Can I have some help with my childminders new contract - from childminders and just generally please

[mosschops30]

Ok ds has been with his childminder for almost 3 years now and adores her.
She has cared for him throughout my nursing degree, I worked full time on placement, part-time in college and 10 weeks holiday off. I used to give her a yearly line plan, she would work it out over the year and we would pay the same every month (£446).

Now I will be starting my nursing job in september, and ds is starting a nursery near her house so she can take him when i work)she now only wants to work 3 days (mon-weds) which i fine and I knew that anyway (she refused all other mindees thurs-fri).

heres the thing: I will work 3 x 12 hour shifts a week, i will drop him at 7am and dh pick up approx 5.30pm. However I wont be working every mon/tues/wed, sometimes will be weekends so she might only have him once or twice a week, rarely 3.

She has asked for £35 a day which equals to more than we pay now (£455 monthly over 12 months), plus 4 weeks paid holiday.

Is it unreasonable to ask her if she would do it for £30 a day because she wont always have him 3 days?
I dont want us to be paying more than we do now, even if i will be better paid

Trouble is whether you use the space or not, she cannot let somebody else have the space, so if she dosnt charge you the going rate she will be down finacially.

My contracts states that you are paying for the space, not the actual time used.

yes I agree, but she did allow me to pay a mixture of full and part-time when I was in Uni, even though sometimes I take up a full time place and sometimes i dont.
She cant actually have anymore I dont think, he will stay with the other 2 mindees she has now too

Maybe as it seems that she was only doing thurs/fri as a favour to you, and has now decided to make it a fixed contract, she has decided to contract you to the same as the other mindees.

you could ask for a discount she can only say no

i understand from the cm veiw that you will want mon/tues/wed but you will not know which days you will be using because of shifts so she will have to keep all these days availble for you

as you will be doing very long hours you may want time to yourself for shopping/cleaning so may use some/part of the days (i would )

shoshe she always did the whole wk, only since she took the other two on, and they only do mon/tues/weds that she didnt want to work thurs/fri but carried on doing it for me until I finished my degree

dmo your point also has bargaining potential if im gonna pay for mon/tues/weds then I'll use them whether im working or not!

Is 4 weeks paid holiday normal for cm's?

Are you seriously going to haggle over £15 xtra a week, when you seem to have a special relationship with your CM.
If she is also giving you DC meals, then what is £5 a day?
Don't be so mean, she needs to make a living as well.
You are only paying £3.33 an hour for almost 10.5hrs a day.
I do hope she says no to you and sticks to her guns.

Most childminders don't charge the client if the CM is going on holiday.
But if YOU go on holiday you may have to pay a retainer.
Same goes if the CM is ill, they won't usually charge, but if your DC is ill they will still charge for the day/week they were supposed to be there.
There can be lots of variations, as basically CMs are self-employed and choose what they want to do.

Ahh, I see, then as DMO says, ask!

And 4 weeks holiday is about standard time off, but whether you pay for Cm's holiday or not is a contreversial (sp?) subject, my parents pay half pay for their holiday, half pay for B/H and the Christmas break, and nothing for my two week summer break.

ripeberry its £65 a month though, which to us is a lot of money yes. But i know my CM isnt rolling in it either. It just seems unfair going from paying £446 for full time to £455 for 3 days IYKWIM

I always pay her whether ive been ill or not, and have never expected any money back if shes been ill (which is practically never). We have had a very 'give and take' relationship which has worked well

I think you're still getting a good deal, the childminders I know in Cardiff are charging 4 pounds an hour. If she needs to keep Mon, Tues, Wed free for your ds, then I'm afraid you need to pay for them, otherwise she's losing money, because there's no way she can fill random days. Just use them, as dmo suggests.

i often have children as i did last week when schools were closed come to me and both parents are off together or just one parent is off