How does childcare.co.uk work?

[spekulatius]

I registered with the website this morning to find s childminder. Now I get emails send to me saying that different people have looked at my profile. What does that mean? Do childminders have gold memberships

Wasn't finished.
Meant to say. Do they have membership so that they can contact me or should I pay so that I can contact them? Any idea?

I have a gold membership (CM) so I can instigate contact with prospective clients.

Put as much info as you can about your requirements up - I'm put off getting in touch with families who don't say what they're looking for in terms of hours/days etc. I have my website linked to my profile so families who look there will see I've got a contact page where my details are available without them needing to pay, so it's worth clicking through and checking those as well.

It's also worth finding names on there and seeing if you can find them on Facebook and contact them for free that way

Some may have membership, others may not. As you are actively looking for childcare probably a good idea to get a months membership so you can contact people. Remember to cancel gold membership once you have found someone as it will auto-renew each month (read ALL of the upgrade membership page).

Note: there is a max number of messages per day to prevent spam I guess. If you find the limit too low (think it may be 5 per day) then contact childcare.co.uk support to see if they can increase it.

Have you also contacted your local council Family Information Service for a list?

Also if in England, Ofsted now publish the address of some childminders, so have a look at local inspection reports.

Family information service gave me a list but none of the ones I found online were on it. I've tried looking on Ofstead website but they listed every cm in UK although I put my post code.
I did put in my profile the days and hours I need and DD's age so I guess some might have looked at that and didn't respond because they couldn't do those hours....

You do get notified every time someone looks at your profile, even if they don't send you a message.

I don't have Gold membership, but I do have a link to my website so people can contact me through there. Also they can see more about me than I could put on just my profile.

I have found that sometimes childcare.co.uk can be a little off with the postcode search though (it once showed me someone looking for childcare in Winchester when I live in Devon.... )

You sign up. People harrass you asking repeatedly and constantly if you need babysitting services or Childminders.

That's my experience anyway :(

I have used Childcare.co.uk as a parent looking for childcare and found I did not need to pay the subscription. I created a detailed profile explaining what I was looking for and got dozens of responses from nannies and childminders. Once they have messaged you it's free to reply, so I picked a shortlist and took it from there. Once you have someone in place you can change your profile so that it's dormant or hidden, and you won't get any more profile views or messages.

I recently used it to look for a nanny.I wrote a really detailed profile and asked anyone interested to mark me as a favourite.I joined for 1 month and contacted them.I blocked the feature telling me who had viewed me.it was just pointless.I was pretty happy with the selection of nannies I had to choose from.