As a dayhome supervised by a licensed agency in Alberta, I  must follow all provincial safety and programming standards for licensed childcare, and I am in turn able to offer my families the benefit of government childcare affordability grants. My current full-time fees, including affordability grants, are as follows: 

Full time:   $326/month, with an optional supplemental food fee of $48.75/month 

Part Time:  $230/month with an optional supplemental food fee of $25/month

Drop In:  $70/day (not eligible for affordability grant fee reduction)

As an experienced family child care provider, I follow all Alberta Health Services and Licensing guidelines about health and safety, including current rules relating to providing childcare during communicable disease and respiratory illness outbreaks.

As a parent who has had a child in a daycare, I do know how frustrating and inconvenient it can be to have to miss work when your child is ill.

Here are my best suggestions to help parents keep their children healthy and avoid the frustration of sick days:

1)You can make sure that the children develop the habit of washing hands before and after meals, after toileting and diaper changes,after messy activities, after arriving home after outings, or after sharing toys with others.

2)You can make sure that your children eat well and get enough rest, especially when they are under the weather to start with. This can be hard to do when families are so busy these days!

3) You can consider avoiding large gatherings of children during the winter months when colds, influenza and gastrointestinal illnesses are going around, especially if your children are young enough to still put everything in their mouths.

4) Talk to your doctor about health concerns, illness prevention, and especially about vaccines.  Please consider getting  all the flu shots and vaccinations your family are eligible for.

5) If you have a nursing baby, you can consider continuing to nurse as long as possible - even part-time - to keep up the extra immune system benefits that breastmilk provides. As a childcare provider, I will always welcome and support breastfeeding families.

6) You can start your child in dayhome or daycare a few weeks before you need to go back to work to give your child's immune system time to adjust. My own daughter was sick for most of the first six weeks she was in daycare, but then the situation improved and lost time due to illness was much reduced.

There are no guarantees, but children often seem to have fewer illnesses in the small group situation of dayhomes than they do in daycares. I certainly found this to be true with my own.

It is vitally important that all parents using childcare have plan for how to manage care for a sick child BEFORE your child gets sick and have a backup child care plan in place BEFORE the morning you get that phone call that your dayhome provider is sick. Even daycares can close due to unexpected staff illnesses or shortages, as the pandemic experience has shown.

My top priority as a dayhome provider is the health and safety of the children in my care, as well as of my own family. I follow my training and child care licensing rules on proper sanitary procedures for diaper changing, medications, and food preparation at all times, and teach the children about handwashing, proper nutrition, and safety rules.

As a licensed dayhome provider, I can NOT administer medications to children unless provided by parents in the original container with all appropriate paperwork filled out.

If parents are administering new medications, including antibiotics,  herbals or homeopathics ,to their children prior to coming to the dayhome, parents must provide written notice of this to enable the provider to watch for any unusual effects or reactions. A text can suffice.