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Or thereabouts?

DD will be very young when she starts - 3 months - so I'm going to be going out of my mind as it is.

I'm having to go back to work because I can't afford to be off any longer than this if we still wnat to pay the mortgage, but I'm scared half to death that I'm going to hurt my child in some way by doing it.

Any recommendations from anyone? Please?

3 months old is terribly young to be left, but if you must you must

If it's a good nursery they whould have web cam link up. Then you can log on to see how baby is getting on

Are you going back full time?

Yeah, I will be although I might be able to manage a week or two of part time to start with.

I've looked at the local nurseries and been in to see them. They seem all right, and all of them do okay on Ofsted reports (although none of them are brilliantly rated) but that's not the same thing as first-hand experience.

I don't agree with the definition of a 'good' nursery having a webcam.
I work in a fantastic nursery and we don't have a webcam.

There are many good nurseries without webcams and many good ones with.

I was merely suggesting that if there were anxiety issues (esp as baby so young) it would be a good idea to find one that has one.

The gov are pushing for all nurseries to have web cam links up, especially after the recent abuse cases in the news!

Ask the nursery for verifiable references and take the time to check them thoroughly. Check to see if the other children in their care are happy and well looked after.

I did work in a nursery over 15 years ago. It was not a good one.

I have since worked as a nanny, childminder and ran my own childcare agency

I hope all this helps, but do think hard about leaving the little one. Maybe a family member could help you our or a close friend

I would sincerely love to leave the baby with a family member but that's not an option.

The only family nearby is DH mum and dad, and they are part of the reason I'm having to go back so soon. DH mum had a massive stroke a couple of years back and never made much of a recovery. She's wheelchair bound and completely aphasic - she can't actually speak more then five or six words. DH Dad works full time but he's a self-employed barber and the amount of time he had to take off whilst DH mum was in hospital hurt his business badly, so much so that he ended really struggling financially. DH and I stepped in to pay some of the bills, sort out home care for MIL etc, with the understanding that we would be repaid when/if the business caught up with itself, MIL recovered enough to reduce the care etc but that's just never happened.

They don't depend on us day to day anymore - we had to rather blunt about it all when we found out I was pregnant (not planned, trust me to be the 1% statistic on the Pill!) and realised how precarious our own financial position was - we'd stretched ourselves almost to the point of no return, tbh, but there's no way they can afford to pay us back financially and similarly no way they can take repsonsibilty for child care.

All our other family are an hour or more away drive and the only friend we have who doesn't work full time lives in London!! The joys of being the first of our friends/families etc to have kids!

Maternity pay is less than half of what I earn when I'm working full time, and even if we had to pay all the nursery fees without being able to claim tax credits and stuff, we'd still be a crucial £150 a month better off with me working than staying at home. I can really only afford to take a month or so on that reduced pay (and I'll be working up to my due date to pull even that off, and using two weeks holiday allowance) so I've got no choice about putting the baby into child are so young, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it, so I was hoping for someone who lives locally to give me some hints as to which nurseries etc are any good and which are to be avoided.

Sorry for the long post!

Wish I could help you more. Really feel for you.

I am self emp, have two kids and no family to help.

I know how hard it is to find good c,care.

I hope your IL's business picks up

You could phone your council for a list of nurseries.

Ooh not to far from you (rawtenstall) but too far ig uess for nursery.
my first two dc went to educare in rawtenstall , great nursery , think they may have one in Bury ?

It's tough when you have no family nearby..
When my dc3 came along i had to give up work as without family it became impossible....
I worked on a baby unit of a nursery with 6 week olds and see them now at high school , can't see they came to any harm.

Hi Ginny

I am a Childminder in Heywood centre and still care for a child that came to me 4yrs ago at 3 months.

Contact me on Dmiddle134 @ aol . com so I can give you my number for a chat.

Thank you!

Will do that!

Look for email shortly!

It sounds very difficult for you but glad to see you have a childminder contact you - I looked at childminders when nurseries just seemed far too expensive and think that ours has been great for our ds1 and have felt much better taking ds2 there. DS1 was 10 months, DS2 nearly 9 months, when they started at childminder and I think it can be a good form of care for babies.

ginnybag the youngest mindee I have had was 3wks old. So your's is virtually a teenager . I agree that CM would probably be better for such a young baby, as they generally can only have 1 mindee under 12mths, so will get lots of 1:1 care, might be worth having a look at that option as well.

Cheers, folks.

Actually met with childminder over the weekend and she was lovely, so this may well all be sorted.

(Don't know what her hubby thought, though, cause we spent about four hours chatting!)