CM Club: Fed up with Early Drop Off - Advice Please

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when babysitting once (for a VERY stingy but VERY wealthy amily) they made me give them 5 p change....

when i didnt have it they deducted 5p the next time

hear hear

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one of my 'early' parents owed me £13.50 this week and gave me £15 and said she would get change later
doing the figures before he has done 1hr extra this week by coming early so when mum comes to sign on monday will point out that there is no change as extra hours were done
dont normallly charge but will give it a go this week
anyway only next week to go then its school hols and he is only term time
i can hear my bed calling

My late-leaving mindee's parents are job changing so I think I will bring up a contract review for the last day of term (next week lol) as I want to bring up the hours before summer - else I could face weeks of him being here half an hour early.

I suppose the best way to phrase it is 'I wanted to discuss the contracted hours, I've noticed there's a difference with arrival and departure times.....'

Was considering stopping doing morning school drop offs all together (only one mindee requires this) however as I pointed out to dh, I charge a minimum three hours a day so I'd basically be saying 'I'm not doing mornings, but you have to pay me the same' lol

Funnily enough I too have problems getting one mindee out of the house. It is a struggle to get tea on the table for 5 on the dot (when non tea eating mindees leave) get him fed and then deal with the inevitable dirty nappy he produces during the meal. Mum usually arrives on time - and then changes the nappy but she does it SO slowly and wants to chat and play with him, when all I want is for her to get it over and done with and leave. Also if he is slow eating she wants him to have pudding and then phaffs around making him eat more. - Sometimes he clearly hasn't fancied his main meal and messes around - and with my own children who do this they don't then get pudding if they haven't at least made an effort with thier main course so it is sending out mixed signals.
Ah the joys eh?

After years and years of having parents turning up early and then taking up residence on my sofa at the end of the day(while dp calls me repeatedly for dinner) chatting about all sorts while their lovely children trash my home,i now have all hats coats shoes at the front door and they don't get in.

If they have to say more than how's he/she been they are asked to ring in the evening as i now have to have my tea/help kids with homework/bath dd etc.

I simply don't have the energy to retidy my home and listen to parents woes every day.maybe it's my age?

Don't feel bad about it,i certainly don't!!

If a parent is coming at a different time to that which is contracted, and is doing so on an extremely regular basis, then I would very kindly offer to change the contract to accommodate this.

If my contract states that child is with me till 5.30pm, I do see this as the time I expect parents to arrive by (at the latest). (I am going to ask some RL minders for their opinion on this now, perhaps I'm wrong about this). Some parents pick up and go fairly quickly, others come in for a quick chat, and sometimes stay longer.

It isn't always that convenient, but I hope that parents will pick up on the fact that sometimes I have time to stop and chat and, at other times, I "ignore" them and get on with whatever it is I'm doing (and hope that they leave!!)

I've always told new parents that I want them to feel welcome in my house, but that it isn't always possible to sit and talk. It isn't something that they necessarily remember, but I'm not very good at being assertive.

I've been thinking about this too.

Have a mindee who is basically contracted from 8.15 until school starts (roughly 35 minutes until he's let in) then after school until 5.30 (roughly 2hr15.)

I told parents I charge a minimum of 3 hours a day, which is what I charge for this mindees as it's a 10 min difference only. During the holidays when the parents signed they said drop off would be a little later (around 8.30) till the same time, so that's the contracted hours for the holiday.

Ever since day one, they've come anytime between five past and half past. Usually pretty much on the dot, but there have been a number of times that they come early - particularly during the holidays! Parents are averaging 8.15 still during the holidays (although they don't pay til 8.30) and a few times have arrived at 8.05 still. What bugs me the most is the comment when I do a polite ' dear you're early today!' is that they then say 'this is the time we're MEANT to get out to get to work on time!!' implying any other time they get here is late.

I know I should remind them of contracted hours - and bring up the fact that during the holiadys they're completely out - maybe once a holiday they come as late as 8.30 - but I'm worried I'll have to bring up a few other things - such as tardiness on the other end of the clock. Like I said, contracted till 5.30. The parents arrive AT 5.30, if not a few minutes later, whereupon little jimmy refuses to leave! Just repeated says 'no' to parents, and pretends to be involved doing something or just blatantly ignores them. Coercing from all of us may get jimmy out the door by 5.45, but he's been here up until 6. Parents think he's just 'stubborn and cheeky' in a cute kind of way. He's now refusing to leave until his friends (other mindees) do as well - and their parents are always late too which means even if his parents are here on time, he will still be here way over. However I have a different arrangement with the other parents, which means that I do have to offer some leniency to them.

