Mumsnet Childcare Costs Survey 2012 - Results

[nannynick]

For anyone who has missed seeing the link in Discussions of the Day, Childcare Costs Survey 2012 results has been published by Mumsnet HQ.

One result was:
Half of parents (50%) of parents felt that childminders should be able to look after a maximum of three children under the age of 5 (in-line with current regulations), while 20% believe it should be a maximum of two.

Did anyone expect to see 20% of parents wanting childminders to be only able to care for 2 children under 5? It came as a bit of a surprise to me.

Nope, & are that 20% willing to pay more in fees as presumably the childminders would want to keep their monlthy money the same!! I can also see where they are coming from as their under 5 would get more one to one attention and arguably better care!

Survey size was 1038, so over 200 people thought that childminders should be restricted to a max of 2 under 5's. Hmm, I'm wondering what the actual question asked was... maybe people considered it to be number of babies, rather than under 5's, perhaps.

I'm actually quite insulted. We're trained, experienced childcarers who can easily cope with our current ratios. I've looked after 4 under 5s on a number of occasions. My co-ordinator - before the days of ratios - had 12 children of various ages to care for! Yet 20% think we should care for less children than many parents do.

I wonder how many respondents actually have any experience of using childminders.

I'm a parent who uses a childminder, and responded to the survey. I did not put that answer though!
The question was how many under 5s do you think a childminder should be able to look after - there was a list of options, and it stated what the current law is. I dithered between 3 and 4, but put 3 in the end. I know my childminder has applied for a variation to have 4 (for a short time until oldest one turns 5) and I have every confidence in her ability to do so. I suppose I did feel that there could be a childminder I wouldn't think could cope with it though, and that's probably the way most people are thinking - worst case scenario, rather than a childminder they actually know.
I think probably most of the people who put that will have not used a childminder and so are thinking of a random stranger rather than an experienced childcarer. And maybe that's how many children they feel they can cope with, so are saying the same for a childminder?

Why should a qualified and experienced c/m only be allowed to look after 2 under fives?
Parents often have more than 2 children under 5...I feel totally capable of looking after 3 children with equal concern and benefit to all.
Our current ratio is very appropriate

The playgroup down the road are allowed 16 under 5 between 2 adults, and they take from age 2.9...go figure

I've also looked after 4 under 5s several times, once it was 4 under 18 months when my ds2 was 10 weeks old plus I had 2 more aged 4 and 5 who were before/after school. Lots of childminders have done similar too (obviously with the variation in place which Ofsted approved. I do believe that those who feel that 3+ is too many are those who probably haven't seen many childminders in action and maybe they struggle themselves with less. I've had parents meet me to discuss childcare and when they ask how many children I look after, they think it's a lot to manage as they find it hard to cope with their 1/2 children. Maybe by struggling a lot themselves, they presume we would too?

I did wonder if it was the "I'd never use a childminder" faction plus nursery staff hoping to reduce the competition, but then I'm cynical

I don't really get why childminder ratios were singled out. I think it would have been more informative if they'd asked about nursery ratios, too.

We surely trust professionals to get on with their jobs. This feels like respondents not regarding us as professionals.