No you do not pay for my annual vacation, however,  to acquire a caregiver with 20 years experience, and a reliable quality program requires your understanding that I need regular time off as well. In my contract I have 7 paid annual/personal/sick days. I also take the days off between (and including) Christmas Eve and New Years Day with pay and all statuatory holidays. All other days,  annual vacations are taken unpaid by me. I will endeavor to supply a minimum of one month's notice of all leave consisting of 3 or more days, if at all possible. I do take two annual vacations, one in the spring, and one in the late summer.  These are scheduled now (see Rates and Hours of Operation Page) and should present no problem working around as you have plenty of time to make other arrangements.  You are not required to pay for these vacations so you may pay another caregiver, or take your own vacation and save a little money.

You are required to have reliable backup care in place in the event that I schedule time off. Please remember that in using home-based childcare that I am only one person, and I require regular time off for my family life, I regularly work a 50 hour(plus) week and some things simply *must* be scheduled during the working day. If this is not an option for you may I suggest the local daycare center as they have more staff, and can be open every business day.  Remember that a center will still send your child home for the sames things that I do, so you'll still be required to have emergency backup care for those days.

Should I choose Home Based Daycare or Center Based Daycare?

Home daycare is typically less expensive than a daycare center, but if you have no backup help (family, friends, other provider's) you may wind up using alot of your own time off to cover your child's illnesses, or my occasional need for time off. A daycare center is usually open every business day, except during bad weather (and now most of them close between Christmas and New Year's too.) The trade-off (in my opinion) for guaranteed care available every business day, at a center, is less personalized care for your child by staff that may be very young and inexperienced, with a high staff turnover rate. You will be required to pay approximately 25-40 percent or more per year to maintain this conveniene and they too have a strict illness policy, so you will still be required to find backup for the times when your child is ill.

If however you want your child to have a very personalized, family style daycare experience in their early years, with a mature proven caregiver, having nearly 20 years experience in the childcare field then my daycare may be the place for you. With all the studies about bonding with a primary caregiver in the first years of life, I personally think a home environment is the way to go for preschool age children. They will have enough time for large group setting when they reach school age, which comes all too quickly!