The demand for child day care in the US is rising. This is due to many factors including but not limited to the steady increase of working single mothers, more and more married couples working during the day and parents seeing the benefits of day care on a social and educational level.

A viable opportunity exists for day care in most US markets. In 2002 two thirds of all women with preschool aged children worked outside their home. In 1975 only 39% of all women with preschool aged children worked outside their home.

It is very attractive to work from home while running a day care business but careful examination of all the details must be considered to ensure success and compliance with the law. You must treat home day care like a true business. This requires planning, preparation, vision, discipline and dedication. Many people love the idea of owning their own business only to be blown away by all the headaches and responsibilities that come with it. Once you are in business for yourself there is no boss to keep you motivated. You must remain self motivated and you must remain accountable for your actions.

Below are five essential ingredients for successfully starting a home based day care center.

1. Determine the business license requirements for your state, county and city. Some local jurisdictions require a floor plan of your house or the area of the house that will be designated as the day care facility. Be sure to read all of the requirements of the business license. When inquiring about your business license always be friendly when dealing with government employees. There can be nothing worse than getting on the bad side of these employees. This can stonewall the whole application process for months. Once you have befriended one of the state, county or city employees don’t be afraid to ask them plenty of questions about the license. These people can be a wealth of information and ensure you have everything correct the first time.

2. Check on local zoning codes and local laws regarding home day care facilities. Some jurisdictions may have specific zoning requirements if you are running a business out of your home. This may not always be the case but be sure to look into it. Also check any and all local laws pertaining to home based day care facilities. Some states have limits to the amount of children you can care for out of your home.

3. Determine if you can hire employees. While you may start off as just yourself it may surprise you how fast your business grows once you build up a good reputation. Hiring employees can really help you expand your business to greater levels. Always, always, always do full background checks and a full 9 panel drug screen before hiring any employee outside your family. This can be a great selling point to your business and nothing makes your client parents feel better than hearing this level of screening is conducted on all employees.

4. When advertising your business never depend on one avenue of marketing. Be sure to implement as many marketing avenues as you can. Word of mouth is the first and possibly most effective marketing avenue. Print up cards and give them away at specific locations or events. For example see if you can give your card to workout gyms that have their own day care center. You are not competing with the day care of the gym. The day care of gyms are part of the membership. Ads in the paper can be good. Think of all the ways to get your message in front of your prospective clients.

5. Pace your growth. It will surprise you how fast this kind of business can grow. Make sure your business can maintain its high quality care as it grows. Some things to avoid are a sharp influx of registration. You may think an extra 10-15 kids wont be that bad. The managing challenge will go up ten fold. Also stay away from a sharp increase of hired employees to accommodate any increase in registration.

It should also be noted that you should have experience with children before diving into this business. Even if you love children and love the idea of running a day care you need to have experience doing this. The reason for this is two fold. First, you don’t want to go through all this trouble of starting your own business and find out that you can not stand the stress of dealing with children all day long.

Secondly, experience will only help your credentials and will be attractive to many of your customers. For example if you had worked as a nanny for a few years then decided to open up your own day care this would make sense to many of your clients. This background would also make parents feel more comfortable with you.

Dramatically increase your chances of successfully starting and maintaining your own day care center. The essential day care center kit will give you the advantage you need to create a day care center that will last for years. Access to this kit can be found at http://homebaseddaycare.blogspot.com

As an owner of a daycare, you need to see to it that you will be serving nutritious foods. Actually, you do not only have impact on the nutritional intake of the kids under your care but also with their eating behaviors and health habits. You need to be there to help the kids learn the right mealtime behavior and also to enjoy different varieties of nutritious foods.

You need to review the foods that you will serve for the kids under your facility.

Actually, there are recommendations that several organization have agreed upon. For children who are in a daycare for seven hours, you need to give them one third of their nutritional needs. If they have to stay in a daycare for eight hours or more, they should receive one half to two thirds of their nutritional needs. For children who are under your premises for full time, they should have one meal and two snacks.

When serving breakfast, it should consist of milk, fruit, bread or cereal, vegetable or 100% juice. In serving lunch or supper you need to serve milk, meat, fruit or vegetable, bread. When serving snacks it should consist of at least two of these four components namely milk, meat or alternate, fruit or vegetable, bread or alternate.

You have to focus on the use of fresh fruits, vegetable and whole grain when serving meals and snacks, you can also include small amount of meat or meat alternative. Make sure that the foods you’re giving to the kids are fresh and unprocessed.

