CM Club: Support and advice needed.

[MoaneyBoney]

Hello!

I'm a long time childminder and m'ner but I've name changed for this post.

I just don't know what to do. I am so tired and fed up, and keep fantasising about downing tools for the time being. eg having a break from minding and while on this break decide if I want to go back to it or do something else.

I'm also about to ttc with a big age gap between all my dcs and after a really hellish work week I'm feeling shaky about that too and fantasising about a less child centric lifestyle (which shows how awful my week's been as I generally love kids).

I don't know where to start and what to put but any advice or support would really be appreciated. This is such a lonely job at times.

I have periods where I feel like this. Have you recently taken on more work that has made it harder? Can you identify a problem (ie new child not settling/doing too much paperwork in the evening/house being taken over by child and baby equipment) or is it just general?

Do you take regular holidays? This has really helped me feel better. I take a day of each half term and have gone down to 4 days a week which has helped immensely.

I think it also helps that my own children are all at school so I’m not dealing with them all day too. In the evenings the attention they need is completely different to what I’ve been doing all day which is a massive help.

Can you see your self doing something else? Also if you do ttc, if you were working somewhere else, you would have to use childcare, is that something you would want to do or is that the reason you went into childminding in the first place (I’m assuming you have older dc?). I wouldn’t want to do that, so for me childminding would win over.

Do you work full time? Maybe scaling down would help? I stopped doing school runs and cut down to a 4 day week and it made a massive difference to me.

Otherwise can you afford to take a break? Maybe finish your children at the end of summer term, have the whole summer off and start again in September if you feel like it.

If that won't help, then try and take a break before starting something new.

Yes things have changed. My son is out of school waiting for a place at a special school so I'm juggling home ed of an Sen 13 year old with a 50hr week of eyfs mindees. My working week has also increased. I did have the Friday off but my full time mindee was spending Fridays crying at a nursery so I took pity.

Yes I think if I had another I'd want to cm and be around for them like I did with my son.

I could afford to live off carers allowance for a while and I'm very tempted, and then start back up doing a shorter working week once I've has baby and had those early months with them.