Hi there,
I have two daughters aged just 5 and nearly 6.5. My husband and I both work and will need paid childcare for some of the school holidays.
For various reasons we have decided to opt for ad hoc childcare in our own home (like a “holiday nanny”) rather than use the one local holiday club (which is actually in a nursery). There are a few reasons for this which I won’t derail this thread with!
we live in a very rural area so there are fewer options.
So I asked around and found a local young lady who works in a preschool nursery and was available to help for odd days in the holidays. She studied childcare at college and has all her first aid, food hygiene etc. What even better is that another mum I know - who works as admin in the same school that the young lady works in - was able to personally vouch for her , say how good she is with the kids etc.
my husband works from home but I don’t. The idea is that she will look after the kids in our home with my husband available if she/they ever need him. We live in a smal village but it has two play parks, a shop, and we have a large house with a playroom and a back garden with climbing frame etc. There are lots of nice walks around as well.
She has been for a couple of visits and today I left her with the children for 2 hours. One hour I went upstairs and did jobs.. the second hour I popped out to the shops. She was lovely with them and all seems fine.
my idea was that for the days she is looking after them - which will amount to about 10-12 days over the whole year! - they will just do stuff locally. However today she asked if I would be happy to let her take them out in her car. It’s a decent car (newer than mine) and she seems very sensible however she is only 19. She has been driving for 1.5 years. I said I would give it some thought for the longer term … but would prefer the first couple of times she has the kids for a full day (9-3), that they just stay local.
As we are not in a town or city, you have to drive in country roads or national speed limit roads to get anywhere. The buses are hopeless.
My husband thinks I’m being silly but I feel a bit worried about it… mostly because she is young and my children can be distracting (squabbling etc) in the car. I’ve been driving for 20 years and even I find it hard sometimes!
At the same time I don’t want her to feel like a prisoner in our village … and she is local so is used to driving on these roads….but then again she is only doing odd days.
If she did want to take them out I’d have to get two more good quality car seats, isofix ones. I wouldn’t want to be swapping them over from my car as the mornings will be enough of a rush already.
I would be grateful for thoughts on what to do in the longer term as I don’t know if I’m being overly anxious or not. Thanks :)