CM: Do you all have seperate sheets/towels for each child who attends?

[diddle]

Title says it all really.

I was wondering if you all have childrens individual towels and sheets for when they attend, and are they kept seperatly from each others?

you're supposed to have IIRC

Errrr yes!

All the towels used for hand washing are hung along the arga in the kitchen - all cot bedding is either washed on a 60 inbetween or if they are full time their beds are made up for the week and washed at the weekend. If they are part-time they are aired and put in cotton drawstring bags and hung on the back of the bedroom door!

Would be gross if children shared............YUCK!

Oh seperate towels in toliet for olderones.

I provide each child with their own face flannel, but not individual towels - clean guest towels are put in bathroom at least daily though. Bedding is washed each week & additionally if to be used by a different child.

Ofsted inspector very happy with 1 towel changed twice a day in bathroom and 1 towel changed daily in kitchen.

Every child has a different sheet for thier cots and the t towels which i dont use for plates etc are changed 3 times a day.

Dont have any older ones that use the bathroom but are changed daily.

All of my mindees have their own towel and flannel which I wash approx every other day (unless they are visibly dirty before hand). I bought the small guest towels and as I have 8 mindees we have them in 8 different colours so that they know which is theirs.
I only have 2 mindees who use the cot so just have 2 different coloured sheets which I wash weekly.

Anyone know where I can buy 17 different coloured flannels/hand-towels for all the mindees I have??? - obviously not all at the same time.

I know babydales says that Ofsted is OK with one towel if changed regularly, but I know of several minders who have been told that this is not acceptable (and several who have been told it is). Some Ofsted inspectors have been happy with children using kitchen roll for drying their hands on but, again, I know minders who have been told that is isn't OK.

I just stick each child in a corner and hose them down regularly. And let them dry naturally, that's what I say.

TP - I have 27 different colours

Sorry to hijack the thread. Katymac- do all your assistances help with the cleaning, cooking, wahing etc or do you do it all?

Err - DH does it all

Assistant does cleaning in the playroom and kitchen (and rotates the towels etc)

Other C/Mers cook and clear away

& I now have a cleaner for the other rooms and a gardener

Goodness I'm lazy

also sorry to take over thread, but do you find you make a profit by having another minder working with you? what (sorry if i asked this before) sort of money do you pay them

myself and another local minder are both thinking of employing reg minder but cant see it being profitable?

Well I charge £3.50 an hour so over 3 children I earn £5.30 (less expenses)but for me it's worth it

Katymac - do your 27 different colours include varying shades of purple, green etc?

I have visions of explaining to Child 1 - "well, your towel is the one that is slightly darker than Child 2's, but is a couple of shades lighter than Child 3 and Child 4, but don't get it muddled up with Child 5's because his is a bit darker than Child 6's."

If you cat me I'll send the list

For toilet/potty trained children in on a hook on the wall (with their name) and for nappied children they are in the basket (with their name on) with their nappies so no confusion t all

Am being thick ... list of what?

I know you have a purpose-built cloakroom for your mindees. I have a downstairs cloakroom (normal size!!!) which is for my family, but obviously used by mindees during my working day.

I really don't want to put hooks on the wall for the multitude of towels for mindees, because I will have to sit looking at them every evening and at the weekend (not that I spend that much time on the loo!), and it will be a constant reminder that I share my house with lots of little people.

I love them all dearly, and I love doing my job, but I want my home and life to be my own outside my working hours. I'm not sure whether chucking all the towels on the floor for use during the week is what Ofsted was thinking of!

A list of all the colours

Home life...hmmm what's that?

You could hang them on a clothes maiden....with pegs ? then put it away at the weekend?

Oh I don't know

Have sent you CAT! My cloakroom isn't big enough for clothes thingy - I think I will staple towels to the childrens' clothes when they arrive in the morning.

Use safety pins the staples will damage your towels (and you might have to replace them)

Silly me I can post the colours

Deep Red
Orange
Rust
Dark Brown
Coffee
Beige
Yellow
Pale Green
Moss Green
Soft Green
Lime Green
Forest Green
Olive Green
Dark Grey
Light Grey
Pale Pink
Hot Pink
Pale Lilac
Lavender
Dark Purple
Navy Blue
Deep Blue
Cornflower
Light Blue
Turquoise
Turquoise (stripe)

It'll be World War III in my house trying to decide who would get what! There are 6 greens in there! Are they all from one source, or did you scour the entire country looking for them?!

I think I will stick to the "hosing them down in the corner" routine, and allowing to dry naturally.

Ikea does a pack of 10 flannels with different coloured fabric hook thingy. Could this be a compromise for ofsted? after all mindees only have small hands. You could put a couple of sticky backed hooks on the side of the washbasin and hang a variety of colours and ensure ofsted that every mindee knows which one is theirs! They will fold away nicely in the back of the airing cupboard until the next inspection.

I was told that using a flannel as a small hand-towel would be fine. Don't think I'd dare let one towel touch someone elses - think that this would cause major contamination (because we'd all have salmonella from handling the killer egg-boxes and bubonic plague from picking up leaves from the park).

lexiemum - can't believe you'd encourage us childminders to fool Ofsted into thinking we do something that we don't!!!

Unfortunately, if we don't do something all the time, you can guarantee that the children will tell the inspector how the system usually works!

I've been having discussions with the older children about house evacuation in an emergency - they're now arguing over whether they should be allowed to pick up a baby/toddler to lug outside to save me having to pick up all three of them and cause more damage to my back!!