Problems with the Child Minder

[dixia]

Hi,

I am having trouble with my child minder.

I need your opinions about whether it is me or her that is being unreasonable and how to move forward from here.

My DS is 2yrs 9 months. He is ready for potty training. I think he has been ready for a while to come out of nappies and showing lots of good signs. I have an older son, who is now 7 and we trained him with no trouble. We have been asking him every week if he would like to buy a potty and start wearing pants - last week he said yes. So we went out and bought pants and potties and he is very excited about starting.

He goes to a pre-school every day from 9-12 and then to a CM afterwards 3 days a week from 12 til 4.30.

On Monday I took DS to pre-school in nappies and said to the lady that the following day he would be coming in pants. She said that that was fine, just bring lots of pairs of pants, trousers, socks etc and that they would take him to the potty every 20 minutes or so. Great - good reaction. But the CM has really shocked me. She says that she isn't happy about him being out of nappies. She asked that we postpone the starting of training until tomorrow (friday) when he doesn't go to her house and will have just pre-school and then Friday pm to Monday am at home. I felt that this was fair enough really, so agreed.

Now she says that I must provide my own equipment for him - potty, car seat covers, etc. Is this normal? I haven't had to provide any other equipment (she has pushchairs and carseats).

She also says that if he has two accidents in one day she will put him in a nappy. But that doesn't really work for me. i think he might have lots of accidents in the first few days.

She wants him to bring training pants, but I really think that there is no difference between these and nappies and I don't want to use them at home. I want to go straight into pants.

She says that she wants to sit down and have a meeting about his routine with me before he starts in pants, but I have told her that there is no routine. What will happen is that I put him in pants, take him to the potty regularly, he sometimes gets it right and sometimes has an accident, we change him and start again.

I need some advice about how to handle this situation. I am confused about whether I am being unreasonable or whether she is.

Thanks

[DillieTantie]

It sounds as though she has no interest in his potty training at all. TBH, I would have serious doubts about a CM who laid down this many conditions about a potty-training pre-schooler. Do you think that the CM actually LIKES children? I only ask because she doesn't sound like someone who does. If, in your gut, the answer is "no", then maybe you could think about finding another CM?

[muddleduck]

I know a CM like this.

She told her parents that if their kids had any accidents on her carpet she would have to get it professionally cleaned each time and send them the bill!

Both the CMs we have used have been fantastic about potty training, but to be honest I always worked it so that the first few days were when they were home with me. Depending what else the CM has to do (school run etc) it just might not be practical for them to take on the first few days of PT.

I also think it is quite sensible for her to ask for a meeting before you start. There are so many different approaches to PT that it si important to make sure that you are on the same page IYKWIM.

[muddleduck]

ps If I were you I would post on the CM topic if you want input from CMs. There is always lots of really helpful advice over there.

[dixia]

thanks muddleduck. I've posted it there too.

[pigletmania]

YANBU get another childminder! why the hell is she in this job? She should just have kids over a certain age then who are fully potty trained then.

[dixia]

I know! I worry that she really doesn't have enough experience with children for her to do the job. She has her own child, who is 6 months younger than mine and my DS, but no other children there.

[muddleduck]

TBH if she has never done PT before then I think YABU to expect her to take this on with no discussion.

I'd leave it a few days, make time to talk it over with her and then make a plan.

And please don't start concluding that you need a new childminder. There are lots of pros to the set up that you have. Your ds is getting lots of individual care in this setting, but the downside is that she will need a bit more time/help adapting to the stages that she hasn't dealt with before.

[AvadaKedavra]

Replied on your other thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childminders_nannies_au_pairs_etc/864250-Trouble-with-the-CM

[FabIsABadMother]

Surely it is part of the job?

I think she is being unreasonable but you don't need to let it all get out of hand. Talk to her and see where it gets you.

[AvadaKedavra]

Doing parents dirty work (quite literally in this case!) is not on. It's up to the parents to start these things off, not a CM's responbilility.