You have to be able to supply the recommended amount of iron, energy, Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin A, Zinc, Magnesium and Folic Acid. You can ask for guidance with a dietitian in order to determine and ensure that you are providing the right foods for the kids.

Do not serve foods that contain nitrates, foods with caffeine, drink with high calorie, salty foods and candy. Make sure that the foods you serve are appropriate the ages of the kids under your facility.

For more info see: How To Start A Daycare Business

Dolson McArt – Author of: What Types of Food Should You Serve in Your Daycare

Contributing to EzineArticles.com since March 2007.

CLEAN!

One thing you always have to do-every day is sanitize everything. Paint is bound to spill, chocolate is bound to smear, and toys are bound to find their way into little mouths. Wipe down every surface with a mixture of bleach and water (before you gasp its one tablespoon bleach for every gallon of water). These include anything that the children touch. Do this every day on toy shelves, chairs and tables to prevent parents from wrinkling their noses when the come in. If you’re against using bleach, a hot water mixture with a little non-toxic germ killer can do the trick as well.

Launder all cloth items at least once a week. These items include sleeping bags, pillows, blankets and any other cloth items in your daycare center. If they are stained or vomited on, immediately replace them with fresh cloths. Don’t let the stains set in, immediately wash them with hot water.

Wash curtains and carpets once a month. This way, stains don’t set in. Curtains are notorious for keeping dirt around. You can change them weekly or wash them when you please. Kids are probably going to use your curtains as hiding places, so this will get rid of any leftover saliva, peanut butter or dirt from little hands. Wipe down mats and other porous surfaces that smells can stick to. Nothing turns a parent off faster than the lingering smell of feet or an overflowing diaper pail. Remember to regularly throw trash. It can get hectic in a day care center, so have a regular time per day.

Don’t leave things lying around. Encourage the kids to pick up after themselves or do it yourself. Rinse dishes immediately. Don’t let food, paint, glue or any other material stay on the floor. This will not only give a bad impression but it’ll be harder to remove these stains in the long run. Be neat about things like shoes, bags, umbrellas and coats. It will make clean up time so much easier for you.

HEALTHY!

Running a clean day care center can contribute a lot to the health of your charges. Here are a few other tips that will help you maintain a healthy atmosphere for you and your children.

Have requirements as well. If parents have chosen your day care center, make sure that you provide them with a list of necessary vaccinations and requirements that you have. This is to ensure the health and safety of all the children in your care. Children are notorious for having contagious diseases-you wouldn’t want to end up caring for an entire center full of kids down with the chickenpox.

Don’t let parents bring their children when their still contagious. Unless your day care has a special sick room, one contagious child out for a day won’t affect your profit. All of charges down with flu? That will.

Have a list of each child’s allergies and triggers. This will help you not only with planning menus but from accidental exposure that could lead to asthma or allergy attacks. Nothing beats a well-ventilated clean area in preventing them. Fresh air circulating through your daycare will do a lot of the work for you. On sunny, good days, keep the windows open. You can invest in a good air filter to keep those pesky germs from floating around and to clean the air of insect debris, pollen or other allergens. We don’t recommend the use of air fresheners because these can irritate delicate noses and some contain chemicals that may be harmful to kids.

Following these simple tips can keep your daycare clean for everyone and healthy for the children in your care. You will also benefit from a great child care environment both money wise and health wise.

Learn more See: Start A Daycare

Dolson McArt – Author of: Clean And Healthy Daycare Center

You need to know and learn all the things that are required in your state or county and make sure to abide with your individual state laws in regards to home child care. The few things that you need to check are the health codes, liability insurance, zoning laws, certification and income taxes. You need to visit your city hall in order to know all the requirements.

You need to check out your competitors. You can contact other daycare center or home child care and pretend you’re a potential client and ask questions. Ask about their services, fees, hours, guidelines and so on. Knowing what others has to offer, the better. At least with this, you would know how to prepare your business and would know what the parents to expect. It is best to not just provide what others can but try to exceed them.

Do some research and educate yourself. Find tips, guidelines, strategies that can help you on how to start and run your own home child care business. Know some general news regarding kids such as their health, behavior and so on. Keep on learning and educating yourself since there are always new developments that pop up each day.

Yes, you may use your home for your child care business but you still have to invest in making it a safe place for the kids. You have to check all sharp surfaces and cover them up and make sure that kids won’t be hurt with these surfaces. Check out your kitchen table and cover the edges. Lock all unsafe products, foods, and beverages. Never light up candles, this can cause not only burns to kids but fire in your home. Put away perfumes, spray and chemicals from the reach of the children. Make sure that outlets and cord are out of the reach of the kids.

