Start Your Own Home Child Care Center

1Requirements

Contact your local Health and Human Resources to find out what the child day care requirements are for your area. They will have a limit to how many children you can have in your home at one time. They also have a limit to how many hours you can work. You may also need to take instructional courses while you are running your own home child care center. They will probably send you a start-up packet that will tell you everything you need to know to get your child care center up and running as soon as possible.

2Advertise

You will need to start advertising as soon as you have decided to start your own home child care center. There are several ways to advertise for free. If you have a computer, make yourself some fliers to pass around. In the fliers you will want to list some of the things you are offering to your children. For example, you could offer a fenced in play area that is always supervised, arts and crafts time, story time, imagination time, and so on. What did you like or dislike about your child’s day care center? Use this to be a guideline of what you want to offer. You can place your fliers up at schools, grocery stores, leave a few on the counter of a gas station, or find a friend on the PTA who can pass them out for you during the next meeting. You can also place an ad in the local newspaper. This does cost, but they usually charge per word and you can control the cost. You may also want to place a flier in all the local businesses in case there is a mom or dad looking for child care.

3Setting Up Your Home

You will have to set your home up for a home child care business. To do this, you must consider all the safety aspects, including covering outlets, removing weapons, hiding cords, blocking stairs, and protecting sharp corners. Here are some of the things that you will want to take into account when setting up:

• You will need to designate an office in your home. This should be located near the door or the rooms used in your business. Here you can conduct parent meetings and keep records. You will want to get a file cabinet or box to keep all the necessary records on each child. You will also need a place to keep your payment records and your sign in/out forms, daily schedules and reports, and monthly fire drill papers.
  

• It is important that you mark the exits of your home, as well as the rooms that have been designated just for your home child care center.

• Decide which parts of your home you want to allow for children. If you have a basement or a part of the home that is not being used, you may want to use it as part of your child care center.
  

• You should have a designated kitchen area so that the kids are not exposed to your main kitchen where there may be dangers. Get a small refrigerator and microwave and place them on a small counter, ideally with a small sink as well.

•  Kids will need a bathroom with a training potty and a safe way to wash their hands and brush their teeth. If you don’t have a bathroom to spare then keep supplies for your child care in a basket that you can get out every day for your kids to use. Then after you close you can put the basket up.
  

• Consider a place for arts and crafts, a reading corner, and a pretend box as well as free play room.

4Toys

Go to yard sales and flea markets to find toys to use for your child care business. This is a great way to find top dollar toys that have been gently used and still have a lot of play left in them. When you bring them home be sure to bleach and clean them thoroughly before setting them up in your home.

5The Details

Establish your hours of business, your house rules, a menu for the month, when you expect payments and how you prefer to be paid, and your daily schedule. Think about what age group you want to accept into your home child care center and decide what you will charge for each child, per family, overtime, nights and weekends, late payment fees, and returned check fees.

6Plan an Open House

As soon as you advertise, you are likely receive several calls regarding your new daycare center. You want to make sure that you are completely ready for business, because most parents will not contact you until they are without child care. You can plan an open house which will allow parents to walk through your home and see for themselves how safe it is. They will also be able to ask questions and get to know you better. Create activities for the children to play while the parents are viewing your open house. Enlist the help of a friend or neighbor to come over during your open house to play with and entertain the children while you talk to the parents. Offer snacks and drinks for the children and arrange a five minute session with each parent so you have time to answer questions and talk with them about your business. Offer an introductory price for parents who attended your open house.

7Conclusion

If your goal is to stay home and run your own home child care center, you can make it a profitable business as long as you plan properly and start it on the right foot. Know exactly what you want before your doors open. You can start a home child care center with minimal money and it can be as successful as you want it to be.

      Written by Jennifer Frye