Once you start thinking about opening a home daycare facility, you may be asking yourself which will be better for you and your family, a small daycare home or a large daycare home.  If you are new to home daycare, I always recommend that you start small, make sure this is really what you want to do, and then add on later.  By starting small you can practice your policies and procedures, work with a smaller number of parent and children, test your rates, and so many other things.  Once you are comfortable with your new business and how you want to run it, then add on.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in most states there are several different licensing requirements between the two.  In the state that I live in, a small daycare home isn’t required to hire a helper; with a large daycare home you are.  That can be a headache in itself.  Is your helper going to be reliable and in attendance everyday?  How will you pay them?  Will the cost of having to pay someone a full-time wage really increase your profit margin or will it turn out to be about the same in the long run as having a small daycare home?  What changes will you need to make to your home?  In the state that I live in, we have to provide our clients with on-site,  paved parking with 5 parking slots in addition to parking for staff.  This can be very expensive, plus how many people really have the extra room on their property for a parking lot?  I know I didn’t.

If you are really wanting to take your small daycare home to a large daycare home or start out with a large daycare home, I highly recommend that you study your states requirements to make sure that this is something that you really want to do.  Then be sure and research how much it will initially cost you as well as what it is going to cost you in the long run.  Will it really be worth it for you?  If you come to the conclusion that going larger is for you, I think that is wonderful!  It wasn’t something that was going to work for me.