You need to have procedures and policies for your business. You need to gain all the information needed when the kids are enrolled in your home such as medial information and the likes.

Advertise your home child care business. Word of mouth is the best advertisement that you can use. If you are providing quality services to clients, parents have the reasons to recommend you to family and friends.

For more info see: How to start a daycare

While there seems to be a lot information to gather, establishing a proper home child care business plan will help you lay out a detailed step-by-step plan with all that you need to know in order to to start a home day care business. Before you begin writing your business plan, make sure your decision to start one is sound. To do so, you have to ask yourself a couple of important questions.

Ask yourself:

- Is this the right business for you?

- Do you have a heart for kids and wish to make a profitable business around them?

- A day care is very demanding and requires great dedication. You need to consider how many kids you will like to start of with, and whether you will need to hire additional help.

Once your decisions are finalized, work on a good child care business plan for your home day care center. A good plan includes information such as the proposed location, the purpose and mission statement of the day care center, information on the new business and a realistic analysis of the funding required so as to jump start the business and keep the day care service profitable. You should also list, on your private business plan, any improvements that will need to be done in order to bring your establishment (usually your home) up to par with local codes for child care establishments.

Do a thorough market analysis in terms of demand and supply. There is absolutely no point in setting up another day care center at a location where there are very few children or where there are already too many day care centers. You will want to make sure that the business is a viable one before investing. Check if the demographic information is available for the location that you wish to start the day care center in and include it in your business plan to help you justify having another day care center at the proposed location.

Day care businesses will require insurance coverage to protect themselves against injuries which may occur on their property. It is important to find out the cost of insurance coverage and include it in your business plan. Like insurance, legal coverage also needs to be researched and included in the business plan as well.

Having a solid child care business plan will allow you to see at a glance, what your startup costs will be and when exactly you expect your business to turn a profit. It also helps you to obtain funding and to get any licenses necessary to start your new day care business.

Miriam Boh is an entrepreneur and owns StartingDayCareBusiness.com. Want to create your own customized home child care business plan that will increase your chances of success in the day care business? Visit http://www.startingdaycarebusiness.com for more details.

Setting expectations and laying out your rules is critical to your long term success. You have to be firm yet sensitive not to create tension. You will see the parent’s everyday and having a good ongoing relationship is key. Remember that this is your daycare, your house, your business so don’t be shy when it comes time to laying down the law. You have to be firm and okay with hurting people’s feelings once in a while.

For example, late pickups, late checks and rules with sick kids were an ongoing issue for me.

An Example

One of my longest term parents, who I had a great relationship with, and cared for their boy for almost my entire 3 year career were lackadaisical with paying and picking up their boy on time. My cutoff was at 6:00. The wife was a successful doctor and the husband a pharmaceutical salesman who had the job of both picking up and dropping off their child. I rarely ever saw the wife.

The late checks where annoying but I knew they were good for it and the dad was just disorganized and simply forgot. However the late pickups where terrible and for me far worse than the checks coming in 2 or 3 days late. After a long day, I wanted my break and to get all of the kids out of my house. Those 10 or 20 minutes of watching the clock really burned me.

Just about every time he was late he was really sorry and just mentioned traffic and the doctors he calls, will sometimes only see him at the end of the day, etc. I had no idea how to handle this. I didn’t want to do the $1 per minute thing that the daycare centers sometime do. But, I didn’t want this just to go on and on and he was late about once per week.

I did mention the $1 late thing, that, by the way was in my contract, and he was annoyed. I tried to reason with him and though he understood he just could not promise that he would be on time every day due to his job. In a way I appreciated his honesty though I didn’t like what he was telling me. He presented his “case” almost like a take it or leave it and that he would be late – there was nothing he could do to change it.

One late Friday night, spurred the climax of this issue. It was a beautiful evening and we we’re planning on meeting some friends for dinner and he was a full 30 minutes late! which put us back considerably. This was towards my “retirement” and I was getting really burned out. Out of desperation, I called his wife to try to reason with her. She of course had no idea this was going on as he had not told her a thing (she worked something like 80 hours a week). She freaked and apparently, as my husband’s says “dropped the hammer” on him.

He and I where never the same and though they did stick around our relationship was badly bruised as I think he felt betrayed that I “tattled” on him. And despite the drama, he was still late about once a week or so, but would no longer apologize.