[TheFallenMadonna]

DS's nursery started DS off. They noticed he was ready before I did and asked if they should give it a go. I would certainly see it as part of a childcarer's remit.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Not to start them off, that was just the nursery being fab. But to continue once it was started, yes.

[dixia]

I would like to say to some of you that I AM doing this dirty work myself! I listened to her concerns about starting straight away, as she asked me to and moved the start date to tomorrow to give me some clear time with my son to get started. I do not expect the child minder to do all the work for me. I am an active parent that enjoys being hands on with my sons. I do not treat my child minder like some sort of slave that has to do what I say because I pay her. I have, up to this point, had a good relationship with her. I just feel that there are certain things that she has chosen to do that are not acceptable. I do not like the fact that she says that she will put him back in nappies if he has more than 2 accidents a day. This is my main problem with the situation. I am not worried about the equipment. I posted on here genuinely asking whether I am being unreasonable or not. Having read what has been posted I can accept that it is not unreasonable of her to ask me to provide equipment and this I am happy to do.

But I do think that she should be supporting me and I do think that a certain amount of mess goes with the job. I really am not happy about the way that she has dealt with this situation. She has not been at all supportive and has really shown no regard for my DS in all of this.

[pranma]

Just a little anecdote about a contrastng childminder- a few weeks ago dgs came back from CM with a beautiful certificate saying 'This certificate was awarded to dgs for doing a poo on CM's toilet'there's one for the girlfriends!Both M and preschool have been so kind and helpful with dgs.

[carrieboo75]

I did the childminders course last year but decided not to register. What I realised on the course is there is a massive difference in levels of experience both from childminder to childminder and between childminders and nursery. The childminder training focuses on the early years framework and the associated paper work that goes with it, what it doesn't cover is actual childcare.

So if you have a childminder with older children they will be used to potty training and the little accidents, but if you have one who only has a baby then they will have no experience of potty training and probably still have an un-trashed house. Sit down and have the meeting with her with an open mind as she could just be worried about the resonsibility of doing it and how to go about cleaning up, having never done it before.

It sounds like she has been good up to now, so I hope you work it out.

[UniS]

YABU to spring this on your CM with next to no warning and no discussion.
CM presumably has other children besides you DS in her care and needs to work out HOW to manage your sons changing needs along side teh other children.

Make your life easy start with a few days at home not a day at preschool and CM, see how it goes, see if he really is ready, its not just weeing in potty, its pulling down trousers & pants, pulling them back up again, not tipping potty over immediately, warning a grown up that he needs his potty NOW... all takes bit of practise .

[shergar]

I have older children with a childminder after school, but my CM has no problem carrying on with potty training where parents have started it off while children are with her (and she is brilliant at it too, by all accounts). What on earth else are you meant to do, unless you can take a big block of time off work to ensure your DC is bone dry at all times? And more than 2 accidents in 4.5 hours hardly means a child isn't ready yet....many children take quite a few days to adjust, and my DD in particular probably had 10 accidents in that time in her first days but was dry within about 2 weeks. Potty training's part and parcel of life with small children, and easier than changing nappies once potty training is well underway. A bit of wee never killed anyone in the meantime

[maxybrown]

I don't like her attitude towards it at all. I have been looking after children for 15 years in various manners - find another one!!!

[colditz]

Her attitude stinks, but I do find that anyone with a slightly younger child than your own will a) think they know it all and that you are wrong and b) compare your child negatively to their own slightly smaller, slightly cuter model.

For this reason I prefer not to leave my children with anyone who has not already 'done' that stage.

The child minder has her own two year old. She will have to provide seat covers etc for herself if she feels she needs them(which she surely will in 6 months time), I am also pretty sure she can get grants covering this sort of thing. Expecting a newly potty trained child to never wet himself and to threaten to interfere with his independent continence if he 'fails' in this is so extremely controlling i would actually be a touch woprried about her general attitude. It looks like she just realised that her life is about to get a lot harder.

And if it isn't a child minder's job to support development, then wtf is a child minder's job?