To think SAHM should get priority over childminders at busy toddler groups?

[HulkMama]

Just wondering how people feel about childminders taking groups of children to a free toddler group that routinely turns stay at home mums away because they are full?

It's a church run group so they don't want to turn anyone away, I get that, but if there isn't room for everyone should childminders be taking up the places that parents with their own kids need?

Childminders are being paid to look after the kids! I just want to get out of the house and have a bit of adult conversation!

Comments from childminders welcome. 😉

Also, the groups are primarily for the DC but serve a function for the parents too. SAHP will find friendships but I doubt the CM will

What? 😂 Why not?

Then get there 15 minutes early, what's the problen?
I usually get to places early!
Yabu, they have just as much right to be there as you.

So everyone here would be fine with a local day nursery turning up with a room full of kids?

The library here does music rhyme time & story time and the local nursery brings a group of dc each time. Don't get the issue really

Also, the groups are primarily for the DC but serve a function for the parents too. SAHP will find friendships but I doubt the CM will
What??? Wth wouldn't they ?

I don't see why it matters at all that they're being paid. Yes they are, paid by parents to do the things parents would normally do with their children. Like go to toddler groups.

What are childminders supposed to do when the weather is bad if they're not allowed to go out and attend indoor groups? Just keep the kids in the house all day every day?

I'm going to be a SAHM soon and don't think childminders should be turned away, obviously you need to get there earlier if you want to get in! Toddler groups are primarily for the childrens benefit anyway grown up interaction is just an added perk really. Why should a child that has a childminder during the day miss out just because another child spends all day with mummy? That doesn't sound fair at all!

Why does it matter that we are being paid? I fail to see the logic. Do you think we go for our own benefit?
Well others posters have already mentioned cms who come to sit and chat to each other. I viewed such groups as a welcome respite from having to play with the dcs, and a chance to talk to adults. If the cms are not themselves parents of young dcs they don't need it from the desperate-to-make-a-friend point of view, and well yes I do think as payment is involved it should be them doing the playing for most of the time.

And why should childminded children stay indoors all day? Surely they're allowed a change of scenery too?

I say this as currently a SAHM but when I working DS1's nursery used to take them in groups of 6ish too the local library...

Btw i have nothing against childminders. They do a great job, but its a very different situation for SAHMs, especially first timers. At the end of the day a childminder gets paid and the kids go back to their parents. Its a job, not a 24 hour responsibilty.

What actual difference does it make that the childminder is getting paid?

Why should the minded children be excluded?

Why should the minded children only play with the childminders other toddlers? On that basis, maybe twins should be excluded too?

How do you feel about nannies?

Grandparents?

The fact that you get there by bus is neither here nor there and your problem, no one else's.

If it's that great, why is it a problem to wait 15 minutes, or you know, actually help?

Ask them to do an extra session (later the same day, or on a different day) and volunteer to help at it. That's how groups in my area have dealt with high demand.

SAHM is a job too. And the CM may likely have their own child to look after also.

How about WOHM or part time WOHM having priority over SAHM because they wont have the opportunity to go as often. Would that be ok with you?

Remember - its for the kids, who have no idea that people may want to limit their attendance to a playgroup because of how their parent chooses to have them cared for

In all seriousness & genuine concern now, It sounds like you might need to see your GP & get some help. You appear to be finding being a parent overwhelming & lonely.

But it's in your interest to set up a group if you've had children centre cuts in your area. I don't get the gripe with childminders being at playgroups (SAHM here). If I were you I would just turn up early and help set up if that's the only way to guarantee a place.

Ask the church how many volunteers they need to open twice per week?

If people are regularly being turned away it is feasible there are enough adults to join the committee/commit to helping out to make it viable for them...

YABU, why should children who's parent's work not be able to go? Just get there earlier

Toddler groups are good places to go if you are planning to use childcare as you can observe how happy the children seem with their childminder.
I think some of these groups serve a postnatal function (the ones that babies go to as well) and feeling isolated as a new mother can be very depressing indeed.
It is odd to suggest that childminder children must stay indoors if they can't access a particular toddler group! Are there no other outdoor spaces?! Could the cms not host each other sometimes?

Get there early, set up a group or get over it tbh. Team up with a few other mums and run it together, less work.

The group is for the kids tbh, they are hell on earth for a lot of adults.

I appreciate how frustrating it is being turned away when you've planned your whole bleedin day around playgroup too!!! But get there early is all I suggest, don't blame the childminders!

All this sanctimonious nonsense about childminders going to groups to chat with their friends and 'ignore the children'. When I took my kids to toddler groups, I chatted with the adults and let my kids play. Surely thats what the groups are about, not micro managing the kids play or standing over them. What do you want them to do? Supervise the activities so the SAHM's can chat to their mates, just because they are being paid by someone else? My kids went to a childminder part time. She took them to playgroups. Thats what I liked. That my kids wouldn't be at home all day, but be interacting with other children at playgroups.

I used to run a toddler group. We had to change the prices slightly as we started off being £1.50 per family, including toast, fruit, biscuits and squash for the children and tea/coffee for the adults, but when CM's started turning up with 3-4 little ones and an assistant we were losing too much money.

That said, once we had sorted the pricing issue the childminders were a dream to host - interacting with their mindees, keeping an eye on behaviour, not allowing the mindees to break anything/glue their hair to the craft table/whack other kids round the head with the Fisher Price Animal train or spill paint all over the story time rug.

The same could not be said of many of the parents who came primarily to offload their kids and ignore them for two hours while they played with their phones or chatted with their friends while their kids destroyed the place.

Many Parent and Toddler Groups (The clue is in the name - you are supposed to participate) are run completely by volunteers, often by people who have their own children there to watch at the same time.

It sounds like your area could do with another group OP - have you thought about setting one up?

If you have no interest in setting up your own group, then you just have to deal with what's already in offer. And as that just means arriving a few minutes early, it doesn't sound so bad.

Toddler groups are about the toddler. Who brings them is irrelevant. If you want adult conversation, I agree with the advice above that you find a babysitter and go to a book club, or a stitch and bitch, or some other regular social event.

It's not like mother and baby groups where the focus is on both (especially those run by HVs). And in the blinking of an eye, you'll be dropping DC off at activities which you do not attend with them. It's all part of the natural progressions as your DC grow up.

(The point about nurseries is of course reductio ad absurbam. CMs have limits on numbers, which are similar to the numbers you can find in sibling sets. Possibly lower than ones with multiples or blended families)

So what?? If it's that important to you then get there 15 minutes early, it's not like it's an hour early!"

You seem to be confusing toddler group with some sort of support meeting?