How early do you arrange childcare

[looblee]

Hi, near me there are horror stories about waiting lists for nurseries and mothers having to put their unborn babies onto lists to secure a place. However DH and I are keen to go down the childminder route when I return to work. I was wondering when people think the Childminder should be contacted? 6months/1year/more before you hope need their services to secure a place? I don't want to look stupid rining them up before my baby is born.

I contacted some CMs whilst pregnant to get idea on cost etc, then contacted again once I had baby. I visited 2 when baby was 3months & chose one of them, paid a deposit and DS started when he was 8 months old. (I am in East Mids).

It's worth ringing them to see if they have a little one who will have just turned 1 when you want to return to work. If you work in the basis that under-1s spaces come up roughly every 9 months (assuming the child starts at 3 months) then definitely no longer than that for initial research. It depends how soon afterwards you want to go back to work really.

Thanks I am east mids too ojmummy, I intend to be off work for as long as financially possible at the moment its looking like 11months (hurray)I think thats a great idea about sounding them out about pricing now, at least i'll get an idea then I can go visiting once he/she has arrived. and i'll have 11months notice.

That's oceans of time to find someone. Worst case scenario is the CM you like doesn't have an under 1 space but could take them a month later as an over 1 and you need to find someone for a month.

When I was 8 weeks pg in the first instance, and then when we moved country, I googled all the day cares, and put the dds down on the wait lists as soon as I was at interview stage, so about 6 months before we moved. DH then went around and looked at them all when we got here, and we were able to go straight into our first preference place. Have very little symptahy tbh with my colleague who moved at the same time, and is still patching together care while waiting for her place to come up " I never thought it would be so difficult" - why on earth not - everyone knows good childcare is hard to find, and you loose nothing by going on wait lists. Can't imagine any carer will think you're silly for researching early!

Incidentally I would look at nurseries too - you might think you know what you want, but it does no harm at all to investigate both options (I thought childminder seemed better for small babies, but after loking at some nurseries, realised that actually with good ratios the girls were getting more 1-1 attention their than at the childminders, plus I liked the security of not relying on only one person etc - a very personal, individual decision, but wouldn't rule things out withouth investigating)