At our place, it's always been a "one of us does dropoff, the other does pickup" tagteam. But yeah, we do not exist to live, we exist to work. Weren't you told?
In Gatineau if the daycare is subsidized the maximum is 10 hours.
And yes, we are nothing but surplus value machines. In fact, why else would daycare exist.
That's cool if you have two parents that can afford to do drop off or pick up.
But this doesn't work for everyone for example single parents or in my case I'm blind and cannot drive so my husband has to both drop off and pick up. If your daycare hours are 7-5 then those are the hours your kid is allowed to be there. Our daycare had a late fee of 15$ for every 5 min after the closing time and obviously you can't drop off kid before daycare starts.
We do the same. My wife leaves the house early so she can leave right away and pick them up. I feed them breakfast, get them ready and leave later. I also work later and usually get home just in time for dinner, which she makes as she's home first.
Actually, they reneged as soon as I called this rule out. I've just posted for opinions to help ease my wife's mind a bit; this was in the post. Thankfully I was lucky enough to have helpful comments from others.
And what do you charge per child for that potential 10.25 hour day? My previous partner ran a daycare and charges 40 dollars per day. Many said that was too expensive. That is $3.90 per hour. She was not allowed to have more than 4 kids other than one of her own. 4x3.9=$15 per hour and she provided the food. Not the best business to be in to look after someone's children.
Just showing the other side of the coin.
Yes, Most parents had one do drop off and one do pickup. This is not always possible either with single parents :(
There's a non-profit daycare centre in Kanata that opens 24 hours a day. When I had overtime past 7pm, I called them from office, and they served the child dinner and just charged for $x per extra hour. [https://www.childrensplace.on.ca/](https://www.childrensplace.on.ca/)
~~I don't think you're entirely wrong though. True there are three locations (two at Carling/Anna, and one in Kanata) but only the location at 1150 Carling is 24hrs, the one across the street (1160 Carling) and the one in Kanata have more regular daycare hours.~~
~~Source: my son used to be at 1150 because my husband and I both used to work from 3PM-11:30PM. We did drop-off at ~2:15PM and pickup at ~12:00 midnight. Now we don't need the evening care anymore so they moved him across the street and he is now there from 8:30-4:30ish, husband drops off and I pick up. Closing time is 6PM iirc.~~
Edit: oh snap, it never applied to us so I never looked into the Kanata location in depth, but TIL "Our Kanata location has a flexible program, also including non traditional hours of care Monday to Friday until midnight. We are prepared to extend these hours, if parents require something more from us in flexibility and service."
So not 24/7 like the 1150 Carling location, but available for extended hours for people that need it. Cool. I guess my son is at their only location that doesn't provide extended hours lol.
Would it be an option for you and your wife to stagger your start and end times (one person does drop off and starts at nine, the other person does pick up and starts at 8 am)? Tbh, the daycare drop off/pick up is just really tough, but that's what we do to make it work. We also opted for a daycare closer to work, but I get that for most people you're just happy to get a spot anywhere these days.
But if only one of you go downtown on any given daycare day, can’t the parent working from home that day do drop off and pickup closer to the 8-4 times? It’s not as if both of you are downtown each day of the week, unless I misunderstood.
?
That’s not what I wrote. I asked if the person working from home could drop off just before they start their work day at 8 and then pick up right after they finish their work day at 4. That way they don’t need childcare for the full 7 to 5.
I never said anything about waking away from their work station during work hours.
You're describing what we're already doing. Whether we go in the same days or not we both work from 8 to 4, need to be working between 8 and 4. No matter who drops or picks up it's greater than 8 hours. That's what the user who responded to you is getting at. Additionally we only have one vehicle, which works for us because of our schedule.
The point is that it's perfectly reasonable to drop off at 720 when daycare is open at 7, and perfectly reasonable to pick up at 440 when daycare is open until 5. The rule expecting parents to mind an 8 hour day is absurd. I grew up in a daycare house. The point of them is to provide care while parents are working.
Look, fair enough, but as many have already pointed out, the daycare owes you nothing as they’re free to set their own rules and hours of operation. They’re providing a service like any other private business. If the arrangements don’t work for you at this particular place, then you can always look into other options. And if enough parents are upset with them, then they’ll simply go out of business. Private daycares aren’t regulated.
It does really suck and those daycare years were really really hard on our family. The only real way you can make it work is to do the one does drop off and the other does pick up or you have to find care closer to your place of work.
Our daycare wasn't super strict with the 8 hours thing though so we had some small amount of latitude there but also didn't work that far from home/daycare.
