Starting up with family daycare - experiences?

After sulking all morning about being broke I have started thinking about family daycare as an option for extra money without having extra pressure on me to head back to work too soon after monkey is born.

We will be moving into a house soon that would be very good for FDC - and I have researched all the ins and outs of setting up.

I would love some personal experiences from people that have done this before - the pro's and con's, whether it's actually worth it (money wise and stress wise) in the end, and stuff like that.

I would love to be able to stay home and I think having 4 under school age children would be perfect for me.

Thanks!!

I first started FDC in 1995 when my Ds1 was almost 3yrs old. I'm still at it now 17yrs later. I think I enjoy it, most of the time. There are areas - like any job - that sometimes are just too much. For me, I found I hated to be away from my son, for me it was the perfect option, I was able to contribute to our weekly bills/income and still be with my child. I did give up for a couple of years when I fell pg with Ds2 and had a threatened m/c. At that time my pg was more important - it had taken 3yrs plus fertility treatment to get him.

Money wise. It would depend on what you need to earn and how much you were going to charge - you would have your own child counted in that ratio (once bub is born) so it will be only income for 3, unless you take on school aged children. For us, my working from home has been quite profitable, I probably wouldn't earn as much going out working somewhere else and still finding child care. But I work long hours - at the moment around 50hrs per week, plus the hours before and after doing other parts of the job. I've been here for my boys and now my daughter before they started school and once they started to see them off of a morning and be here when they get home. We managed to go from renting at the beginning, to buying our own house, which would have been paid off (within 13 years), except I decided we needed to extend so probably another 10years on our loan.

It's a lot of hard work, and it does take time from your family - but so does any other job.

Why not phone around a few schemes, get some information and make your decision from there. Ask if you can speak to educators in your area. You also don't have to go with the first scheme you talk to. Often you will find there are a few in your area.

Hi there I notice that you live in Brisbane both C&K and Lady Gowry have family day care schemes both are not for profit organizations

thanks so much for the replies!

Mollycat - I love the idea of staying home with the baby when it arrives. I'm thinking that I won't actually start until after the birth and I'm feeling in control with everything again. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.

Melm - thanks for the tip - I actually didn't realise there were different schemes that services the same areas so I'll definitely look them up!


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there's also a new scheme in qld, not sure if they reach your area - kids at home, I think they're called. They are based further north, but have educators on gold coast/brisbane (I think).

Another thing to think about is how much area you have. The ideal way is to have a room/area you can close off at the end of the day (my dream), a lot do, but not everyone and in reality it doesn't really matter. It's just good to be able to close the door behind you at the end of the day and go home from work. I find we live in the middle of day care, we're always surrounded.

I took around 9 weeks off when I had DD and really wish I could have afforded to take longer. At times I feel she has missed out on that mummy/daughter time, but she knows no different and loves having her friends "home" each day. She will actually sing out when she sees their cars (X home) using their names. there are a couple of fb pages if you want to search for them and ask other opinions as well as another site child care network

Kids at Home does operate in Brisbane.
Also East Brisbane Community Centre and Centacare, although I think they are Logan only.