Childminder's holidays

You agreed to 6 weeks unspecified holidays for her

The question was

'How do other childminders deal with this'

Stop pointing fingers OP has a problem and asking for a solution - offer one -

I was thinking this, as another pp suggested. Are you friendly with other parents? As your children know each other have you considered covering it between you? Each parent taking one day's leave only possibly? Fun for the kids etc??

It doesn't say in the contract WHEN she will take her holidays.

Which you agreed to. If it was important to you that she didn't take holidays during rent time then you should have asked it to be made part of the contract. You didn't. You agreed to 6 weeks unspecified holidays for her.

Plus, as a two parent family, surely you will get a minimum of 8 weeks holiday per year between you. That's more than enough to cover her holidays?

To be fair, it may be inconvenient for you but the majority of people will find that easier to cover? Esp when they have children in school. People will find school holidays harder to cover as its hard to get annual leave (on a specific date) in the school holidays in a lot of workplaces. Cant please everybody but really she should be able to take her holidays when its suitable for her!

A lot of people are missing the point TBH. It would be absolutely fine for the op to find a different CM who takes her holidays at different times. That's her prerogative.

What she can't do is complain about the cm's holiday. Unless it was stated at the time of contract signing that 6 weeks holiday would be taken in the school holidays and the CM has now reneged on that.

Otherwise it was up to OP to determine this beforehand. She didn't.

Actually I would be more bothered if she took 6 weeks in school holidays! Those are the days I struggle most to get covered. Lots of jobs allow a max of a week holiday because of being short staffed and some really struggle to let employees off in august. Even if other parents take their min holiday in the Summer, it doesn't mean the actual dates would be guaranteed to line up.
I have also never heard of childminders only charging 50% - count yourself very very lucky for that.

Imafurchester, you have this to come, your child is not at school yet. I would put the pre-schooler in a nursery if it solved the problem

I won't; as already stated, my nursery do wraparound care for school aged children.

If they didn't, I would put him in after school club or make sure I asked a childminder when they generally took holiday before I signed the contract with her.

Not rocket science.

If the childminder who looks after ds3 and collects ds2 from school did this we'd use another childcare provider. Not because I don't think childminders don't have a right to holidays or anything, but because the service she was offering wouldn't meet our needs.

If it doesn't work for you, then leave.

I would look for soneone else. I did used to use a childminder but she did nit take holidays in term time. If she had done I would have had to find someone else. Again lots of people on here going on about you arranging cover. If you dont have family who can help there is no cover to be had inless you can fork out over 100 pounds a day for an emergency nanny.

If 85% are school age then she will earn more in school holidays than term time - because it's full days rather than after school care -

It's in her interest to go term time

BUT as all the parents are school age couldn't you band together and do a day each?

I really don't see a problem. What's stopping you from finding a cover when she's away? Childminders (at least where I live) keep together and cover each other's holidays so a child would go to somebody who they are familiar with. You'd end up paying 150% of the fee when you use cover but then she's very generous letting you have 6 weeks of your holiday at half price (I'd be charging you 100% for your holiday). She's self employed so doesn't have to ask your permission to arrange her own holiday. This is a non-issue.

I am a childminder and I make it clear that if you would struggle with my annual leave or sickness then you need to look for a nursery instead. I take two weeks off at Christmas and my other two weeks are during term time. As someone earlier said childcare does not pay well, despite what some think and it is physically and mentally taxing so we do need a break during the times we can afford.

When my own children were little I worked evenings and weekends DH worked office hours so the most we had was a couple of long weekends a year together as a family so I do find whiny parents annoying and I am glad to see the back of them and soon fill the vacated spaces, even though I am sad to say goodbye to the children. Move on to new childcare, you will make both yourself and the childminder happy.

I get what you're saying cjm - business wise it doesn't make sense if the majority of your clients want you term time. Imagine how many sales Clarks would loose if they chose to close for 2 weeks in August.
If she is in an area with lots of childminders with vacancies she may loose clients. If she is an area with few childminders and places are like gold dust then she will have no problem and parents will work around it.

She's not taking the piss at all. You are by trying to dictate when she should take her holidays. If it doesn't suit (as it doesn't) then you should find another cm who takes their holidays all in school holidays (maybe offter to pay him/her more to cover the cost of those holidays as we know going on holiday in school holidays is expensive) or find a nursery and out of school care that will only close for bank holidays and possibly over Christmas.

You don't like the service, you don't have to use it. It's obviously working for her or she wouldn't have so many kids on her books :)

Doesn't sound like her terms are a big problem for her clients if they still use her service.

She can pass on details of other CMs to you but it's certainly not her duty to arrange it for you.

I think you're quite rude about your cm and should probably move on for all your sakes.

I would also find this annoying but that's the reason my son is in nursery instead (they also do wraparound care).

You should have considered this when you signed the contract TBH.

She might be part of a childminder group and I have know childminders swap children to cover each other

Worth asking

Your childminder may take her holidays in off peak season because that's all she can afford. Working with children doesn't pay much.