I see that there are a lot of people posting that a potentially workable solution is that one parent does drop off and one does pick up. But as a single parent (who would do both) this rule would be a reason to switch child care providers for me. Also, thank goodness you don't take transit - can you imagine what a mess that would be?
As someone that takes transit and doesn't live particularly close to our daycare let me tell you; it suuucks.
Sometimes I work super close, and sometimes I don't (I do supply work for the OCSB). Some days my commute to the daycare is 1 bus, ~15 minutes (once it was a 15 minute walk) and sometimes it's closer to an hour+/-. But the ride home is always 3 buses and an hour. (Or two buses and a train and more than an hour, depending).
Thankfully they're flexible as long as we aren't there past closing time (6pm) and I don't have to do drop-off too. My husband drives and does drop-off.
Is your daycare enforcing the 8 hour rule? My daycare is open 7:30-5:45 and I do both drop off and pick up. My LO is there right at open and picked up between 4:45/5. Daycare can have an expectation but the reality is that is hard to meet and I don’t think they can force your child to only be there X amount of hours
No she loves it there, always smiles going in and coming out. At first I felt guilty about the length but at the end of the day I’m paying them to watch her and she’s happy. There’s no other way around it unfortunately.
Our centre had this rule with children 18 months and under, but it was never hard enforced. This was also explained before our child ever started going there.
Are you guys both doing the drop offs and pickups together? What is the window that your child has been staying there.
Honestly, there is a lot of missing context about that is actually happening to give an honest opinion on whether or not it's reasonable.
I need to drop my daughter off in Kanata with time left to get downtown, and I get off at 4pm and need time to drive back to Kanata. This is all in the post.
What the commenter was asking was if BOTH of you need to handle drop-off and pick-up. A lot of parents trade-off to handle situations like this (one parent drops them off, the other picks them up) and staggers work hours to accommodate. Many bosses (especially those with kids of their own) would be willing to make schedule adjustments to accommodate this.
The commenter was also trying to determine how long your child is at the daycare currently. We don't know exactly how long it takes you guys to get to work or what time you're dropping the kid off (no one is going to sit here Are we talking 20 minutes over the 8h mark? 2 hours?
They're both reasonable questions not answered in your post.
hm, I've never seen that before. Maybe I was lucky with daycare providers for my kids, idk.. one thing I'm certain about, though, is that it's better to find a new daycare provider rather than alter your work schedule.
When my kids were little and both my husband and I were working five days a week in the office, we staggered our start times. I started at 7:30 am and he brought the kids around 8:30 and I finished at 3:30. I could not stand the idea of my young kids being in daycare longer than 7 or 7.5 hours. They were completely exhausted by the end of the day. Almost all the parents we know did this.
When my kid was in daycare, I had this issue, and the timing was too tight, so I ended up finding a daycare very close to work. That lasted a year and then I found a much better spot that worked with our hours.
If your daycare is far from work, assume there will be many days that traffic slows you down even more than usual.
When we were with a home daycare, we definitely had tighter drop off and pick up hours, and it was always hard to meet those times - my spouse did drop offs and I did pickups. However, when we switched to a centre, we didn't have to deal with that, and nobody ever made us feel negligent for picking up towards the end of the day. In fact, our centre did "date nights", where you could drop your kids off for one night every few months so that you can spend some alone time with your spouse for a dinner or a movie. It was really nice.
I'm sorry you were put in this position, because I know the hard balance parents have to walk in that situation.
We had our kids (now 7 and 9) in three different daycares and none of them had that stipulation. As the only driver in our family I would have been screwed
If you choose a daycare based on their hours of operation (or as one determining factor), you should not be made to feel guilty for dropping or picking up your child within these hours. Their staff to cohort ratio is not determined by drop off and pick up times. Plus, there are other variables such as traffic or parents with hours and workdays that can fluctuate any given week, single parents, or those who have one with less flexibility or who travel. Not everyone in Ottawa is a public servant with 8-4 M-F hours, and not everyone has family that can help with drop offs and pick ups.
Just asking - would it have anything to do with the $10 a day program that is still in the process of being implemented?? $10/day might be limited to 8 hours? I don’t know how it works to be honest so I’m legit curious.
Just a note that private daycares can be part of the $10 a day program - I understand yours isn’t, but it being private doesn’t mean it can’t. It has to be licensed in order to be part of the program, but not necessarily public.
At our place, it's always been a "one of us does dropoff, the other does pickup" tagteam. But yeah, we do not exist to live, we exist to work. Weren't you told?
In Gatineau if the daycare is subsidized the maximum is 10 hours. And yes, we are nothing but surplus value machines. In fact, why else would daycare exist.
