DH and I own two daycare nursery businesses in SW London. Both have been opened for a few months and are gradually filling. We take children from 18 months to five years and offer full daycare from 8 - 6pm at £40 per day for all ages. If a full week of daycare is booked we charge £160 per week, which is effectively a 'buy four get fifth free' deal. Sessions (5 hours) are £25. We provide free nappies and suncream and a two course home-cooked organic meal, plus snacks.
Our prices work out at: £4 per hour for a full day, £3.20 per hour for a full week and £5 per hour for sessional care.
We have a parent who wanted to book two hours care for her two daughters for three days a week. As we are a new nursery and have places we said yes. This was done with the understanding that as the nursery fills and we have parents wanting to book the full five hour sessions, we would require that she books the full five hour sessions for her daughters. Once this was established she then asked to pay £3.20 per hour for each child, we explained that the £3.20 per hour fee was the discounted fee for those booking a full week's care and that the sessional rate was £5. She's now decided that she wants to book the two hours from 11am - 1pm. Effectively she is booking her children in for lunch each time. DH and I feel that a child attending for a two hour session should be provided with a snack, children attending for a full session or a full day would require a proper meal. Once we've deducted salaries, overheads and organic ingredients we are barely making any profit from her £60 per week total fees. We're trying to run an ethical nursery and have tried to help out parents who are struggling, waived or staggered deposits etc. but we feel this is a bit cheeky. What do you think?