The Daycare Sisters

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. We are tackling your home daycare questions in this latest episode. Get real advice on managing parent expectations and burnout. Being an in-home daycare provider can feel isolating, especially when you are balancing business needs with the demands of parenting. We are opening up the listener voicemail line to a...

Dealing with daycare critics? We're answering your voicemails about cameras, the 'babysitting' label, and provider boundaries. Being an in-home daycare provider can feel isolating, especially when family members or parents dismiss your hard work as just babysitting. Today, we are opening up the listener voicemail line to tackle the tough questions you sent in. We’re discussing how to h...

Are small favors from parents impacting your daycare business? We are breaking down where to draw the line to protect your sanity. As home daycare providers, we often want to be helpful, but constant requests for little extras can quickly lead to burnout. In this episode, we talk about the difference between being a supportive partner to parents and overextending yourself to the point of exhaustio...

Thinking about installing cameras in daycare? We're breaking down the pros, cons, and reality for home providers. As home daycare providers, we constantly navigate the balance between transparency and our own privacy. It is easy to feel the pressure when parents ask for constant access, especially when our workplace is also our personal living space. We are talking about whether cameras in day...

Should you fight a licensing correction order? We’re breaking down how to handle surprise inspections and daycare stress. Getting a licensing correction order can feel like a direct hit to your confidence, especially when you’re already an isolated home daycare provider. We’re talking through the reality of visits that flag things that have passed for years, and whether it’s actually worth the fig...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Why are child care providers leaving the profession? We talk through a surprise correction order for paper clips and bobby pins, licensing cuts, empty enrollment spots, and whether we'd quit if we could. If you run a home daycare or family child care program and feel the pressure building, you're not alo...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Brandee and Erin answer three voicemails: a brand new daycare teacher who feels like she makes mistakes over and over, a Massachusetts provider comparing her playground and infant supervision rules to Minnesota's new ones, and a preschool teacher with a three year old who calmly flips and throws furniture. I...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. One of us lost five daycare kids in two weeks, four to kindergarten and one who only comes in summer, and almost half her income went with them. Same hours, longer days, smaller paycheck. This episode is what we actually do when that happens. If you run a home daycare or family child care program, this one is ab...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Brandee and Erin posted a short clip asking parents to pick their kids up by closing time. The comments turned into an argument between providers and parents. In this episode they read through what people actually said and talk about what respect looks like at the end of a daycare day. If you run a home daycare...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Summer is supposed to be the break that fixes everything. It is not. Brandee and Erin talk about late summer burnout in home daycare: the stretch where kids leave for kindergarten, the school calendar takes over, the licensor is coming, and the income drops right when the work feels heaviest. If you run a home d...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Linda Hopkins has run a home daycare in Indiana for 26 years. She started on Halloween day, grew from one child to 32 across a licensed duplex she built off her back door, and in a few months she will be running the daycare alone for the first time since she opened. In this conversation she talks about the burno...

For easier ways to listen: https://www. TheDaycareSisters.com Chatting About The New Minnesota Laws Part 2 — No More Microwaving Plastic Bottles Or Containers Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. This episode starts with a heavy topic. We talk about the murder-suicide at a Hopkins, Minnesota home daycare that took the life of provider Kristen Brown...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Minnesota's family child care licensing standards are being rewritten, and the new rules take effect July 1, 2027. Brandee and Erin read all 56 pages of Article 13 and pulled out the changes that will actually land on home daycare providers. This is part one. We get into capacity classes, training hours, out...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. For the first time on the podcast, Brandee and Erin sit down with a husband and wife team who run a licensed home daycare together in North Dakota. Twelve and a half years in, they have cut their hours twice, dropped curriculum entirely, and moved to a two day a week summer schedule that most providers assume fa...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Our first voicemail from a daycare parent, plus three provider questions we did not sugarcoat. A new provider two months in with a child who is cussing, breaking things, and throwing her cat. A provider with 10 kids whose parents keep saying they will come early and then do not. And a parent asking whether kids...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. We brought a microphone to the NAFCC National Annual Conference in Chicago and sat down with family child care providers from seven states. Ratios, curriculum, burnout, staffing, selling a program, and what they would tell someone opening their doors tomorrow. Heads up on the audio. We recorded these on an iPhon...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. We packed up the podcast and spent four days exhibiting at the NAFCC National Conference in Chicago, our first family child care conference ever. This is the full recap: the sweltering plane, one 30,000-step day of Chicago tourism, and what it was actually like to sit at a booth talking with providers, trainers,...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. A 15 year home daycare provider shares what she wishes new providers knew: how to write and actually enforce a contract, handle rough drop offs, and protect your own home and family. If you run a home daycare or family child care program, this conversation covers burnout, difficult parents, boundaries, play base...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Brandee and Erin answer the last two listener voicemails. A 64-year-old single mom runs her home daycare from a two-bedroom apartment and can't keep up with the toys, laundry, dishes, and late payments. A rural Minnesota provider with three young kids at home is deep in burnout and wants to quit, but won&#39...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. We will weigh in on the podcast, and so will the community. Your question could help thousands of providers. Rebekah spent 15 years in child care centers, most recently as a director, then opened a home daycare in the basement of her Maryland townhouse. She and Brandee get into small-space setup, running mixed ages from 14 months to 7 years, homeschooling her...

Leave us a voicemail at 651-300-2277. Your question could help thousands of providers. Brandee and Erin answer your voicemails: how to cope with caregiver overstimulation, what to do about a toddler who hits and bites, and how to terminate a daycare family when behavior becomes a safety problem. If you run a home daycare or family child care program, this one covers the hard parts nobody warns you...

She quit her home daycare, ran a childcare center for four years, then reopened the home daycare she had walked away from. In this episode, Brandee sits down with home daycare provider Jess to talk about burnout, boundaries, and why the grass wasn't greener. If you run a home daycare or family child care program, this one is about protecting your energy: shorter hours, real policies, picking t...

In this episode we cover how to balance a home daycare with family life without burning out, from simplifying meals to setting closing policies. We also get real about why almost nobody feels like they know what they're doing at first, and why that's okay. CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Intro and the loneliness of home daycare 00:00:54 Facebook milestone and the new voicemail line 00:02:18 Voicemail: b...

In this episode, we talk with Rush, owner of Poppins Daycare in New Orleans, about running a legally unlicensed, infant-only home daycare. We cover what it's like to move from Malaysia to start a daycare business, why she chose infants only, and how licensing works differently state to state. https://www.instagram.com/hostasister https://www.facebook.com/groups/hostasister If you run a home da...

In this episode, we get honest about the year we couldn't get it together. We talk burnout, mental load, brain fog, longer hours, and the pressure to do it all as a home daycare provider. If you run a home daycare or family child care program and you have felt forgetful, stretched thin, or like you are the only one struggling to keep up, this one is for you. You are not alone. The comedian Bra...