Any advice on trial period with new childminder?

[Kerelene]

Hello everyone

I am moving to a new area in a few weeks and hence changing childminders (regretfully as my daughter is ecstatically happy with her current CM).

I have only managed to see one CM in the new area and she seemed ok but I want to contract her for a trial period only to keep our options open - so if it doesn't work out I can go and see other potential CMs.

I would like to suggest a trial period of one month or 6 weeks, so we could if necessary give notice at the end without having to wait a month.

Does this seem fair enough?

Also would it be cheeky to ask her to register for childcare vouchers at the beginning- should I wait until we are sure we want to stay with her?

She does seem nice but she only has her own 4 year old plus two that come afterschool, my DD is 22 months and loves being with other kids so am worried she will be a bit lonely/bored. Ideally I'd like to find someone who has more mindees and takes them out more as this lady doesn't go out much.

Would be really grateful for any advice about this from CMs or parents.

Thank you

hiya, i personally do 3 free sessions up to one hour each time before the child starts, like a taster session, let the parent leve for longer periods over the 3 sessions and then the first 4 weeks after the child has started is 'settling in' time, so they or i can make up my mind as to wether the situation is working..ask the cm if she has this kind of thing and how long(her t&c should show this)her notice period is if she doesnt have it?.good luck

The NCMA (National Childminding Association) recommend the first 2-4 weeks as a settling in period. I always start with a trial (the contract states the dates of the trial and the date at the end of the trial that the contract commences) so that either of us can quit during that time if one of us is not entirely happy that its working.

Never had anyone that didn't stay beyond the trial but you never know what might crop up - for example one parent discovered her mindie was allergic to the childminder's cat, another childminder found she was allergic to a minded child's pet (pet hair on clothes child arrived in).

Re taking them out - do you mean to organised activities or just being out in fresh air that you wanted? It can be difficult to make use of local facitilities sometimes - even if you've got the right car seats, timing of some groups may not fit in with other mindies nap/meal times or may clash with pickup/drop off times.

sorry that should read "parent discovered her CHILD"

my cm has a notice period of 6 weeks so I didn't really need a trial period either of us could leave on 6 weeks notice at any time. But as she is so fab, I would stalk her if she tried to give me notice until she caved .

My Ds also likes having more children around so I understand your reservations.

thanks, this is useful.

She is restricted by school pick up times during term time but even in the summer hols she says that she often finds it easier just to let them play in the garden but it's only a tiny garden.

I think partly I am concerned because I haven't been able to see any other CMs so nobody to compare her to - difficult to get up there as we are moving to the other side of London - I've phoned loads but most don't live very near to where we are moving to, or they sound nice enough but only have one mindee (or none at all).

I suppose I just want to know that we can find someone else if it's clear after first few weeks that she's not happy. I'll make sure this goes in the contract.

Am going to see her for the second time and DH is coming so it will help to see what he thinks.

Think if I have doubts after seeing her again I will make the time to go and see some of the CMs who are further away and see if we can find the right one for us.

But we are meant to be drafting contract when we go and see her so would it be terrible to let her down after verbally agreeing we would be employing her - or is it not so bad if we have not signed contract?

Fretting fretting...

technically if you have agreed it verbally then you already have a contract with her, contracts don't have to be in writing (just easier to prove)

It sounds as though you are ruling out minders who currently have no children or one child. I assume that they would be looking for other mindees to have, so maybe that shouldn't be an issue for you (unless they definitely don't want to have any more mindees).

If you prefer a childminder who goes out and about, I would try and find one. Perhaps you should visit those that are a bit further away anyway, whether or not you have doubts after your 2nd visit with dh.

Personally, I would be a bit miffed if I had a verbal agreement with a parent to be their minder, who then decided not to come, but it happens (we read about it on MN all the time!) Could you tell your prospective minder that you have reservations because you do want someone who goes out, and that you want your dd to have playmates - see what she says!!

On reflection I agree with Prisoner, its not a good start to what should be an open and honets relaitonship with someone who will have such a big part in your DD's life. You should just be honest with her and say that you are concenred about lack of playgroups/ other children as your DD is very sociable.

Thanks for the useful advice ladies. I think I rushed into confirming with the minder that we would be taking her on - she called me at work asking what was my decision and caught me on the hop a bit although I had decided we would probably go with her as I hadn't found any other leads.

I think I will just tell her I am hoping she will get more mindees and that DD likes to go out and mix with other children and about see what she says - as Prisoner suggested.

I have a couple of other reservations but not sure if it is appropriate to go into them here.

I am trying to stay open minded but it helps me to bear in mind that we can look for someone else if DD is not happy there as long as we have a trial period.

I don't think I've had specific conversations with parents I mind for as to whether they had any/many reservations about choosing me as their childminder (but I will now!).

However, if you have several reservations (I hope that they're not really serious ones), I really think you should visit other childminders just to see if they operate differently.

After reading this thread, asked mindee 1's mum if she had had any reservations about me when we first met. (Is now well and truly a part of the extended family).

Said she was so confident in me that they never bothered to look at other childminders.

Now not sure if that was a good thing as had nothing to compare me to????

I went to see the CM again with my DH and feel reassured now, she has a lot of experience and I think she will be fine. She is actively looking for other mindees so DD will probably have company too.

She said she doesn't usually do a trial period and has got other parents coming to see her next week so didn't want to commit to us until she'd seen them, if we were not happy to sign a standard contract. Which I thought was fair enough.

So DH and I discussed it afterwards and decided to sign a standard contract with her with one month's notice.

I think I have been looking for someone ideally like our current CM who is fabulous and of course that's not really fair.

We will have to see how DD settles with her but I hope she will he happy there although I think she will miss her current CM.