Can you share some of your tips on making life easier as a c.m.?

[MUM2BLESS]

Good Evening.

Life can get really busy as you all know, balancing home and work.

What tips have you got on how you make life as a .......... much easier

I have a diary which i use during the week to put those in attendance, acttiivies for the day, menu, notes. It kinna cuts down on paperwork. I do have lots of papers which I use in my planning folder. (proof of what I am actually doing)

What tips would be like to share? that helpe you during cm or with your own family?

I have notice that some cm have towels for each of their cm children, is anyone using another method instead of this. I really dont want to have to do any additional washing. I have four kids of my own and cm seven.

Maybe you have a house keeper or have someone in to do your ironing.

Thanks in advance......

When I am busy and full, I have a cleaner. I don't use towels for the kids hands, I use kitchen paper instead. It costs a bit more, but is clean and quick to use.

I try to do the same dinner for DH and I as I do for the children.

Despite these few things, I am crap at paperwork and am looking at ways of getting organised!!

I have a cheap,magnetic write-on wipe-off board on my fridge which is fab!
At the moment,I only have 1 little one 3 days a week (i have 2 on the other days) who sleeps for a couple of hours in the afternoon.So I break up that time into little sections so I can get things done.e.g.1.00-1.30pm;write planning for the following week
1.30-2.00pm;write up observations and evidence books
2.00-2.15pm;do daily diaries and have a cuppa!
2.15-2.45pm;update accounts etc
2.45-3.00pm;set out activities for after school children before setting off to school!
Mum does my ironing, but if I get a bit of extra time then i will throw the duster round and sweep the floor!
I use wipes to freshen the loo!
Have never used towels for each child-they use baby wipes or kitchen roll.
The best thing I did was to get one of the Early Years team to have a look at my paperwork-I got rid of loads of stuff i didn't need,whittled it all down to something a bit more manageable and now feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!!

I have a cleaner and a ironing lady
I have babydays (online diary, observations, risk assesments etc etc)
I have a register which also has a risk assessment tick list in
My DH cooks tea at night ie shepards pie and makes a baby one for my babies for next days dinner

So on the whole i dont cook, clean or iron, my sons do dishwasher/dishes

yes single use kitchen towel for hand drying

pogo printer has transformed my practice, snap, print, stick into diary, job done

I have a cleaner and outsource ironing

I batch cook for my own family on weekends so that I can pull supper out of the freezer bang in the micro bish bash bosh

Families provide food, I provide snacks

um um um

Thanks Everyone, wow what can I say.

Lisa1968 you seem so mega organise, do you always stick to your plan for the day?

I had to cut down my hours at the beginning of the year, had to.

I think what I need is to have so un interupted time to do my paperwork and also my house work.

Really thank you all once again.

In April I will have Friday free after I do the school run, until pick up time.

How ever busy we are as cm we need some time for ourselves and also for paper work.

Some more comments please, some really great ones so far

Should have wrote will have Fridays free, from April onwards.

I have to choose who I take on very carefully as there is a lot of things going on within my home at present.

Hi,

I do much the same as you all - try to get as much paperwork done as I can when the little ones are napping in the afternoon. When I initially started minding I had Fridays free which I intended to keep free for cleaning and paperwork but I soon got full so I now employ a cleaner.

I only started minding in July last year and it was a joint decision to improve our life as a family but by Christmas I was starting to feel overwhelmed by all the paperwork etc. I was the only one who seemed not to be benefitting from our new way of life. I seemed to be looking after children all week and then it was me who was doing all the swimming lessons, rugby, dance classes with our own children at the weekend too. So, in the New Year I roped DH into doing his fair share of this and we now take turns every other weekend. This leaves me with a few hours free every other weekend which I either chose to use to update yet more paperwork or if I've managed to get quite a bit done during the week I try to use this time as 'me' time to watch a TV programme or read for a few hours to unwind! I even get a lie-in occasionally now

Big diary with register, activities, food and daily risk assessments in.

I include my obs and individual plans on daily notes, which are done in a duplicate book so I have a copy.

Invoices and newsletters done monthly. By email.

Summatve assessments done April August December. By email.

Trying to work out if I can do everything online with each parent having their own login...

Cleaning gets done by whole family. Ironing never.

and ...

flannels for hand towels and each child has a pillowcase with their sheets/comfort items in

I have a snuggle sack for each child. Makes it really quick to change the beds and then they only need to be laundered at the weekend (barring accidents of the pants variety or really snotty noses!)

I have an iPhone. The apps on it save me so much time on all the paperwork, I really don't know how I managed before. These days, I do all my daily notes and eyfs stuff on the phone as I go along and email it at the end of the day.

I made the decision that if I get good then I am happy I don't go over and above on anything to do with paperwork, my evenings and my weekends are for my family I always make a point when seeing new clients of telling them I do the minimum amount of paperwork, I use my time playing with and taking mindees out etc

Tanith - could I ask which iPhone apps you use that are so helpful?

MUM2BLESS it doesn't always go to plan, and I'm not mega organised but i really don't want to be spending too many evenings doing paperwork.It would be so easy when little one is asleep to put my feet up for a couple of hours, but i make myself do the work so my evenings are a bit easier.!

@tanith. Me too !!! I use my iPhone for everything it's ideal, I wish someone would bring out a childminders app. I use notemaster for diaries and Dropbox for everything else.

sillymillysmummy - Notemaster? Dropbox? Both new words to me - I'm still using printers and handwritten notes!

How do Ofsted see what you have recorded if it's all done digitally? (dingbat emoticon!)

Do you forward everything straight to your parents as you go? So many questions, I can see a whole new world opening up to me ...

The Apps I'm currently using are:

Daily Connect by Seacloud software for dialy diary and attendance register

Foundation Stage Record by Apps4schools for EYFS records. It's just come out, I think - started using it recently and it's great! Take photo through app, assign it to child/children, add brief note, link to Eyfs using drop down facility and generate reports. I've asked them to add 0-8 months (it's a teacher app) and it's fine otherwise.

I'm also using Hours Tracker for attendance register and invoicing, setting each child up as a Job

Daily Connect diaries can be filled in as I go along and I email them to the parents when the child goes home.

Foundation Stage record generates reports that I email to myself to add to their learning records.

WBTBT, I've had all my learning records etc on the computer for a while now, before I really started using the phone. When OFSTED came out, I'd printed a few examples out, then sat her down at the PC and showed her how it was all organised. She didn't go though it all, just took a quick look at a few files and said it was fine.