Is it just me that sees a contract of finishing at 5.30 the time the child should have left by, not the time the parents should 'aim' to arrive by?

I don't like to leave parents standing at the front door as they will just continually ring the bell - and then I have to deal with my own stroppy teenagers who resent having to wake up before lunchtime (they're on hols from university)!!

Am thinking that removing the batteries from the doorbell is a good move ... then unplug the house phone ... and turn off my mobile ... and leave curtains shut so that they can't see me when they bang on the windows!!

Its funny how this seems to be a common problem.
Last year I had this a lot but this year the children who are supposed to arrive at 8 are often just arriving at 8.35 as the putting on coats and shoes chaos ensues. Not a great time to arrive and make an 18mth old feel comfortable. - Its hello, straight into the pushchair and goodbye mum/dad.

I have the same problem, mindee contracted from 7.45, but can arrive any time from 7.25-8.15. Its really annoying like you looneytune, needing to stick to a routine in the mornings it really is a nightmare. I know that i need to be ready by 7.45 but might get ready 5 mins before that time as getting my own children ready for school.

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I had this problem a few times. I found that opening the door, looking at my watch and saying - oh you are a bit early today I'm still doing such and such.... was enough. The hint was taken and they started arriving at their normal time after this. If this doesn't work I guess Twigletts suggestion would really work and its still polite.

NannyL is right, i similar to how we teach children by gradually leaving it longer till they get a reaction when they do something you dont approve of.
thats easiest way of doing it..or even issue a memo type thing to all parents(even if you just give her one and leave rest for other parents to see) stating drop off pick up times and ask 'them all' to please keep to these times as you do not start work until them

take the batteries out of the doorbell!

then answer at the correct time , if they say "I've been waiting" say "oh I didn't expect you till (blank)".

wait for their answer, say you aren't ready before (blank), sorry!!!!!

dmo.... im not a child minder but a nanny...

maybe if it happens again you could leave them to wait 5 minutes.... then come downstairs and say sorry you were in the shower...

then they could wait 7 mins / 10 mins etc...

they may soon get the hint that theres no point arriving arly cause you wont be ready anyway!

its funny went to a concert last night it was fab anyway! i did'nt drink so was ok that way but did have a late night and as i said b4 find it hard to get out of bed in mornings, so this morning got out of bed late (7.10am) first mindee today should have been 7.30am but as soon as my feet touched the floor the doorbell rang went downstairs in dressing gown and mindee was there, made comments of early hour etc mum didnt seem to hear started to tell me how shes been up since 5 with child.
what do i do?

"I don't have a huge problem with you dropping xxx over early some days but I really need to know as we have a family routine and I can't really give her the right attention if I don't know she'll be there" "Would you mind terribly phoning if you happen to be running early" "I'm sorry to have to mention it, its just getting increasingly difficult to manage with an unpredictable start-time" "I'm happy to amend the contract again to a different start time if you'd prefer"

shut up sit back and let them sort out their problem

you need to tell them exactly what you wrote in your first post

sit them down and tell them

they don't know its inconvenient .. how can they .. you haven't told them

they'd probably be suitably mortified that they were inconveniencing you .. they just think it makes no difference

it does .. so TELL THEM

I don't have a problem with parents arriving early - but only if I know about it!!

I used to get washed and dressed first, then come down and sort out the house (need to vacuum each morning as I have hairy cats that moult mountains overnight). If the first-parents-of-the-day arrived early, I was still (relatively!!) presentable, and they wouldn't notice the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the hall.

So ... now I come down and blitz the downstairs, then shoot upstairs to get myself sorted out. If parents arrive too soon, leaning out of my bedroom window with a towel wrapped around me makes it a little more obvious that they're too early - it tends to make them look at their watch, and then realise that they are 15 minutes early.

I can't do "assertive" and just tell parents outright!

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