Maybe I should have done the late fee, maybe not. They were good customers, all in all and their boy was excellent. He was such a little angel. He was a very happy child that really took to me and the rest of the children. Had he been high maintenance I would have been more firm and charged the fee though I would have lost them as a client. So, despite getting walked on a little bit I still think I did the right thing.

Tania Rauth. Author of “Start Daycare – Develop Twitch” More information on running a daycare at starting a daycare or how to run a daycare or opening a daycare.

Just in case.

As a new budding entrepreneur, you’re going to encounter a lot of new challenges daily with your daycare center. Protecting yourself from risk, exposure or any liability is a must for you. This will definitely add to your peace of mind as the business owner. Your insurance can cover everything from property damage to child injury. Why should you wait until something like it happens before you get any sort of protection?

There are several kinds of insurance that you need as a daycare owner. The following are the basic types of insurance that you will need as a new business owner and day care operator.

Business insurance – First and foremost, your day care is a business. Getting business insurance will protect you from future losses, as well as protect your future or current employees. Insuring your business protects your investments and in the long run, protects you.

Fire, accident and other basic insurance – These are the kinds of insurance you would get for yourself to protect your home or place of business. Don’t worry; there are many insurance agencies that include this with basic business packages and other special types of insurance.

Daycare Liability Insurance – Your insurance company may cover this as part of your business insurance or separately. The type of insurance that you’d want to get depends on the kind of day care that you own. Don’t be afraid to shop around for the best kind of insurance for you. Your daycare liability insurance will cover everything from loss, bodily injury, even possible legal costs in the future. General liability will normally cover everything from child care, field trips and even child abuse allegations. Daycare liability differs for home daycare centers and commercial daycare centers. Ask your insurance provider now how you can get the best deal from your current coverage.

Errors and Omissions Insurance – This type of insurance gives you maximum coverage for your daycare center. Errors and Omissions is the type of insurance that covers negligence, personal injury, field trips, $50,000-$100,000 for unforeseen circumstances and even medical expenses for the children in your care, including clauses for accidents and accidental death.

These are the basic types of daycare insurance that you should get. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t neglect other areas of insurance, even simple things like auto insurance. These can go a long way towards helping you in the future. Talk to different insurance providers about possible packages and requirements you need to have. Different types of insurance have different requirements and these may vary, depending on where you live. Getting coverage is one way for you to guarantee that you’ll stay in business no matter what happens. That’s one reason to send out your check every month. At the very least, you’ll know that if a crisis comes, you’ll be ready and waiting.

See: How to start a daycare.

Dolson McArt – Author of: Kinds Of Insurance That You Need As A Daycare Owner
Contributing to EzineArticles.com since March 2007.

If you’re anything like me, who has a vague idea of organization and planning, this can be a daunting process. What business plan? Can’t I just wing it? Of course you can, but even people who wing it have a plan in the back of their heads.

A business plan is simply an outline for what you want your business to become. My father makes business plans for everything-even his garden. That’s going a bit overboard, but you get the picture. It’s a bit like a rough guide for you. If this is the first time, start simple and follow these tips to make your day care the one most talked about in the block.

See a need, fill a need. Familiar? This is great advice from Mr. Bigweld in the animated movie Robots. Find a need that you can fill in your neighborhood or community.

Incorporate your passion. Do you like to do crafts, paint, draw or sing? This can be something valuable that you can combine with your day care for a unique spin on child care. Take your day care kids beyond finger painting.

Get people to chip in. Ask around; see what people want from their neighborhood day care. Cheaper prices? Better care, longer hours? This can possibly give rise to great idea. For example, if a lot of the parents in your neighborhood can’t drive the hour to your day care, why not provide a day care pick up like a school bus or van?

Logo, motto and mission. Create a logo, motto and have a mission that will get people to remember you. This can help fix your business plan as well. Your motto and mission will determine the scope of your day care, as well as contribute to any ideas that you might have in the future.

Plan the small things. Think about how you want to run your day care. What time will you open? What time will you close? Think of what programs you can use. Plan your menus and activities. Plan the big things. Where do you want your business to be in a year? In two years? Do you want to start small and work your way up or try it all for a one time, big deal thing? Set a goal. Do you want to be the biggest day care center in your state by the year 2010? It can be as big as that or you can simply say: I want the kids to love going to my day care center.

Be flexible because no matter how you plan things, you have to have some breathing room for yourself and your business.

