June 2015 Moms
fridaysdance
member
Odd daycare situation
fridaysdance
member
So, my husband is fed up with his job and is looking for another. They are making him miserable with additional responsibilities and constantly firing people for the most minor infractions. He's planning to stop working there soon and stay home with LO for a bit while he looks. This is actually a pretty great plan but I hate to lose her daycare spot and then try to get her back in. We can't afford it on just my salary if he may not be working for a while, but have to give 2 weeks notice if she's leaving daycare. He has a few leads on jobs but no idea how long the hiring process will take.
Any ideas how to handle daycare? There are few others near us and I just don't know what to do.
Any ideas how to handle daycare? There are few others near us and I just don't know what to do.
Re: Odd daycare situation
Or maybe not, I admittedly know very little about daycare. It just seems that this would be something they have dealt with before and have some kind of solution for. Maybe I'm too optimistic *shrugs*
Agree with this, for two reasons. One: i was once laid off and it is very difficult to explain to a potential future employer why you don't currently have a job. And during the recession, being laid off was a good excuse. "i just didn't like it there, so i jumped ship without having another job lined up" doesn't tend to go over well with employers. Regardless of whether this is the case, it makes a person sound like they handle stress poorly, and are likely to just walk away from a job if they don't care for it, rather than try to improve things. Even if his reasons are very good, he will likely sound like he's complaining about his prior job if he explains them, and that does not go over well in an interview.
Two: It is going to be very difficult for him to go on job interviews if he is providing care for your child on a daily basis. Do you have other family or friends nearby that can come, potentially on short notice, to watch your daughter when he lands interviews? If you are unemployed and get an interview offer, the interviewer is unlikely to want to negotiate about a time and place for the interview to happen - it's a lot more likely that they want it to be ASAP and at their own convenience, especially if they know that the interviewee doesn't have an existing job to fall back on as a scheduling excuse.
Regarding daycare, i would ask them about it - some of them will work with you to pay a fee or just a percentage of the weekly rate to hold a spot. I have friends that are teachers, and several of them have payment plans like this worked out for over the summer when they don't have to work. Some pay 50% of the weekly rate, others pay a flat $100 weekly holding fee. My daycare doesn't do this (we asked because we went out of town for 2 weeks over the holidays, but no such luck), but several of them do.
That ssid, our daycare charges $75/week to hold a spot, so that would be a worthwhile conversation to have.
And like PP said, it's not super easy to take care of LO while writing cover letters, doing applications, and going to interviews at the drop of a hat.
Re: daycare holding the spot...good freaking luck! This daycare thing is a racket, I only need daycare 2 days a week and everywhere near me was FT only and you paid full rate even if you gave advance notice of a 2 week vacation. If they have a wait list I think it'll be hard to get them to hold the spot while you aren't paying for her to go. I hope it works out for you though.
BFP #1 12/23/13 MMC 01/24/14 @ 9w5days
That said, if he truly wants to stay at home dad it for a while, like at least 6 months, and that fits your budget, definitely do that...but in that case you'd probably need to quit and then restart at daycare.