CMs - Do you charge any less for children in your care who go to pre school nursery?

[NotAnotherNewNappy]

I'm trying to wirk out what the norm is. One CM I spoke to charged £5 less per day if the child also attended nursery, i.e. 2.5 hrs per day but in their care for the rest of the time. However, the CM I prefer is new to the job and hadn't considered this yet.

WDYD? Is it reasonable for me to ask her for a discount when DD starts nusery? TIA

I charge a full day, as they are still using the space. Some cms won't charge at all while they're there. You will get a variety of answers to this :)

I would charge too as the space can't be filled and if term time only you might need the space in the holidays.

I charge for the full day too. I find that doing the nursery runs is far more work than just looking after the child for those hours. I don't drive and the nursery is in the complete opposite direction from all the playgroups, it is a 30 minute walk from one to the other. Due to the timing of the playgroups I have to always leave half way through, in order to get to the nursery on time. This really upsets my younger mindees and they often throw tantrums because they don't want to put on their coats when the other children at the group are still playing. All the extra walking, tantrums and constant feeling of being late leaves me utterly exhausted. I now try to avoid taking on any nursery aged children and there is no way I would do a discount! If I happened to live right opposite the nursery I might feel differently

Oh dear, I hope I haven't offended my potential CM by asking her to lower her price on the days that DD will be at nursery then. I thought this must be the norm after another CM mentioned it to me

It seems to depend on the local market. In London, CMs mainly charged for the full day and some wouldn't do pick-ups. In Surrey, there seems to be less of a childcare shortage, CMs don't seem to charge for preschool hours.

I guess it depends on the individual CM's other options for getting minds.

NewNappy, your CM is probably trying to weigh up her chances of getting a full-day mindee!

My CM just charges by the hour and when DS goes to nursery he won't be using those hours, so we won't be charged.

From reading on MN I think she is unusual though.

No I would still charge. Involves extra travelling, I also will not be able to fill those hours. And I imagine the parents would want to use me when ore school is closed so really I could fill the space even if I managed to find someone for 1.5 hours lol

I charge whilst at nursery/pre-school too and so do all the childminders I know locally. I have a policy on this in my handbook which explains why (basically it would be very hard

(sorry, not sure what happened there).......to fill the other part of the day and if you required the full hours in the school hols, definitely wouldn't be able to fill! Also, I get lots of calls for under 5s all day so I'd be silly to take less money, especially when it means a restriction on the day too to allow for the nursery drop off.

My CM used to still charge for a full day, and I'd not have expected anything else. Although for those couple of hours she wasn't looking after him, she took him to and from nursery and couldn't have looked after another child in that time :)

Charging for the hours is completely reasonable for the reasons stated and more often than not the CM is the one who would be called if the child needed collecting from nursery or would have the child if the nursery was closed due to snow etc - so they can't take another child on for that time anyway - even if they could find a child for 1.5/2 hours a couple of times a week.