What to ask a prospective childminder

[JBCG]

My DS will be 7 months when he goes to a childminder in the new year and I've lined up meetings with 5 prospective childminders. The trouble is that I have no real idea of what I need to ask them, what I should be looking for and what I need to know before I meet with them!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated for this extremely nervous FTP! Thank you x

Ask them how they deal with cover when they're sick. Is there any cover at all, or will you have to take time off?

Some CMs work with other CMs to provide cover for each other. Others have their adult DCs and DH registered as CMs so they can cover. Many have no cover at all.

The most important thing, however, is gut feel. Do you want to leave your child with this person?

If the overall cost is the same I would far rather pay for holidays as theoretically it would spread the cost over the year

Re the holidays.

It's normal to pay the CM while YOUR family/child are away on holidays - to keep the space.

However the paying for CM to be away on holiday is surely another matter?!

You might be leaving your baby with only one or two other children through the day during term time, but how many will be there in the holidays? Dd's old minder would have maximum numbers during the school holidays, plus her dd was a cm too, so there would be nearly 20 children in her house some days. Not good for the little ones.
How many times a day will your baby have to be bundled in their pram to do the school run? Potentially 3-4 if the cm is doing drops and pick ups from school nursery too.
I found a nursery setting suited us best, can you tell!

I don't think this is the thread for you somehow @Her0utdoors

Holiday pay.....in most cases increasing the hourly rate on a full time contract by 5p is more money a year than paying for 3 weeks holiday a year. As a full time childminder will typically work 55 hour weeks with children and the another 5 to 10 on paperwork one who cant afford a break is not going to be as fresh and on the ball as a rested one....bearing in mind that break is often also maintenance time a shut down is also often beneficial to the children.
Most childminders book holiday a year in advance and typically Christmas is part of it so for many parents fitting their own time off to match is not massive...if there are 2 parents they can split who's caring too and make it more flexible.
Most cms will not have 20 children in a house in school holidays even if a friend comes round so the post above is not saying anything useful....a visitor for a couple of hours bringing 2 or 3 is more normal on a school holiday but usually they meet up on outings making it better for the children.

Most self-employed people don’t charge for holidays: true. But they do factor into their fees the need to make enough money all year round in order to be able to afford some time off. So when you pay, for example, your plumber/hairdresser/dog walker, you are paying them a certain amount of money to cover their holiday weeks.

In fact, when you buy any goods or services you are paying towards a lot of people to "do nothing" because the price you pay has factored into it the holiday pay of every single person involved in producing, transporting, promoting and selling that thing.

I think that person was just trying to stir the pot around the CM v Nursery debate.

Of course the operations of one single Cm is not typical of us all.

I have one child in the holidays, occasionally two. I earn a pittance.
I don't charge parents when I close - which is never because I can't afford it.

I'm working right through Christmas and new year so threads like these really annoy me.
My parents would not want to pay me to be on holiday so I feel like a mug seeing I'm the only honest Cm out there while the rest will be tucked up with their families over Christmas and I'll have parents dropping their kids at the door 'cos they're paying for it'

I should maybe start charging parents, and throw my integrity and morals out the window.

I am a childminder. Gut feeling I think is very important . It does work both ways , I have turned down a couple of families and know where they have gone. In reality it has been the right decision , they just wouldn’t of fit in with the way I work.

Ask about ages of other children, school runs . I now don’t do pre school drop off or collection in the middle of the day as it seemed to be unfair on the children who were here all day. Getting out for some fresh air morning and afternoon is good for all of them. Rainy days we wear puddle suits and wellies to make the rain fun.

I am honest with my parents though I am not going to forest school on the rain we will do something else.

Ask about groups but bear in mind this changed depending on the age of the children . I used to have a baby one day so went to a baby group . Did a drama type group one afternoon a week when I had three3/4 year olds but wouldn’t of worked if there were 2 and a baby.

Ask about meals.

All cminders do first aid and safeguarding as a minimum.

If there are specific things you want to ask take a list . I also tell prospective parents to text any questions when they get home.

Your gut feeling.

@LucieLucie

I do agree with you, in principle, about holidays. In fact, I don’t charge for my holidays; I allow parents to take their holidays without paying me; and, like you, I work the school holidays for 1 or 2 families when it really isn’t worthwhile. I shall be working across new year for parents who are in essential services and if I’m not actually working Xmas day then I’ll be on standby because they are on call.

But in practice I would never criticise any childminder who charged. To compare self-employed holiday arrangements is pure cherry-picking if you don’t take account of all the other comparisons.

I’m sure every childminder in the U.K. would stop charging for holidays if they could charge £40.00ph like a (less qualified) plumber, or even £10 to £12ph like a completely unqualified dog-walker or cleaner who has virtually no expenses compared to a registered childminder.

Most self-employed people don’t do evening and weekend work for nothing. But I can spend 10 to 20 hours a week unpaid on planning, CPD, reviews, meetings, etc. Perhaps childminders should not charge for holidays, but perhaps we should charge for the hours put into writing progress reviews, 2 year checks, meetings with parents etc. ? Because other self-employed people certainly would. My joiner charged for his time spent cutting and prepping skirting boards off-site, not just for the time fitting them at mine. My daughter’s solicitor charges £90 to write a letter.

A childminder I know has lost entire days of income because she has to attend safeguarding conferences for one child. So who is paying her doing her job properly?

Perhaps we are all mugs because we don’t charge like other self-employed people would?

Thank you all very much for your advice. We've met with two childminders so far, both seemed nice enough but I don't think they're the right fit. One had three other children much older than DS so I'm not sure he'd be doing age appropriate activities a lot of the time. The other didn't seem to do a lot with the children at all and said she often did school runs both in the morning and afternoon and in between the children would play in her playroom - so it seemed DS would be spending a lot of time in the car or sat at her house in a small playroom (she showed us the room).

Re charging for holidays I agree it's a bit swings and roundabouts when you get down to it. One of the ladies we met with didn't charge when she was on holiday or ill but did charge for all activities (which is obviously fine). The other did charge for holidays and sick pay but said she covered the cost of activities herself (although she was the lady who also said she didn't do many activities 🤦🏻‍♀️). I definitely agree that the overall cost needs to be considered and not just holiday pay or not.

Anyway, the search continues!! Thank you all for your help so far! I felt clueless going into this so now I have a nice list of questions and considerations to take along to the meetings.