Nursery vs childminders

[Cariad1988]

Hey everyone

My DD is 13mo and I have been thinking about putting her in nursery for half a day a few times a week but I've been looking at childminders also. Does anyone have any pro and cons of either. I want her to be around other children of a similar age but also have adult attention, I'm a first time mum and have anxiety of her not being looked after properly in a nursery setting where there are a lot of kids

Thanks in advance x

I have used both (have 3 children) and prefer childminders for little ones and nursery for 3 +.

Childminder:

I like the home setting of a childminder as well as the calmer atmosphere (generally!). I also like that it is a bit more like my home, mixture of going out to shops, Playgroups and playing at home in the garden. I also like the mix of ages and the fact they go and pick the older ones up from school which mimics real life.

Both childminders I have used don't charge for school holidays unless used so for people with school age and younger ones it works out a bit cheaper. They are generally cheaper anyway.

I haven't had issues with CM sickness / holiday as both mine are very reliable and give loads of notice of holidays. However my work is pretty flexible in this regard which isn't the case for everyone.

Research shows that a one on one attachment is better for little ones and you just can't replicate this with nursery in the same way.

Nursery:

Like you, I wasn't confident in choosing a CM for DC1 so I went with a nursery from 1 yr. I could see it all laid out and staff were around to monitor others behaviour. DC1 was fine. He took a while to settle into the nursery routine but was there until he started school without issue.

Nursery can provide more activities. Ours did cooking, French and football for the older ones. At 3 it was more structured play, a bit like school. I don't actually like too much structure at a young age as they have loads of time to be in a formal setting but DC2 thrives on this and was very much school ready.

Conclusion

If you can find a CM you gel with and like, I would go with her. If you're not confident, go with a nursery. You can always chop and change. DC2 and 3 were/ are with CMs at a young age and then switched to nursery age 3.

What a ramble! Good luck .

I have been both a nursery teacher and a child minder and also have my own young children. I'd go for a nursery personally. Yes it's usually a quieter setting in a home but there is literally one person to tend to the children. If all 3 little ones are crying the child minder has to pick one to tend to first. With a larger staff team, there is usually always one staff member to tend to an upset child. If your baby needs extra cuddles one day for example it's easier for one staff member to stay with them and the other staff can do other things. Just choose carefully, visit as many as you can and pick the one that ' feels' good to you.

@BackAfteraShortBreak @rebelrosie12 you guys have been really helpful. I have arranged to go to a nursery and got in touch with a childminder and I will definitely check both out and see which DD seems to like and I'll follow her lead

Thanks again x

I use both, due to a complicated set of work patterns. I prefer the childminder for my 18 m/o, but she's announced with one months notice that she's giving up childminding. It's much less likely that a nursery would close so suddenly. It's left us a bit stumped to be honest and based on that alone I'm not sure I'd opt for a childminder again.

I think it is more a question of finding the right nursery or childminder.

We had to go with nursery due to availability. There was one I visited where I would not put DD down on the floors and I am a relaxed parent.
Ratio in nursery is 1 adult to 3 children for under 2s. When my DD started they were under their ratio so they went on lots of trips to pet shop, on the train etc. Our nursery is small and homely but is not all shiny and new. I am confident that she is happy, cuddled lots when she wants it and she knows all the staff across the different rooms as they are together for meal times. This is good for my daughter as she likes to play with the older children. For 6 months before transition to the next room, 2 to 3 year old, she a few other children and her key worker did outside play time with the children and staff off the next room so she knows them all.

As the about settling sessions, this will give you a good idea of how much they will adapt to your child.

We've used both;
Our first childminder looked after our DS well & was a lovely nurturing home from home environment - they very much saw the minded children as part of the family, which I really liked. Lots of playgroups & other children of varying ages which was good for DS. However, she gave us loads of unsolicited parenting advice such as pushing us to sleep train when we didn't want to, to make naptimes easier for herself. She was also pretty unreliable in the end - decided with no notice that she wasn't going to provide meals any more, which was a huge pain, and then quit childminding with one months notice.

Our second Childminder was much easier to work with, super reliable, and really loved our DS, who slotted in there really well & was always very comfortable and relaxed at her house. However once he got older we realised that he wasn't getting a great deal of stimulation, watched quite a bit of TV and wasn't getting much by way of education.

Once the early years funding kicked in when he turned 3 we found a lovely small Montessori nursery for him which is working really well. As it's small he's already bonding well with the staff, and he's learning really quickly, picking up much more than he ever did with the Childminder.

I would say that we were happy with both options - if you're after nurturing home from home environment, then childminders are great, but if you want stimulation and learning, we've found nursery better.

Hope that's helpful food for thought

I've had better experiences with nurseries than childminders. Ds was with a cm for 5.5 months and she let us down three times - once with notice twice without. So we went with nursery as we needed reliability when it was full time care.

When DS started school we got a cm for drop off and pick up - spent all summer setting him in with her all going okish then after a few weeks she announced she was pregnant but not only just pregnant but 25 weeks and would be stopping in two months time grr. So we found them another cm who was great but after a few years the kids didn't like her and found her two strict so we went with the after school club.

Personally for us we have found the more business like arrangements of nurseries and after school clubs fit us better than the homeliness of cm.