'Unqualified' childcare and informal arrangements

[User989546711]

I'm currently on maternity leave with DC2 and trying to work out how much I need to earn for it to be financially worth going back to work while paying for childcare for both children (when I plan to return DC1 will be 2.5 and DC2 just over 1).

I currently have an amazing childminder for DC1 and would like both to go to her. For two kids to go three days per week it will cost £1500 per month! I'm in a pricey part of SE England and nursery and childminder fees are the same. I could use a nanny I supposed, but I prefer the children going out of the house to a very social setting.

I was discussing the problem with DH in front of MIL, and she said we should get an au pair or 'just find a local girl in the village who can come in and look after them'. She went on to explain that she returned to work after 12 weeks with both her DCs - an 18 year old au pair came in for DH, and a few years later BIL 'went to the neighbour'. Neither had any formal childcare qualifications although the neighbour had a few children of her own who she cared for at the same time. MIL was flabbergasted we'd consider paying that much for childcare. DH and I both agreed that we'd be unhappy with someone unqualified and unregistered to care for two such young children. According to MIL this makes us incredibly PFB...but anyway...

It got me thinking. Although we wouldn't consider it for our kids, I wondered if others had these kind of 'informal' arrangements in place for regular childcare with people who aren't relatives (clearly close family doing childcare is something different) and how they work. I'm talking 8-10 hours per day, 3-5 days per week, rather than babysitting.

I did this.

I went back to work for 10 weeks, 3 days a week between DC1 and DC2. I asked my next door neighbour to look after DC1 for me. She have two children a similar age herself and we were always round each others houses so the children knew each other well. To be honest I had a lot more confidence in her than I would have had in any childminder I'd just met, plus my DC new her and her house very well. My neighbour was untrained, and unregistered and we both knew we were breaking the law, we just didn't care.

As for having unqualified people look after my children, well I'm unqualified and IMO you just need to be kind, caring and have common sense to look after young children, non of which can be taught on a course.

Kendodd. Interesting, I can see that would work. I didn't intend to be rude by using the term 'unqualified' as a catch all (I'm clearly making it up as I go along and I'm the mum!) But when employing a complete stranger it would be one of the (many) ways I'd look to safe guard my kids against potential harm. The 'girl from the village' thing just sounds a bit alarming to me. As others have said, it was a different time. If a relative or close friend was offering I'd definitely consider it, particularly as a childcare 'swap'.

I asked my friend if she'd do it for me and I paid her the full going rate, I didn't expect her to do it cheap for me.

Hi scarlet - not sure if you live in a village, but there is a definite community feel in many villages (and even more so when your DH was a baby and your MIL was in this position) where "a girl from the village" would probably be someone MIL had known for years (since the girl was a baby perhaps) and be very familiar with her family/mum. I think this is where things have moved on and we don't always have that sense of community so much anymore, meaning that there aren't a lot of known people to ask!
Personally we live in a town and I didn't real feel part of a community til my oldest started school, which is a bit of a focal point and you then find you know "A", who lives next door to "B" (who's daughter is at the same ballet class), and "B" has a teenage daughter training in childcare etc etc. I can see why you might not feel you have an appropriate network to source this kind of childcare given the ages of your children. And I totally agree you need to rely on safeguards as part of assessing the best option for your own children.
HTH