Angry with childminder

[RVF400]

Firstly I have to say that I have the utmost respect for anyone who can look after a house full of under fives for 50 hours a week. It would drive me insane, and I am so glad that there are people who actually enjoy it, thereby enabling me to escape go out to work.

I am about to go back to work PT and DD has been going to the childminders one day a week, gradually staying longer each time, to get used to it. She loves being there and gets very excited when we get to the door.

My original agreement with the CM was that I would be going back to work in Sept, but CM said she had Thursdays free at the end of March so I snapped it up. She then said she also had Mondays, I said I'd take it and on that basis then decided to go back to work early.

Suddenly CM has told me she can't do Thursdays. My first day at work is next week. She has offered me Mondays "instead" but I was having those anyway so . I've now agreed my return to work so I'll have to put DD in a nursery on Thursdays, which I really don't want to do.

Firstly I am hugely annoyed at being messed around, and secondly I am worried that if CM is this unreliable I am going to have a really hard few years ahead of me. I am particularly concerned that she might not honour our original agreement of 3 days a week later in the year. I think the problem is that she is always saying "yes, don't worry, it's all fine" to everyone and then when she actually looks at her planning she's oversubscribed.

OTOH, she is a fab CM, kids love her, great reports, and the environment is perfect. It's also a stone's throw from the house, local schools, couldn't be more convenient etc etc. So I really don't want to go and find someone else, it would almost certainly not be as good in a number of ways.

I am really really cross, DH thinks I should tell CM, I am worried that I'll be angry at her and that won't help matters. Basically, the CM holds all the cards here.

By Sept she may have children moving on to school. It could have been that she had been given notice but it's been withdrawn. Though my CM would have said tough luck to the one who gave notice.

I think whether you are BU or not depends on what reason (if any) she has given you.

If it's that she had over booked herself, I would say YANBU - although it doesn't mean she will be like this all the time, and I think you should give her a chance.

If it's that there was some other, important reason that she couldn't change, YABU, but again, it depends on if she "overbooked" herself (knew, forgot, said yes to you, remembered), in which case you still have the right to be a bit peeved.

If she's given no reason and can't come up with a good one, YADNBU.

I do agree with Crypes though, can she not refer you to another CM?

Sounds like she may have had someone withdraw their notice. It can be a nightmare to predict the places we have in advance and, with ratios strictly controlled by OFSTED, she would have had to let someone down

I'm really quite amused that people are recommending going to a nursery instead! They honestly think this never happens at a nursery?! Innocent, trusting souls!

So you have a contract from sept, and currently were using ad hoc arrangements ?

Tricky, I don't know what to say, really

Thanks everyone. I'm going to talk to her tonight about this (when her house isn't full of kids to distract her) and some of these comments have helped me to try and see it from different perspectives. I don't want to be hard on her as I know she has a very difficult job, but at the same time I am really annoyed as it has put me in a very difficult situation. My main aim is to get some reassurance that this won't happen (or is at least much less likely to happen) once we get into the stable 3 days a week pattern.

Tanith - if you get a place at a nursery, you sign a lot of paperwork and then you have that place until you want to let it go, it's unlikely that they will just do it via a verbal agreement. It's harder to get the place to start with (and putting your name down 6 months in advance still isn't enough time round here) but once you have it, you don't get messed about.

RVF400 - she has a difficult job, but it's one she's picked to have and you are the person buying the service, she's not doing you a favour, this is a business even if she doesn't treat it as such. Don't start feeling you cant raise issues or complain.

Dontmindifido, yes you can get messed about. The nursery can't guarantee the place any more than we can. It's why I've ended up having to do temporary contracts for parents who are waiting for nursery places to come up.

Sounds like a misunderstanding. You really needed to get it all in writing when agreed.