CMs - how would you feel about a parent wanting to provide their own car seat?

[RitaMorgan]

My 18 month old DS goes to a childminder 2 mornings a week (shortly rising to every morning). Initially car seats weren't an issue as the CM had 3 little ones and couldn't fit three baby seats in the car, but now DS is there on different days she is doing some driving with him. I have never seen her car/carseats as I don't do any drop offs or pick ups, but DP says they seem "fine" - we don't have a car ourselves though so don't know much about carseats.

Another mum who uses the same CM asked me the other day if I was happy with the car seat arrangement, as the seat DS uses is apparently very old and shabby looking (this mum's child is a little older/bigger than DS and is in a high-backed booster type seat that lasts from 12 months to 11ish I believe).

DS is quite small (about 10kg) and we have been using a rear facing baby seat from a travel system for the few occasions when we use a car, but he is now outgrowing it and we are thinking of getting a bigger forward facing seat - would it be reasonable to ask the CM to use our seat? We'd be happy to leave it in her car all week if she needed to use it in the afternoons.

I wouldn't have a problem with it. Especially if you were willing to leave it in all week ( I wouldn't want the faff of it coming in and out each day)

yes, same here too, no probs with that; I would also want to be shown how to fit it correctly (could you google her car make/model to check compatible with car seat?)

I always used to ask both parents to have a look at the car seats in my car and also ask them to watch me strap their child in so they were happy for me to transport their child.
I used to supply car seats, but I did use a parents baby seat as the child would usually arrive asleep.
I would be perfectly happy to have the seat supplied by the parents if they brought it each day so I didn't have to store it. I also would be happy to allow the parents to fit it in my car to make sure it fitted properly.
You can only ask.

Its fine to provide your own car seat.

Im a childminder, and one parents wants their three year old to still travel facing backwards, so we went together to buy and make sure the car seat fitted my car correctly. They leave it with me to use, the only thing I did warn them was that the car seat would be removed every weekend and stored in my garage so may get damp / scratched from being moved about.

I also have a new baby starting next week and his parents too have supplied me with a seat.

Just ask. I show parents my car and seats and explain that they have all been purchased from new, with purchase dates and recommended seat life. I'm not sure whether my insurance would cover a seat I was not sure of the history for, so you might have to provide a note to vouch for the safety of your seat
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I would just ask, I wouldn't want to be getting it in and out all the time so leaving it all week is a good idea.

I know a childminder who gets her seats from freecycle so not all chikdminders are responsible, I always buy them new.

She probably bought it new initially, but she has been a childminder a long time so who knows how old it is Also, current concerns about car safety are a fairly new thing - I know when I was a child in the 90s there wasn't so much interest in making sure every had the correct seat, correctly installed etc (I remember sitting in the boot/footwell of my mum's car ).

I think I will get the new seat and suggest it to her, I wouldn't want to offend her though. It'll just be a seat that clips in with the seat belt so shouldn't be hard to install.

Make sure it fits her car though before you buy it my ds' seat didn't fit when I changed my car so I had to get a new one.

That would be fine with me if the parent wanted to bring their own seat, however I would put it in the contract that the CM would only use it for their child and no other.

I have a system where the parents can either bring their seat for a month (to help on expenses - (child seats are very expensive to buy then if the child perhaps finishes for any reason you have splashed out for no reason) and then if they decide they want the place then I can buy one specifically for that child, in effect renting it for their child to use in my care.

Mothercare fits car seats for you to make sure the seats go in your car which is a good idea as you don't know until its too late sometimes.