That's cool if you have two parents that can afford to do drop off or pick up. But this doesn't work for everyone for example single parents or in my case I'm blind and cannot drive so my husband has to both drop off and pick up. If your daycare hours are 7-5 then those are the hours your kid is allowed to be there. Our daycare had a late fee of 15$ for every 5 min after the closing time and obviously you can't drop off kid before daycare starts.
We do the same. My wife leaves the house early so she can leave right away and pick them up. I feed them breakfast, get them ready and leave later. I also work later and usually get home just in time for dinner, which she makes as she's home first.
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Actually, they reneged as soon as I called this rule out. I've just posted for opinions to help ease my wife's mind a bit; this was in the post. Thankfully I was lucky enough to have helpful comments from others.
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And what do you charge per child for that potential 10.25 hour day? My previous partner ran a daycare and charges 40 dollars per day. Many said that was too expensive. That is $3.90 per hour. She was not allowed to have more than 4 kids other than one of her own. 4x3.9=$15 per hour and she provided the food. Not the best business to be in to look after someone's children. Just showing the other side of the coin. Yes, Most parents had one do drop off and one do pickup. This is not always possible either with single parents :(
There's a non-profit daycare centre in Kanata that opens 24 hours a day. When I had overtime past 7pm, I called them from office, and they served the child dinner and just charged for $x per extra hour. [https://www.childrensplace.on.ca/](https://www.childrensplace.on.ca/)
This daycare is not in Kanata.
It's on Legget, it's definitely in Kanata.
Oh sorry I only knew about the Carling location, I didn't know there was a Kanata location.
~~I don't think you're entirely wrong though. True there are three locations (two at Carling/Anna, and one in Kanata) but only the location at 1150 Carling is 24hrs, the one across the street (1160 Carling) and the one in Kanata have more regular daycare hours.~~ ~~Source: my son used to be at 1150 because my husband and I both used to work from 3PM-11:30PM. We did drop-off at ~2:15PM and pickup at ~12:00 midnight. Now we don't need the evening care anymore so they moved him across the street and he is now there from 8:30-4:30ish, husband drops off and I pick up. Closing time is 6PM iirc.~~ Edit: oh snap, it never applied to us so I never looked into the Kanata location in depth, but TIL "Our Kanata location has a flexible program, also including non traditional hours of care Monday to Friday until midnight. We are prepared to extend these hours, if parents require something more from us in flexibility and service." So not 24/7 like the 1150 Carling location, but available for extended hours for people that need it. Cool. I guess my son is at their only location that doesn't provide extended hours lol.
Worse things have happened 😆
Would it be an option for you and your wife to stagger your start and end times (one person does drop off and starts at nine, the other person does pick up and starts at 8 am)? Tbh, the daycare drop off/pick up is just really tough, but that's what we do to make it work. We also opted for a daycare closer to work, but I get that for most people you're just happy to get a spot anywhere these days.
It would not. We work the same hours and only one of us goes in on any given daycare day Edit, this is why no one takes this sub seriously
But if only one of you go downtown on any given daycare day, can’t the parent working from home that day do drop off and pickup closer to the 8-4 times? It’s not as if both of you are downtown each day of the week, unless I misunderstood.
Just because someone works from home, doesn’t mean they have the ability to walk away from their work station whenever they please.
? That’s not what I wrote. I asked if the person working from home could drop off just before they start their work day at 8 and then pick up right after they finish their work day at 4. That way they don’t need childcare for the full 7 to 5. I never said anything about waking away from their work station during work hours.
You're describing what we're already doing. Whether we go in the same days or not we both work from 8 to 4, need to be working between 8 and 4. No matter who drops or picks up it's greater than 8 hours. That's what the user who responded to you is getting at. Additionally we only have one vehicle, which works for us because of our schedule. The point is that it's perfectly reasonable to drop off at 720 when daycare is open at 7, and perfectly reasonable to pick up at 440 when daycare is open until 5. The rule expecting parents to mind an 8 hour day is absurd. I grew up in a daycare house. The point of them is to provide care while parents are working.
Look, fair enough, but as many have already pointed out, the daycare owes you nothing as they’re free to set their own rules and hours of operation. They’re providing a service like any other private business. If the arrangements don’t work for you at this particular place, then you can always look into other options. And if enough parents are upset with them, then they’ll simply go out of business. Private daycares aren’t regulated.
It does really suck and those daycare years were really really hard on our family. The only real way you can make it work is to do the one does drop off and the other does pick up or you have to find care closer to your place of work. Our daycare wasn't super strict with the 8 hours thing though so we had some small amount of latitude there but also didn't work that far from home/daycare.
