Childminders - do you provide the car seat or do you expect the parents to?

smeeinit.... wasnt suggesting that others arnt fussy.... just that i Am!

No Graco or cheap argos seats in my car... and never will be either... or even some more expensive britax ones that do badly in crash tests!

nannyl........ i think that any cm ,whether they provide car seats or ask the parents to are VERY fussy also. i have always made a point of going in my car with the parents and child/ren to buy a car seat that fits in my car.

Even as a nanny have have 5 of my own car seats... all top make 'expensive' ones that do well in the which crash tests and fit my car!

im VERY fussy about car seats!

think your totally right there ayla. maybe it is to do with cost.
wouldnt it be gr8 if they did do a lesson in how to ensure the car seat is fitted properly,or a day course? IMO the icp was a waste of 6 weeks,i didnt learn anything i didnt already know as ive worked in childcare for many years and much of what i was told at the icp was common sense. thats my opinion anyway,im sure others get much more out of it than i did!

Perhas where the ICP idea possibly came from is by trying to minimise a new childminder's start up costs. If you only have one or two mindies, the parent's car seats can be stored in the cms car. As the cm's business grows and more mindies are enrolled the cm's finances should be a bit healthier and it becomes more practical for the cm to provide the seats.

Just wonder if the ICP course now includes a lesson on how to check a car seat fits in your car safely

see where ya coming from cat, maybe a bit different for me as i only have full timers,altough i do have a large shed to store the car seats in when not required
different people to do it in different ways but at the end of the day as long as the kiddies are safe it doesnt matter who purchased the car seat!

totally get what you mean ndp...............now youve explained it

[head in hands]

Just forget it. I'm sure everyone else gets what I mean.

why would buying a car seat be pointless?

her shelling out for a car seat seems pointless. Of course I already have one and loan it to my childminder when she has 4yo DD.

[mahooosive eyeroll]

Err, what ?

ndp....would you rather your daughter travelled without a car seat then?

totally agree aylaa99,it should be between the cm and the parents to agree on.
at the end of the day its the childs safety thats most important regardless of who purchased the car seat.

My childminder asks me to provide a car seat for DD. She only has DD for one afterschool session a week, term-time only, so shelling out for a car seat seems a bit pointless.

IMO the ICP people shouldn't be dicating who provides the car seat. I feel it is up to the childminder and the parent to negotiate.

I think it is the childminder's responsibility to ensure that any seat he/she uses fits safely in the cm's car and is appropriate for the child sitting in it. It won't be the parent who is blamed if a seat is found unsafe and a child is involved in an accident.

It may be that the cm is happy with the parent-provided seat, it may be that the cm has bought their own. It doesn't matter who bought the seat, as long as the childminder has carried out sufficient checks to ensure the safety of the child he/she is transporting.

can i just add that the parents do provide the car seats for me and they are specifically for my car.they are not taken in and out they stay in my car until the child leaves my care.
i think there is conflicting messages about whats right or wrong. so its does leave us a bit confused! .
if like me others have been told at their icp that its the parents who should provide them,then someone else says its the cms who should provide,it all gets a bit confusing!

I spent ages yesterday trying to find the link for a report I read a while ago - it was on dangers of using car seats in different cars (it was talking about from mums car to dads to gran's etc and saying that people are wrongly assuming that because the seat was recommended for one car it would be safe in the others).

If you are using parent provided seats you have to take on trust that the seat has not been in an accident (if they got it second hand they won't know for sure). If its an older seat it may be one that's no longer on sale cos its not as safe as other designs.

You are also responsible for checking the seat fits safely in your car; even if the parent had it fitted in a store the same seat may not fit so well in your car, eg buckle crunch may occur. As the Which report says no car seat is universal yet; it explains that the seats and seat belts are different in different cars.

I have bought the car seats I use from kiddicare - they will check the fit in your car before you part with any money. Although worryingly, Which? tested car fitting services and found a number of places like halfords & toys r us did not fit car seats correctly.

The parents provide the car seats with me.
They usually buy an extra one and leave it with me. So don't waste time swapping it back and forth.
I was also told in my Icp that parents should provide one.

i have booster and baby/toddler seat spare, but if not would ask arent to provide

i ask the parents to provide car seats.
i was told at my icp that this should be the way to do it so thats what ive always done.
the parents leave a car seat with me so they stay in my car all the time.

I provide all the car seats. I do have a baby seat, but parents tend to drop babies off in their own seats and are happy for me to use theirs.

I bought DS's his baby seat for the c/minders car. She had one from her kids were small and she was using it on the one little boy she already minded, so I bought another one that she can take out of her car as and when, as she doesn't have DS full time.