A business plan is like your battle strategy, without the giant world map and little pins stuck in various places. Having your business plan can help you immensely, even just with the little things. Take some time, have a cup of coffee or tea and sit down to write it out. You’ll be amazed at what you can come up with.

Learn more: Start a daycare business

Dolson McArt – Author of: Business Plan And Ideas For Starting A Daycare Business

It really depends on how much money they will gain in this kind of business; there are lots of considerations that should be made in putting up a daycare. If you’re wise enough you’ll consider having a feasibility study before entering this kind of business. Always remember that in just one critical decision it could make or break your plans it putting up a daycare.

You should have considered things before starting up this kind of business; you don’t want to have regrets in the end when you did not succeed. Strong and solid foundation makes this business a success. Think of a strategy on how will you market your daycare, the location on where you will build the daycare, ask if it is accessible, or is it convenient to your target market?

Government permits and forms makes your business eligible, this will help your business known to the public and recognizes the legality of your business. Ask the experts whenever possible, you don’t want to waste money, and don’t be afraid in investing in gaining knowledge, this would be the one of the keys that will help you fulfill in earning much money in a daycare.

When everything is all set up, try to oversee and think of something that will make your daycare different from the others, think of something new or any add on services that you can apply on your daycare, like a one stop shop; in this way it can increase your income. Promos on the opening day will be a good start. And you should also consider customer satisfaction, by giving quality service. Ask customer’s feedback if possible, so that you have the idea on how to satisfy them without sacrificing daycare’s income.

After all of this, you will see a win-win situation, satisfying customer and at the same time increasing daycare’s income every month. As long as you have happy customers you’ll have a strong foundation of the business. And if you have a strong foundation, money will be just easy to come in to your pocket.

See: How to start a daycare center

Dolson McArt – Author of: How Much Money Can a Daycare Make?
Contributing to EzineArticles.com since March 2007

Before one starts a children’s daycare operation some legal requirements need to be researched. Most states do not exercise any jurisdiction over caring for small groups of children in ones home. However, if one is considering supervising more than three or four children chances are there are legal requirements that must be incorporated in the operation of the daycare services. To play it on the safe side check your local government listings online or in the phone book for the Child Care Licensing agency in your area.

Whether you go large or stay small as a children’s daycare provider it would be prudent to enroll in a Pediatric first aid course. Courses like this share sound advice and knowledge on how to handle (God Forbid) any medical emergencies that could happen to the children in your care. Check with your local fire department also on where to receive CPR training too. Kids will be kids and like it or not are subject to behaving foolishly. Once these first priorities are attended to its time to sit down and list other things that should be done before opening your new daycare business.

Anyone seriously considering on starting a children’s daycare should have a lot of hands on experience supervising young children. They should be fully aware of how important it is to childproof a home. To protect children from themselves certain precautions should be taken. Make sure to have electrical outlet covers. Child proof latches should be installed on any cabinet or storage area doors that a child can reach. Staircases should be blocked with a secured to the wall gate. Even the toilet lid can be a potential problem.. Safety latches for toilet seats are available. Do some shopping at some of your local home improvement retailers and you’ll find they often carry many items designed to help childproof your children’s daycare premises.

Now we all know children only care about the important things in life like, I want a cookie, and playing. This is probably the greatest challenge a children’s daycare owner faces. Be sure to have plenty of safe outdoor playground equipment available and an assortment of different size balls to play with. Small hand toys, crayons and paper, Play Doe, coloring books, children’s videos and music are a necessity to have on hand. And if you’re going to feed them be sure to have booster seats, high chairs, and easy to clean unbreakable plates and cups. Also create a fun daily routine the children follow. A good children’s daycare operation doesn’t happen by accident.

Once the legal requirements, child proofing, and supplies are done with its time to advertise to the world a new and great children’s daycare is in town. Doing this isn’t too difficult a matter. One can place a small ad in a local newspaper, hand out fliers, or post signs around town. Be prepared to answer all inquiries questions. First impressions are very important. Sounding professional is going to make parents feel more secure in placing their children into a strangers custody. In time if you’ve done your job right as a children’s childcare provider word of mouth will fill in any openings that may appear. Need a few more bucks and like children then there is hardly a business out there to be engaged in that will satisfy as much as being the proud owner of a children’s daycare facility.

Phillip Rodgers is new to the writing arena. Even though he has no formal training he has proven himself to be a serious contender over more seasoned freelancers. He is the owner and webmaster of http://www.I-Like-Writing.com