To move north and become a childminder?

I know so many people who have moved up north lately, mainly from London. I think the pandemic gave many of them a push due to work flexibility. They are, without exception, much happier, have more money, a bigger house (swapping a flat for a family home and garden), and an overall better quality of life especially for their children. Do it!

We moved and are really happy, our quality of life is better, we have a lovely home we couldn’t have afforded down south, there’s so much more to do outdoors with the children, and everyone is much friendlier!

However we don’t have any help at all with childcare, no date nights etc and when our second was born my husband missed it as he had to be with our first. So things like that can feel difficult when they’re so small, it’s just weighing it all up!

I would probably take the biting and pushing up with nursery if I were you. We’ve 2 DD’s, DD1 is super sensitive and has been bitten once in almost 4 years of nursery (2 different settings). DD2 is more able to look after herself but has never had incident and is 19 months, so 9 sessions all with incidents at only 2 days a week in nursery seems excessive to me tbh!

In terms of the move, why not if it’s what would suit your family! We are doing the opposite lol.

I live south of Birmingham and wish I had thought about it 30 years ago!
Honestly, go for it.
My son moved North a few years ago and we are going in two years

on another note. Its NOT your child that is the issue but the nursery staff for allowing their constantly. It is
not normal to have a child hurt every time they go to nursery, weeks on end. They need to rectify this and why so many children are hurting her and probably others. Don’t feel all nurseries are a bad place for her, finding the right one that protects her will enable her to enjoy it much more 🩷

Of course, there are occasions when toddlers lash out in anger/frustration but the volume of incidents you have described is far from normal. The nursery should be working on how better to support the other children to deal with their emotions/reactions. Good luck with your situation.

This!

If you are six hours away from your parents, does it have good transport links?

I live in a pretty out of the way place six hours from mine. Having had to do the dash down recently for the 'he's got 48 hours ' call, I was immensely glad of being on the train line.

In those circumstances I really didn't want to drive.

It's also a more relaxing way to travel with just the kids and very reasonable if booked in advance.

It's well worth considering this type of logistic when choosing where to be. But otherwise your plan sounds very sensible.

Seems like a good idea, but you need to check if it would be possible to get a mortgage when moving so far and giving up your job or whether you would need to rent and find a job initially.

They basically said they wouldn’t consider us moving 6 hours away any different to moving 10 minutes away
As long as it's officially written in his contract. It was the same with my team, all working from home since COVID with no issue whatsoever. We were efficient, work was being delivered, we were regularly praised. We went through three new managers, no issues. Then a new one came. A micro manager who decided there and then that everyone had to come back to the office at least 3 times a week. No excuses, no consideration. If you were not prepared to do that, you would be dismissed. Some people had moved. It was a nightmare but she got her way because the contracts had never been amended.

I’d be careful. We moved after redundancy back to my home town in the north west. I really didn’t want to. I found it VERY difficult to find a decent job that was OK pay, good conditions etc. Every job I’ve had here, I’ve had to commute to. I’m also really bored. There’s nothing to do. You have to drive to do anything.

We moved as it was somewhere we could buy outright, DH wanted me to have the security of not having to worry about paying a mortgage (he’s older and has had cancer twice).

I really wish we’d taken time to look at other areas that were a bit more upmarket and had better employment opportunities. I know you have a plan to be a CM but people up here don’t tend to have as much money. Many, many people I know use their parents for childcare. There are areas of high unemployment too so I’d research carefully.

I'm sorry your little girl is having such a hard time at nursery. 💐 Your plan sounds like a good idea to me. 🙂 Before you decide where to move it could be a good idea to check what the demand for childminders is likely to be. Best to avoid areas that might be mostly retirees or mostly holiday cottages etc, as well as anywhere that seems oversaturated with childcare options already. Good luck! 😊

As someone who is also from the south East I'd go for it. I constantly daydream about being from somewhere less expensive. DH is Scottish and I often think about moving there, but his mum has passed and other family aren't interested. I know I'd get homesick but if his family were closer like mine I'd probably have gone because I think our quality of life would be completely different.

Are you hoping to buy a property or continue to rent? As a pp as stated, you may be restricted wrt becoming a childminder if you rent.
Good luck anyway, it seems like a no-brainer to move north for a better quality of life.

Just checking - would you be buying a house up north or just renting a larger place? A lot of landlords won’t allow childminding from rental properties.

I think it's a very valid reason but you need to be careful. Would your OP job agree to it? If working from home is not official, they could ask him to come back to the office. It takes only a change in management and suddenly there is working from home far away any longer.

You have one child currently. Do you plan on having another one soon? How would that affect the number of children you can look after?

What happens if your parents do become poorly and really heed help. Are there siblings close by?

I think the biggest thing to factor in is how much work in your Dh's field is there in the new location? He might want to work for someone else or he may lose his job after restructure sort of thing. So consider commuting distance to potential new job when you move.

The other thing to consider is local knowledge if you are not from that area, so post on here for local information, you can always name change just for that post. Ask MNetters and look at the local Facebook group too so you can see what the locals complain about. As a trailing spouse we have been stung by this, moved for Dh's job only to discover several things that would have made us live half a mile away from where we ended up. This was however over 20 years ago but it did mean our next move was very informed, we moved a couple of miles away.

I also agree moving way before school deadlines rather than having the pressure of that as well as the move.