Childminder and holidays

Hi,

That's not the norm in my experience. I've used a CM for 9 years. She's had one week off sick when she lost a close relative and is very reliable. She takes the 2 weeks Christmas break off in line with school, 2 weeks in summer, 1 week in April and 1 week in October. All during school holidays. At times she will do the odd day in her holidays if one of her families are stuck.

However her children are no longer living at home. I think unfortunately if these are the hours she works you will need to find holiday care as others have suggested. I take it there is no charge for some of these holidays? I don't pay my CM if she's on holiday but I would pay if I take a holiday while she is working.

Best of luck. I sympathise.

My childminder takes 4 weeks plus bank holiday officially. However as holidays approach, she tries to encourage booking on certain days as it’s no viable for her to be working with only 1 child she would be earning less than minimum wage (many of her families are teen time only or adhoc in holidays). It’s not too much of an issue for me as I have 3 so she can always works my days but it might be an issue if you onlyy had one and wanted to stick to your normal working days.

I was like you. I ended up with nursery for my youngest. It was just impossible.
It works for childminder, especially if she/he can find clients who work term time themselves. It can't work if you have a normal Job with regular hours

She won't compromise with you

But she'll soon realise that she'll lose customers if she's rarely available

Some childminders.

Then you have the other extreme of some childminders only taking 2 weeks per year which is also not appropriate. A job as full on as looking after children risks physically and mental burn out and parents should be encouraging these cms to take more breaks.

I take 5 weeks per year, dates given out in January each year.

You poor thing OP that's very bad form from her when she knows you don't have extra help. She absolutely should have been more upfront with you. Get your DCs name down everywhere and start looking for new childcare asap. I totally understand because childcare is very hard to come by around here as well so I totally get it. Ring your local primary schools as they often know of childminders and as someone has suggested try your local further education college.

@OP what does your contract say?

I would contact the local FE college and ask if they have any level 3 students looking for holiday work. I would do exactly the same with the local schools, asking if any TA’s are looking for holiday work. I would also ask the local nursery’s because they will possibly have gaps as some children might be on term time only contracts or be away on holiday.

Yanbu at all.
40 days plus bank hols so 48 days per year is huge. Schools are shut for 65 weekdays per year including bank holidays so she is shut for 74% of school holidays.
She has mis-sold her services to you and lied about what she offers.
You can't make her change whar she offers but a maximum of 25 days a year to match with her customers annual leave allocation is all that is actually reasonable here. You will have to find a different childcare provider.

This is definitely unreasonable on her part. More so the face that she has really stretched the truth about not being term time only. You are right to be pissed off OP.

If you have been at your work for 15 years (if I read that correctly) could you speak to your manager and explain the impossible situation you are in? It isn’t really a case of requesting annual leave at this stage, you need to speak to your work about this and ask if they can help you out whilst you sort this out longer term.

Id put DC’s name down on every waiting list that is within reasonable distance and also speak to the nursery and ask if they have even one or two days they could offer ASAP just to tide you over and offer some leverage when speaking with your work.

I won’t generalise but I would say that the childminders that I’ve encountered who only have one or two kids on their books don’t usually give off the vibes(to me anyway) that their heart is really in it. I’ve visited quite a few when looking for childcare for DC1 and 2 and the childminders I ended up going for always had full
books and a really busy and homely atmosphere. The ones who had one or two kids always seemed lacking in energy and often had overcomplicated holiday and time off arrangements:

Do you have it written down any where (in an email or in a text/WhatsApp) where she says she isn't doing term time and she will be available?

If she has that written down and you've got a copy of it, I'd start by saying that the dates she has circulated are very much term time dates and she has provided you with a false statement of her availability. You need her to be available in February at the very least. You can try to work something for Easter (April) but May is required and we can discuss the Summer holidays when we've been through Easter.

I'd very much treat it as a negotiation at this point and show her where she said she wasn't only offering Term Time care (if you can).

