I am due to go back to work (part time, 3 days a week) from maternity leave at the end of Feb and found a childminder for my little boy in July last year. She seemed a lovely lady and worked alongside her husband who was equally as nice, lots of qualifications, ofsted registered etc. I know it was a bit early but I wanted to be prepared and let DS get used to her. She has looked after DS four times over the last few weeks which I paid for, just an hour ‘taster sessions’ each time at her recommendation, and he was going to start going weekly as of next week, gradually increasing the hours until I go back to work to get him settled in. He was fine during his taster sessions, just played happily apart from the third session when he was teething and cried. The childminder phoned me 15 mins after dropping him off and asked me to collect him because he was upset. She said that she wouldn’t do that when I'm back at work but she didn’t want him having negative associations with being there and she was struggling to look after the other children with him crying. So I collected him and he had an hours taster session two weeks after and he was fine again. A baby girl the same age as DS had also been having taster sessions, and according to the childminder she cried throughout all of them and she described her to me as being ‘very high needs’. I directly asked her at this point (at least two months ago now) if having my little boy was going to be a problem and she said no. The little girl that cries started last week, and after being 3 days in the childminder phoned me to say that she was in bed with a migraine as she’d had a bad week and can no longer look after my DS because she won’t be able to give him enough care and attention and blamed it on the other baby crying all day.
I was understandably angry and upset and ended up hanging up on her when she said to me ‘can’t your mum help instead?’. The childminder only works mon-weds so I had picked these to be my working days for this reason, and my mum has altered her work days to look after DS on Mondays and the childminder was having him Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I had deliberately found a childminder as early as I did because there isn’t that much choice in my area. I have contacted all childminders in my town and surrounding towns and no one has any availability at such short notice. There are two nurseries, both of which are full at the moment but one has spaces coming up late May. At the moment it’s looking like I’m going to have to take time off work unpaid until DS can get a space at nursery. Luckily work have been understanding about it but I am so stressed and panicking now. I don’t want to just send him any old place and I really wanted him to have time to settle in somewhere.
Sorry for the long post, I’m not sure what advice I’m asking for really but I just wanted to have a rant about it to people who understand what a shit situation this is to be in. :(