Any childminders want to chat?

[Snap8TheCat]

Thought it might be nice to start a thread for childminders to gather and chat. Who would like to join me? It can be a lovely job and I think there are quite a few of us on here.

I've been minding for 8.5 years now, recently taking on an assistant as business is doing well. We currently have 13 children on our books.

I love my job and love talking about it (mostly). There are plenty of down sides but mostly positives. It allows me to raise my lovely children alongside looking after fab mindees.

Come join me!

I can understand you being worried about caring for this baby. Taking on one who has been breast fed exclusively can be hard.
Please try to work with mum over the next few settling in periods, explaining to her any ideas you might have to help her settle & feed with you.
I would suggest that you ask mum for a muslin or something similar that you can 'wear' when feeding the baby as if you smell more like mum that will help her settle, she needs to have worn the muslin herself a fair bit for her smell to soak into it.
When she is being offered her milk is it breast milk that has been expressed, or is it formula? As they taste different & smell different to each other. Perhaps it is worth trying a different style of bottle, I realise it can be expensive to keep buying new bottles to try but sometimes babies will only feed from what they feel most comfortable with.
Lastly have you considered her feeding position as that can affect her wanting to feed, us she too upright when having a bottle, it might be that you need to lay her down closer to her natural feeding position & does mum use a breast feeding cover over her when feeding her as she might prefer that?
I agree with her being warned that will help to get nutrients into her, also it might be that she will take cool boiled water from a cup or beaker rather than a bottle, that way keeping her hydrated in addition to the moisture in her food.
Good luck

Thanks for advice badgerhead and apologies for not replying, got side-tracked!!
Nothing has changed unfortunately - I think the problem is that Mum exclusively wants to breastfeed which of course is natural and isn’t actively trying that much with the bottle (she has admitted this). Her solution is to do night feeds so that it won’t matter that baby isn’t having milk during the day (!?). Also, baby has no routine and Mum cant tell me when she usually sleeps and for how long. I have had 7 settling in sessions with her now and she sleeps for about 20 minutes after lengthy crying sessions and wakes up crying and very difficult to soothe. I’m sure it is because she desperately wants a feed but can’t have one. Mum has brought round various different teats, cups, beakers, tried breast milk and formula, comfort blanket with her smell etc. But no luck. Mum says she will definitely not take a dummy either.

Hello All

can I just say that I had a childminding team for my DD (now 18) and DS (now 13) both from age 3 months, they were a husband and wife team and were absolutely marvellous. I could not have asked for better childcare, they were both a great help and support, I often used to ask them about rashes / weening etc as they had 2 older children. My kids missed them terribly once they started secondary school, although we do keep in touch, I think childminding takes a special sort of person, and you all sound lovely thank you!

Aww lovely message. Nice to hear xx

Hello fellow childminders!
I'm just completing my registration in Edinburgh and am keen to join this thread. How do you get on to advertise yourself in the mumsnet bit? I am a bit rubbish with computers but yesterday I fond a part on mumsnet which took me to netmums and I saw local childminders so I wanted to add myself but now it's only showing conversations. Any ideas? Also where did most of you find your customers from when you started? I realise a lot is from word of mouth but at the start there isn't much of that. I'm going to lots of different play groups, chatting to parents etc but any ideas would be great. Cheers, Sylvia x