Find another childminder, that’s not ok

That is a lot of holidays - how many normal people have that number of days off work a year? As you say its basically double the basic holiday allowance.
I agree with others that she's become a childminder to give herself more flexibility and you're bearing the brunt of it.
All I can suggest is that you get yourself on the waitlist for every single nursery locally and pray some space comes up soon. Even if you have to split across multiple settings.
Agree with others that you can ask about ad hoc availability as well. You're probably going to have to piece together childcare for as much of the time as possible and then go to your company and explain the situation and ask for time off unpaid until you can get more reliable childcare.
This is a warning for you though that these things should have been set in stone in a contract before deposits were paid/your child started.
Our nursery lists the closures almost 2 years ahead so people can plan accordingly.
There is no easy solution here so you're going to have to bear the pain and learn the lesson about getting things in writing first so you're sure it meets your needs.
It's going to be difficult logistically and painful financially in the short term though as you might need to use baby sitters etc to cover some of the days the childminder won't take your child.
Can you WFH at all? Not ideal obviously but might help tide you over on a few desperate days.
This is all not even including the days your child might be excluded from the childminders for being unwell! So you're probably looking at needing even more time off work!
Sorry to say that it is a really difficult situation you've found yourself in.
The first thing you need to do is call every local nursery, explain what's happened and say you'll take any spaces they have as soon as possible including ad hoc. The longer you take to get on the waitlist, the longer until you can get reliable childcare.
Any friends locally who could help with the odd day here and there?

No YANBU. It gets my goat that self employed people like child minders act all entitled about holidays. They wouldn't get those holidays if they were employed and wouldn't get any if they were self employed

It sounds alarming on the fact of it, but if that's across the course of the whole year that's the 2 week summer holiday, the 2 weeks at Xmas, and that leaves 12 days, so one day a month on average.

I don't think that's too outlandish for a childminder to take.

This is why we used nursery. I cannot be managing someone else's sick leave and holidays. And you don't want to be taking holidays in the school holidays until you absolutely have to!

The contract should really specify how much time she will be closed for, and how much notice she must give you. I'm surprised hers doesn't.

Wow. That’s not working holidays is it

I assume you wouldn't be paying her for those 48 days so almost 10w worth if a 5 day week

It's very hard for you and I can understand why she is upset but you can't expect her to compromise. It is her business and this is what she is offering. I assume she wants the time off to spend with her children when they are off school.
She is right that she isn't offered just term time but she should have told you she planned to take a large portion of them off
I don't think it will be difficult for her to full your place.

I was shocked too as my CM is also taking a similar amount of time off, I only use 2 days and the ‘odd days’ are always on the day my DD goes!! She did however give this list in October and between us we are able to cover.

One of the reasons why we chose our childminder was because her own children were grown up and she would cover some of the school holidays. Obviously she did take holidays but we managed to take our leave at the same time or cover it between us. I'd try and find another arrangement if possible.

Get on some waiting lists for nursery asap. The nursery my boys go to literally closes 6pm Christmas Eve until 7:45 2nd January and that’s it so we have no other weeks where we struggle.

In the meantime maybe try a nursery that offers both a term time only and a year round option to see if they have any capacity in the school holiday weeks where they have less kids just to take little one for those weeks initially. Or speak to the parents of the other child and see what plans they have, if they’re paying for a nanny or something then maybe you can chip in together or maybe they’re having the same stress so maybe you can suggest chipping in together for alternative care.

I hope she’s not expecting payment for these weeks that she’s closed!

YANBU because she has changed the arrangement from what was agreed.

however she can do this. So I think you need to find another provider.

I has this stress too, when I looked at options you can get holiday nannies and fill in nannies, more expensive but will cover you while you work out what to do. Get names down for nurseries too for the long term. I would also start thinking ahead to how you manage nursery and school holidays. You are also entitled to unpaid parental leave with an employer to cover such things, would look into that too if you are absolutely stuck.

OP can't choose when to take her unpaid parental leave though. She has already said it won't be approved for the times required (presumably as everyone wants/has already booked those half term/school holiday times).