Childminder and sickness

[Tessabelle74]

My childminder messaged me at 7.30am to inform me her child was ill so she couldn't have my dd today. Totally reasonable. Luckily my husband was home as I had an exam this morning, but he's got a masters presentation due next week and today was his only day off so he needed the day to finish up. This meant I had to miss the rest of my college day to come home to allow him to work. So, AIBU to be annoyed that the childminder was at school this afternoon collecting her after school children? Is this common practice?

I suppose it depends on the exact circumstances, what her DD was ill with, and whether the DD was there or not.

As an example, when I was a childminder my DC had chickenpox and I had to close so called the parents to say I couldn't have their DC. One of them called me back a little later to say that she had arranged alternative care for her DD during the closure but just for this first day could I still collect her DD from school and take her to her aunts house which was quite near to my own house. As I knew this DD had been vaccinated against CP and as I had to collect my own DS from the same school, I said okay. Pox-ridden children stayed home with DH while I did the school run and dropped the DD at her aunts house.

I'd ask the childminder about it before getting annoyed.

Her child had vomited so wasn't going to school. The after school kids go to her house and she has 5 of them.

I would be happy she tried to keep your child away from a sick bug!

Not sure why she took the others, maybe the parents were ok with the kids being sick, it's weird. I wouldn't be happy at all if she had taken my kids without warning me about the sick bug.

I used childminders for mine, but if I had my time again, would use a nursery!

Maybe her daughter had gone to a grandparent in the afternoon and she was able to do the after school collection.
just ask her?

Surely she can't have an infectious child in the household whether it's hers or a mindee.

What you need to be aware of is whether you have to pay her for the day or not as CM have different policies.

If you want 100% reliability you need a nursery but in all honesty your child will probably pick up more bugs there and end up off sick anyway...

I thought that too Josef but my other childminder never cancelled on me so never had it before so thought it odd that they'd have other kids whilst cancelling others

Was her DC with her when she collected the other children? Maybe she had been able to make other arrangements by that stage of the day for her DC to be looked after so she could work (effectively what your DH did with your DD).

This is why I used nurseries. I had a stint with a childminder, but the amount of short notice cancellations I had from her made it unworkable. YANBU that she was either open today or shut - seems she was shut this morning but open this afternoon, which is really unhelpful for you.

I don't want to ask her as I can't afford to lose her and arrange different childcare again! I couldn't tell l if she had her child with her as she was in her car and I didn't want to stare! She didn't bring them into school but is old enough to be left in the car briefly so I can't be sure. I'm hoping it won't be a regular thing as my husband is working a lot in the next few weeks so won't be here much

If you don't want to ask her then you'll just have to give the benefit of the doubt and presume that she had made other arrangements for her DD so she was able to work after school.

My childminder called me one morning and said her own child had been sick in the night. It was my choice if I dropped my child off as her child had been isolated upstairs and she had disinfected downstairs. She didn’t want to inconvenience 7 families and I was very grateful.