, then started only taking siblings of the kids I had that were babies and then eventually transitioned out altogether. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I was always worried about SIDS and that fear was gone for me. And I really enjoy being more mobile than that. So it was wonderful.

The second step I took was quitting school agers. I had two shifts a day. I took teacher’s kids and after-school kids and it was a lot. I would have 11 or 13 kids every day at different times and it was a lot of chaos.

I also got tired of how much school agers eat and how many toys they break. It’s hard to have them in and around smaller kids. So that made my days run a lot smoother too. I loved all of those older kids and it was tough to do that, but it was better for me to set that limit.

That left me with ages 2-4 and I absolutely LOVE it. I always find kids and have a waiting list because I have leaned into what I enjoy and people can tell I love what I do. I just have a different glow about me.

It’s important to surround yourself with good friends in the business. You are not an island. And you need a network of people that support you and understand what you are going through.

I love my daycare provider friends. They are pure gold for me. And when I’m having a tough time, they have advice and offer support. We all need that. And most people can’t relate to what a daycare provider goes through.

Childcare provider forms

Now, you have your dream job set up and support. But what about your rules? Are your contract and policies 800 pages? Guess what? No one is probably ever going to read that.

Make your contract about time and money. Trim it down and only put what you will 100% stick to and what matters to you. Don’t nitpick. Decide what hills you are really willing to die on and chill out about the rest. Put that in the contract and policies.

Your policies should be things like this is how you handle different situations and what you expect from parents that is not about times and pay.

Do you not want to allow toys from home? Do you want them to supply diapers or are you? Do you only take potty-trained kids? Do you expect parents to bring you coffee on Fridays? Whatever your die-hard limits as a daycare provider are, put them in these documents and be willing to stick to them. Maybe it’s a ‘3 strikes you’re out’ biting rule. Or you want to close at 4 on Fridays. Or maybe you want paid vacations. Whatever it is, make your personal limits for daycare clear and stand by them.

Here’s an example. I HATE, and I mean HATE looking out the window in the morning for hours and waiting on kids to arrive. I put a drop-off by 8:30 rule in my contract but I let everyone slide and I was miserable.

I had a dad one time that yelled at me because he wanted to roll out of bed at 11 and bring his child on party day and called me to ask what kind of truck to bring for the monster truck party.

Well, I cook lunch at 11, we eat at 11:30 and nap is after. Our party was 9-11 and I told him that, but he thought if he came later we would wait. Have you ever thrown a monster truck party for 7 toddlers during their nap time by yourself?

I don’t want to bring that kind of torture on myself. Children are tired at nap time and they aren’t their best. I don’t want a hand full of zombies attacking me while I try to make them have fun. We plan around meals and nap and some kids leave early in the afternoon so our parties are always between breakfast and lunch. Sorry dad. It’s nothing personal.

I was miserable wasting our time waiting on kids to come so we could go outside and then by the time they came, it was too hot out in the summer. Things like that. So I worked on setting personal limits for daycare that would make me want to do it.

I told my parents that I had to make some changes to make it work or I would have to do something else. I told them that if their kids didn’t come by 8:30 they couldn’t come and they couldn’t leave during nap and wake everyone up. If you plan an appt or swimming lessons in the afternoon, you have to pick them up by 12:30 so you don’t disrupt the other kids’ naps.

I just was honest with them about why I hated it and they have all towed the mark ever since. It has made my days exponentially better and I started to love what I did again instead of always feeling angry and taken advantage of.

And is it really hurting any families to work around those time frames? It’s not. They take time off for what is important to them so don’t let them guilt you into thinking taking off an extra hour before a doctor’s appointment is going to put their jobs in jeopardy.

People are human beings and employers know they have to take care of their kids even if they are jerks about it. We let their feelings and struggles be ours and that doesn’t work. We are one person, and if we take all of our family’s needs before ours, we are left with doing everything for everyone again.

For example, you set your hours at 7 to 5 and someone wants to come 30 minutes early. Someone else needs 30 minutes late. You oblige and then someone else comes and needs 15 minutes earlier than the 6:30 you changed to. Then someone else needs 6 instead of 5:30. It never ends.

If we let parents’ needs come before ours we will be working 24 hours a day 7 days a week without EVER having time off to recharge. So set what you are willing to do just like the bank or the grocery store does and then do it.

Every time I have had someone complain about my hours, they made it work and no one died. They make school hours work. They make swimming and dance lessons work. They make whatever they want to work. So they can make your hours work too.

Just keep in mind that you are just one person and you can’t meet the needs of the whole work. You have to focus on setting limits for daycare providers or you will burn yourself completely out. It’s not good. Love your families enough to be your very best for them. You can’t do that if you are worn out and strung out.

I don’t charge extra for late pick-ups because I don’t want money, I want my time. I tell people that. There is no late fee because you aren’t going to be late. And they don’t. If you set the expectations you get them almost all the time.

Just remember, find the 5 or 10 things that are deal makers for you and set those personal limits for daycare for your business. As daycare providers, it is in our nature to be caretakers so sticking to them is hard. But you can do it and you are worth it. More importantly, the kids are worth it and if you are unappreciated and run over, you aren’t going to be your best for them.

Terminating childcare children

There are times when you can’t come to a good situation with a family. So when is too much? If you are miserable and being disrespected by a family over and over again, it may be time to terminate.

I don’t do it often, I prefer to try to work through things, but I have had a family that was nothing but excuses and no matter what they would not follow my policies. I tried everything I could think of to make it work, but ultimately they were super disrespectful and even belittled my other kids when I told them what they said about me was crap.

Once they turned on the kids I asked them not to return. They posted about me on social media and turned me in to dhs for a false claim of abuse, but it still was a good decision because the stress of having them had become unbearable.

I was really proud of myself for sticking up for my own sanity and it helped me provide better care for the other kids even though it broke my heart to lose the child. I love these kids with my whole heart for life. I put my all into them. And letting the child go was tough. But you will know when it’s the right thing to do and enough is enough.

Standing up for yourself and your children is a very important part of your job. You are doing great things with your kids and serving families to the best of your ability. You deserve respect and kindness too. So make sure you get it by setting personal limits for daycare.

Daycare provider appreciation day

I appreciate my parents very much and always communicate and let them know that I appreciate their trust and I’m honored to be their childcare provider. And in return, they always show appreciation to me as well.

There is even a special day to show appreciation to your childcare provider. Not everyone knows about it but it’s the Friday before Mother’s Day and it’s a great day to show your provider how much you care and love how they care for your family. If you need ideas on how to appreciate your provider, check this out.

Daycare provider quotes

Here are some really fun daycare provider quotes that are funny and fun and true that might inspire you. I hope you feel inspired after reading all of this. Because what you do is the most important job in the world and you are shaping the future. I appreciate all you do and I am rooting for you! Go out there and make a difference.