CM Club - Overnight Care

[looneytune]

Me again

Right, have lady coming this afternoon with her 5 week old. It's for adhoc care on a weekly/fortnightly basis but she's also talking about overnight care once she goes back to work in a few months.

I'm not registered as the old house was too small. So, do I have to ring OFSTED and arrange a full inspection? Or just a letter and they may grant it anyway???

Also, what about charges????

She's talking about a Friday night, once a month, overnight stay and pickup sometime on the Saturday.

Questions........

1. What do you charge and for what hours?
2. Do you charge more for little ones who don't yet sleep through the night?
3. What about the DSaturday charges if she wanted me til say lunchtime? I don't work Saturday's at the moment as value my family time so would want to charge more than £3.80. Any suggestions?

Anything else I need to think about?

TIA

Personally I charge £20 for the night and £20 for the half day when waiting for the pick up. Works well for me but each to their own.

Also would have thought you would have needed a quick visit by inspector to view the sleeping arrangements. I had mine done at my inspection, she just looked at the bedroom and asked if the windows opened for fire escape purposes. That was about it really.

The Fire Officer told me that if I want to do overnight, I would need to link up all my fire alarms so if one goes off the others do too.

I don't know if its required or just "good practice" but some cms have written procedures re bedtime/hygiene routine - eg child has own bed & clean bed linen with own towel & flannel, security/locking up at night, privacy in bathroom/changing etc. Think there are rules about each child having own bedroom unless siblings but maybe someone else knows about that?

Re charges i think its common to have a set fee for x number of hours eg 8pm - 8am and your normal fee for any additional daytime hours. Saturdays are usually charged at at least time and a half, often double time.

I would write to Ofsted requesting permission & see what they say you need to do. (I never phone any more cos I'm always given incorrect info)

Wow, good job I asked on here, brought up some more questions for me:

1. How many rooms are you expected to have for them? I'm only planning 1 at a time and planned to use my spare room that is used for nap times.
2. I only have travel cots atm, lots of bedding so no problem. I actually don't plan to take on older children at this stage but if I did, was hoping that a fold up bed would be ok for these occasions? I'd put it away and bring out when needed - would that be ok?
3. So, you have to have Fire alarms aswell as smoke alarms? Sorry to sound thick, what's the difference?
4. I have UPVC windows that lock but I don't lock them at the moment as the children don't go up there apart from naps and they are too young to be able to do anything. What's the rules on this?

Must dash to get ds from nursery but be back later.

Thanks so much for your help so far

Same old story then. Some people get told different things by different people. My Fire safety inspector said battery smoke alarms were all I needed. I have a spare bedroom with a bed and a travel cot. Ofsted said nothing about bedding, towels etc. As long as they couldnt get out of the window but we could in case of fire, as long as they had somewhere to sleep and could be heard at all times, monitor etc. then everything was fine.

Just looking at a tribunal case , and here are my conclusions:

Must meet criteria in Annex B of National Standards
Child has easy access to you and bathroom (so your bedroom and a bathroom for child to use are on the same floor as the child's room).
Ofsted to carry out an inspection for registration under Annex B.
Fire Safety officer is mentioned - Ofsted recommendation that any childminder living in a residence over two storeys should be inspected - so may not apply, depending on the height of your home.
National Standard "6.14 If a local Fire Safety Officer has visited, the childminder complies with, and keeps records of, any recommendations he has made".

Fire Safety Guide for Childminders - Note: This is dated 2003 and I cannot locate on the official cfoa website. It may however still be useful.

With regard to a bed, my view is that a temporary bed/cot would not be acceptable - as the child would be in it for a long period of time (such as 8 hours) rather than just a afternoon nap. However, I suspect it would be up to the judgement of the inspector.

Thanks for that Nannynick, will have a read of that!

Good point about the temporary bed situation. I hadn't thought of it like that. Whenever we visited people when ds was little, we used to take a travel cot so I thought that would be ok for say 1 night a month. And when we were kids and friends stayed over, I always used to sleep on a fold up bed. HOWEVER, I do see your point and will have a think about what's possible in my room. At the moment, I'm only looking at taking on maybe a baby once a month for overnight IF I'm granted overnight care.

babydales - this will be another thing I'll mention on my list of things to OFSTED (have you seen that thread?) So annoying isn't it!