How To Start A Daycare – A Day In The Life Of A Childcare Provider

It’s up to you of course, but I’ll tell you this: bored children usually end up misbehaving!  So unless you want to deal with fussy children all day long fighting with each other, you’ll need to set up a daily schedule full of activities for the children.  Have you ever tried to plan out every hour of every day? For weeks and weeks, and months and months?  It’s exhausting!  But these daycare kids will need a structured schedule and they’ll also need to be played with, cared for, and taught.  So you’ll end up searching the internet for hours each day trying to come up with new activities and things to teach them.

And if you think your own kids misbehave, just wait until you get a bunch of kids in your house who don’t have the same rules at their house as you do.  You’ll need to set rules and enforce them, otherwise kids will be jumping on the couch, hitting each other, using language that you don’t want your kids to hear, and acting out for your attention.

Unlike creating 12-hour schedules for daycare, when you start a preschool you only need to create lesson plans for 2.5 hours!  You can use our FUNDAMENTALS Preschool Curriculum to help you plan everything quickly, and the kids always behave better at preschool than they do at home!

Unfortunately, when you have to take care of other people’s kids all day long, you often have little energy left to devote to your own children.  And you’ll spend most of your time making sure your daycare kids are happy so their parents don’t withdraw them from your daycare.

Do you think your kids might act out if your attention is now divided by some other kids they don’t even know?  And what about your older kids–they might start resenting the daycare because when they come home, their home has been taken over by the daycare.  They’ve been away from you all day so when they come home, all they want is you!

On the flipside, one of the biggest benefits to starting a preschool instead of a daycare is that you get paid to spend QUALITY time with your kids!  And honestly, which child wouldn’t love to have their mom actually PLAY with them for 2.5 hours every day by singing, dancing, reading stories, doing arts and crafts and teaching them fun ideas about the world?  And, preschool is only held during school times anyways, so when your older children come home from school, preschool is already over!

Imagine this scenario: The last daycare kid just got picked up.  You’re so exhausted after taking care of other people’s kids that all you really want to do is go upstairs and lock the door to your bedroom so you can have some peace and quiet! But you’ll still have to cook dinner, clean up the house, get your kids ready for bed, and try to squeeze a minute or two of quality time in with each kid while gritting your teeth because you’re so doggone tired and just want one minute to yourself!

But when that’s all done, you can forget about watching a movie, reading a book, or spending time with your husband.  Because after a day like you’ve just had, you have to go to bed early, because in the morning, you have to get up early and do it all over again!

If there’s one thing I cherish most, it’s my sanity.  And I KNOW that I can’t watch other people’s children for 12+ hours every day and still have enough energy to share my love with the people that I care most about.  Instead, while I teach preschool for just a few hours each day, I’m actually giving my children true quality time and playing with them.  That way, when preschool is over, they feel completely loved and they’re fine with playing by themselves for a little bit, giving me an hour or so to enjoy a little bit of “Me Time.”  And I never get burnt out, so I have plenty of energy for my kids and my husband too!