Childminder and days off? To say something to her?

[Billsandfights]

My baby has been at her childminder 4 half days since August. The childminder then drops her off at nursery for afternoon session.

She is a lovely woman, really welcoming and my baby seems to like her.

The childminder also runs 2 local mother and baby groups which she takes my baby and the other children she cares for to. She’s stopped sending me any pictures of my baby and we think she doesn’t give her enough to drink during the morning she’s with her.

She’s had a few episodes of sickness and I’ve had to find someone else to watch my baby or take time off my very important last year placement. Fair enough people get sick. Unsure of what the deal with fees are when this happens. I pay a few weeks in advance and she’s never refunded me. I feel lately she’s been getting a bit unreliable. She put her car in for service on a Monday and then text me 20 minutes before my daughter was due at nursery to ask if someone could go and get her as her car wasn’t ready. Annoying but my mum was able to do this as she’s self employed. I feel like she’s getting a bit lazy and relying on my mum being available to go get my baby or take care of her for the morning. It’s ok on occasion but it’s getting to be more frequent.

This morning she text an hour before my baby’s start time telling me the snow was too bad and she wouldn’t risk going out in it. Now, I’ve never used a childminder before but I was under the impression that a lot of them care for children in their homes? So again, my mum had to take care of the baby until it was time to go to nursery. In the run up to Christmas my mums business is hectic and she can’t keep doing it.

I’ve asked in the nursery if there would be more hours available but there isn’t at the moment. I’ve filled in a form so my baby will be considered if the space is there.

I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I need the childcare to finish my degree but the unreliability is starting to get to me. Unsure if I should raise it or just suck it up and hope the nursery has more hours come next August.

Think you’ve misunderstood.

The childminder text saying “sorry I won’t be working today, I won’t risk going out in the snow”. I didn’t get the message till later and my mum had already taken baby round to her house and her husband turned baby away.

I have paid when my baby was sick but childminder hasn’t refunded me when she’s taken days off.

If you’d RTFT you’d see it’s all moot anyway as a consequence of her taking that snow day one of the other mums has spat the dummy and removed her child who was there full time and was the childminders main source of income so she’s having to give it up altogether.

Oh right i must of MRYFP sorry!
Yes obviously in that case if she says she isnt opening then full refund needs to be given. Why not ask her for it??

Just a little update if anyone is interested.

So childminder continued with her plan to look for a full time job, gave me her notice a couple of weeks ago, end date is tomorrow. She text last night saying that she’s realised she couldn’t work for anyone else and is going to try doing childminding on an as needed basis for the mums at the mother and toddler group. She has asked if she can keep my baby on but with a caveat.

Essentially she is going to be babysitting a group of children for 2 hours at £10 per hour, no idea what the ratio would be for this to be considered safe. She wants to take childminding away from her house altogether as she doesn’t want to go through the hassle of inspections etc. I currently pay her £5 an hour and provide food for my baby. She’s wanting to do less hours and charge more. I can’t imagine how she thinks that is going to work?!

Anyway, I’ve asked in nursery for more hours and may get them in the next few months. Until then, I have family members who are chomping at the bit to spend a few hours a week with my child until I’m finished my studies.

So she's operating as a crèche no need to be Ofsted registered no access to any of the financial support for parents.....has she handed her notice to Ofsted or is she planning on saying you can still use her number? Crèche rules are no more than 2 hours for a child otherwise she needs to register and be inspected ...nursery, preschool or non domestic premises.

Thank you for this.

My mother is involved in a lot of the community projects in our area and she was very concerned about what the childminder had proposed. We were just unsure of what she was actually aiming to do as she never mentioned the word “crèche”. You have just made the piece of the puzzle click into place.

Is it me, or is this a bit underhand?

Surely she can't be running a creche at the mum and tot group? Is her audience the mums at that group? Sounds to me she wants to do babysitting in people's homes. Otherwise where is she going to be based? You are better off out if this. If she were to keep your baby she would still be childminding.......odd all around!!

The whole thing sounds super dodgy really and you’re better off out of it. Referring to “the hassle of inspections”!

No that’s exactly what she’s aiming to do by the sounds of it. She said a few of the mums at the group had asked her. Don’t know what they asked her exactly but that’s what she said 🤷🏽‍♀️ And she did say she would be running these “sessions” from the group. She was trying to get a paid job running the group and she was also aiming to take that on while keeping all the children she had for childminding. I also don’t know how that would have worked as she would have been doing her self employed job as well as her employer job at the same time.

She also told my mum she has taken another child on for childminding 3 days a week as well. So it sounds as if she’s definitely going to be carrying on the childminding in some capacity but what she’s proposing going forward definitely sounds like a crèche now I have the right word to describe it.

It is all very weird and my mum is wondering if it will even be allowed in the premises she runs the group from.

£10 an hour? OP you need to run from this absolute charlatan. Her whole setup is dodgy and I would be reporting her to the councils education department.

In all honestly if your not longer using her services I'd report her to ofsted that your not sure she is offering childminding services properly. Might save another family going through issues whilst trying to work/study as well and she keeps letting them down. You can report online anonymously.

So there is provision to be allowed to work as a childminder 50% of your time from a secondary nominated premises....but she still would have to stay in ratio and whatever she does she must meet the needs of her mindees sounds very dodgy does she intend to be at toddler group all the time and then if parents want to go to hairdressers etc take their children? How could she guarantee keeping existing children learning and working on their next steps while looking after a child she doesn't know who may be upset? She has no control over the toddler group ...safety, other users, set up, activities etc totally unlike a new child in your own setting.
I'd start by asking Ofsted or calling your families information service

Yes, she’s run the group for over a decade. She goes to groups every day of the week, never has any children actually being minded in her house. Well apart from the child who left, she was there full time.

That’s the scenario we were imagining that if mums needed to go shopping or to a doctors appointment then they would pay her to keep an eye on their child while they’re at the group. It doesn’t sound as if the ratios would be correct either as there’s a lot of small kids at the group and the ratios of 1 to 3/4 for kids between 1 and 3. My baby is 16 months so essentially she would only be able to take on another couple of children, not another 6, would that be right?

To be completely honest, I feel like a truly bad parent for even trusting her with my child to start with. The more I think about things, the more I realise that I’m not happy with her practices. From what I can gather (as she never gives me any updates during the day anymore) my baby spends the day floating about in a walker just doing her own thing. She never tells about any skills they’ve been building or stimulating play that they’ve been doing. Even in her house, she’s only one got a very small box of toys for the kids.

For example, baby has started saying a couple of new words and actions this week. So she repeats them constantly. Nursery have picked up on it and mentioned it at handover and they’ve been trying to help her with independent walking as she’s taken a couple of steps recently. The childminder has noticed none of these things so it makes me wonder how much attention she’s actually paying to my child?

It’s not really my business anymore as obviously baby is finishing up today but I do wonder how she’s going to work her idea going forward. If she pulls off what she’s expecting, 7 or 8 kids being watched in 2 hour sessions at £10 per hour, she’ll be making not bad money. I respect the hustle but I don’t respect the lack of transparency.

I'm a childminder but this isn't good I'd definitely report this it's not the way we should work and brings us all into a bad light. It's not good for the children either

So she is going to look after children at a M&T for 2hrs and charge £20

not be registered sounds dodgy

assume she will want cash

and tech can’t look after more then 2 children from diff families legally or will class as a cm

She can care for children for only 2 hours before having to be registered with Ofsted. Unless she works at the childrens home then she doesn't.