What should I be asking our childminder?

[FoolishMortals]

My baby will be 9 months old when they start the childminder when I go back to work soon. I'm going to start a list of questions for our childminder when we meet next week.

Is there anything I should be asking? I already know about what happens if childminder is sick or if baby is sick etc. I know about her holidays etc.

I've got on my list about what happens with my babies 3pm feed when she will be doing the school run.

What else should I really be asking?

I would ask how many holiday days they take a year as you will need to find cover or use your work annual leave.

I'm interested in car seat safety and that would be an important question. Do they rear face past infant seat or would they be happy for me to fit my own extended rear facing seat. (my daughter will rear face until 6 or 7 - one of the reasons I use a nursery as no car travel/school run).

Do you provide food, nappies and cream or do they?

Do they have any set groups they visit each week?

(I used a nursery so not fully sure what to ask a childminder)

I always ask the parents if they want me to tell them. Usually they say they want to know with video if I can, then they usually change to they don't want to know so they can see for themselves. Make sure you are clear about this in advance, it is not something everyone thinks about.

Car seats. I'd want to know what seats she had if she was going to be taking them in car as car seat safety is really important to me and I wouldn't let either of my DC forward face before at least 4. So I'd want to know what car seats she has and if they were incompatible with my requirements, whether I could provide my own for use.