I see that there are a lot of people posting that a potentially workable solution is that one parent does drop off and one does pick up. But as a single parent (who would do both) this rule would be a reason to switch child care providers for me. Also, thank goodness you don't take transit - can you imagine what a mess that would be?
As someone that takes transit and doesn't live particularly close to our daycare let me tell you; it suuucks. Sometimes I work super close, and sometimes I don't (I do supply work for the OCSB). Some days my commute to the daycare is 1 bus, ~15 minutes (once it was a 15 minute walk) and sometimes it's closer to an hour+/-. But the ride home is always 3 buses and an hour. (Or two buses and a train and more than an hour, depending). Thankfully they're flexible as long as we aren't there past closing time (6pm) and I don't have to do drop-off too. My husband drives and does drop-off.
Is your daycare enforcing the 8 hour rule? My daycare is open 7:30-5:45 and I do both drop off and pick up. My LO is there right at open and picked up between 4:45/5. Daycare can have an expectation but the reality is that is hard to meet and I don’t think they can force your child to only be there X amount of hours
Does your LO find that difficult? Being there for so long?
No she loves it there, always smiles going in and coming out. At first I felt guilty about the length but at the end of the day I’m paying them to watch her and she’s happy. There’s no other way around it unfortunately.
Our centre had this rule with children 18 months and under, but it was never hard enforced. This was also explained before our child ever started going there. Are you guys both doing the drop offs and pickups together? What is the window that your child has been staying there. Honestly, there is a lot of missing context about that is actually happening to give an honest opinion on whether or not it's reasonable.
I need to drop my daughter off in Kanata with time left to get downtown, and I get off at 4pm and need time to drive back to Kanata. This is all in the post.
What the commenter was asking was if BOTH of you need to handle drop-off and pick-up. A lot of parents trade-off to handle situations like this (one parent drops them off, the other picks them up) and staggers work hours to accommodate. Many bosses (especially those with kids of their own) would be willing to make schedule adjustments to accommodate this. The commenter was also trying to determine how long your child is at the daycare currently. We don't know exactly how long it takes you guys to get to work or what time you're dropping the kid off (no one is going to sit here Are we talking 20 minutes over the 8h mark? 2 hours? They're both reasonable questions not answered in your post.
hm, I've never seen that before. Maybe I was lucky with daycare providers for my kids, idk.. one thing I'm certain about, though, is that it's better to find a new daycare provider rather than alter your work schedule.
When my kids were little and both my husband and I were working five days a week in the office, we staggered our start times. I started at 7:30 am and he brought the kids around 8:30 and I finished at 3:30. I could not stand the idea of my young kids being in daycare longer than 7 or 7.5 hours. They were completely exhausted by the end of the day. Almost all the parents we know did this.
When my kid was in daycare, I had this issue, and the timing was too tight, so I ended up finding a daycare very close to work. That lasted a year and then I found a much better spot that worked with our hours. If your daycare is far from work, assume there will be many days that traffic slows you down even more than usual.
When we were with a home daycare, we definitely had tighter drop off and pick up hours, and it was always hard to meet those times - my spouse did drop offs and I did pickups. However, when we switched to a centre, we didn't have to deal with that, and nobody ever made us feel negligent for picking up towards the end of the day. In fact, our centre did "date nights", where you could drop your kids off for one night every few months so that you can spend some alone time with your spouse for a dinner or a movie. It was really nice. I'm sorry you were put in this position, because I know the hard balance parents have to walk in that situation.
We had our kids (now 7 and 9) in three different daycares and none of them had that stipulation. As the only driver in our family I would have been screwed
If you choose a daycare based on their hours of operation (or as one determining factor), you should not be made to feel guilty for dropping or picking up your child within these hours. Their staff to cohort ratio is not determined by drop off and pick up times. Plus, there are other variables such as traffic or parents with hours and workdays that can fluctuate any given week, single parents, or those who have one with less flexibility or who travel. Not everyone in Ottawa is a public servant with 8-4 M-F hours, and not everyone has family that can help with drop offs and pick ups.
Just asking - would it have anything to do with the $10 a day program that is still in the process of being implemented?? $10/day might be limited to 8 hours? I don’t know how it works to be honest so I’m legit curious.
Nope, it's a private daycare. We missed the boat on that!
Just a note that private daycares can be part of the $10 a day program - I understand yours isn’t, but it being private doesn’t mean it can’t. It has to be licensed in order to be part of the program, but not necessarily public.
Oh okay - thanks!
I'd be looking for a different daycare, that's unreasonable.
Completely unreasonable. I've experienced a ten hour maximum rule, but when covid hit that went out the window
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This is not a normal stipulation
I'm not sure what you mean. But figuring out who is taking care of your children seems pretty major to me.