Where are all the childminders?

[hollyberrytree]

The last childminder in my village is closing down at the end of term. When my children went to her, they were 4 to pick from and it’s a pretty small village
She was telling me that child minder numbers have halved. And I couldn’t quite believe it so I googled!
60,000 childminders in 2009. In 2018 there were 36,500 childminders in England. By 2025 there were 22300. What’s even more concerning is the age profile. 80% of childminders are now aged 40 or over, and 47% are over 50.
She said her job has become increasingly difficult. The paperwork, inspections, regulations, responsibility. She was told off by Ofsted for allowing another toddler go into the room where she was changing a nappy. Talking about 2 children under 2 years old.

I’ve often thought you’re either a parent that likes the idea of a nursery or one that prefers childminders.
Childminders provide something that nurseries often can’t: small, home-based care, flexibility for parents, continuity of care and mixed-age family environments and wrap around care for school age. It suited my family.

I think these figures should concern anyone who values having genuine choice in childcare. All childcare workers in nurseries and childminders are the unsung heros.

That’s beyond mental!

Ive always used a CM and liked the home from home element. It’s always worked well for us. My Dd has one more year going into year 6 in September and my youngest is going into year 3 in September.

Our childminder now doesn’t have any preschoolers - as she said the funding was an absolute nightmare and said she running down to retirement!!

There is 6 children my youngests age and they are now her youngest and she has said that she plans to do 4 more academic years and then that summer before retiring. She’s happy to run it down gradually.

Lots of the others have either retired or have changed careers, and I think it’s a combination of stuff really. She said it wasn’t like this when she started out 30 odd years ago!!

Shes said she will continue with the children she’s got now and only take any new ones if they’re year 3 or over so it’ll be purely a 7-11 setting until she retires now. She has also cut back on days as randomely nobody wanted her on a Tuesday apart from one child so she’s knocked that on the head and says in the holidays she’ll only work if there is enough kids to make it worthwhile now, which I absolutely get.

There are generally less illnesses at a CM than a nursery. One of my friends child goes to a CM and has had 2 episodes of sickness/ illness, whereas my other mum friends who use day nurseries had back to back illnesses October to April.

Childminders can also be a bit more relaxed about loose nappies/ temperatures when teething. My cousins day nursery will refuse any child with a loose nappy or a temperature even if they are teething related and not illness related.

Some children/ parents prefer the quieter environment a childminder provides. Some nurseries round us have as many as 20 children in one room. Whereas a childminder will only have a handful of children and some of those will go to school between 9 and 3.

Some childminders will take older siblings in school holidays, often up to age 11. Some even employ extra temporary staff to cover siblings care over holidays. One childminder at our playgroup always takes on a level 2 childcare student (usually one that will be studying for level 3 the next year who needs some work experience over the holidays) for the 6 weeks school holidays which ups her ratio and gives the level 2 childcare student some paid work experience/ work. It also means 1 drop off/ childcare to arrange for the parents rather than playing the absolute lottery and bullshit game of trying to book a rocking horse poo holiday childcare space which fits a 9-5 working day, which 5000 other people are also trying to get. Most day nurseries either don't offer sibling places or their sibling places are age restricted to under 5 or 7 which is no good for a parent with a 2 year old and an 8 year old. Or even one with a 4 year old and a 8 year old.

Ofsted downrated my nursery because, for a short period of the day between an activity and lunch, the children "wandered aimlessly".

Light-hearted response is that they'd shit a brick if they saw how I let my son wander aimlessly at home.

More seriously, kids aimlessly working out what to do with their time is actively good for them!

Another part of the issue with childminders is the WFH trend. I imagine a lot of parents are working together to avoid wraparound care costs, and block their calendars etc.

My guess would be that this is the "easy money" part of childminding compared to babies/toddlers, and the decline makes it less profitable?