After, Afterschool care, such a thing?

[VoidofDiscovery]

Hello everyone,

I'm starting a new F/T job after 7 years as a SAHM next week. My problem is that I will have leave work at 5 which gives me 1 hr to get back from central Birmingham to pick up for 6 from afterschool care, obviously it's doable, but traffic has the potential to be a nightmare.

Is it possible to get childcare after 6? No family nearby & (D)H left me earlier this year, hence F/T working. Have two DCs 7&5.

Thanks

my friend has a childminder who drops her LO home at about 7pm, so yes if you ask about I'm sure their are childminders who would do this. Afterschool clubs will charge you late fees so probably not the best option for you, I'm guessing your eldest is 7, maybe if you have lots of children then a part time nanny or a mothers help/housekeeper might be a possibility.

Sorry, I forgot to add...

I saw recent threads about Childcare link not existing any more, it was really useful. I have tried it again just now that it is part of the Directgov site, and it's still useless, at least before you could get some info about childminders eg. hours, drop offs, vacancies etc., now it's just a number, so it's next to useless, help! How do I find CMs?

i expect you might be able to find someone...

dont forget that most CM's will be doing the ttea / "evening" / goodbye to minders thing at this time so many might not be able to leave their house at 5.45 / return at 6.15ish, especially for just 1 hours pay!

you might be better getting a CM to collect them from school in the 1st place?

I agree you might be better off getting a childminder and coming up with an agreement that you will normally arrive at 1800, if you are later perhaps arrange an extra amount - that way the childminder wont be miffed that you are late and you wont worry whilst trying to get back. Some after school clubs, nursery type places can charge large amounts when you collect after 1800, our previous nursery was fab, but it did charge £10 per 5 mins you were late. Not surprisingly I was never late which I guess that was the whole point of the fee....

I sometimes do this as an ad-hoc nanny I collect the children from after school club at 5.30pm take them home and give them tea and wait for mum to get in - if its a later one then bath and bed them as well. I have done this for a single mum on an ad-hoc basis for past 3yrs children now 12yrs and 10yrs and works well, used to be almost once a week but is now more like a few times a year as her job is more flexible so she can leave to collect them in time and sometimes they go to friends.

Be prepared to pay at least £50 a week for one hr an eve for an experienced nanny as not many nannies will want to work for one hr an eve.

alternatively may be a childcare student willing to do and could pay around £25 a week as would be good experience for them.

As a CM I work up to 9pm if needed, I prefer not to as start at 6.30am and its a heck of a long day, however I agree that it may be better to get your DC's collected earlier from after school club or straight from school even, this way your dc's wont be in 3 different places in one day which will be so tiring for them.

After School clubs / nurseries tend to charge late fees, this is because regulations state that 2 people must be on the premises at all times while children are present, so the late fees will reflect 2 members of staffs o/time and running costs and can quickly mount up if you have 2 children and your stuck in traffic a couple of times a week.

Thanks for your replies everyone, it seems much as I expected.

This has been my major stress since I found out that I got the job. It maybe that it won't be too bad a journey and I'm stressing over nothing, so I think I'll see how it goes to begin with. The afterschool team are very nice, so if it a nightmare they will hopefully be ok until I can sort something.

Money is a real problem until I start obviously, so having a CM from 3.30 isn't feasible until I've got some wages under my belt, so I'll have to suck it and see. The uselessness of the new childcare website doesn't exactly help with finding CMs.

Oh, the joys of the working mum .

Another option is to find a local childcare student who can pick up children and take them home for you and maybe feed and bath them etc