Would welcome advice from childminders - is one session a week enough for a 16 month old to settle with you and would you rather have a 1 or 2 day vacancy lef t to fill?

[hattyyellow]

Would very much welcome advice from childminders or parents.

We have DD3 booked in with a lovely childminder from April. Currently she is booked in for two days per week - no contract has yet been signed but it's been agreed informally.

DH's company is scaling down hours and he can now look after her more than we had thought - so she could just attend one day a week.

My concern is that DD just attending once a week would be unsettling for her. When my older two started nursery, it was initially for 1 morning a week and the nursery felt they were much happier when they started doing 2 sessions - as they would almost have to be settled in again by the time the next week came around with 1 session.

At the moment our childminder has just one space for 1 day a week for another child - as we took 2 of a possible 3 days. As a childminder, would you rather have a 2 day vacancy to fill (if we cut back to 1 day) or a 1 day vacancy? Am I right in thinking that more people want 2 days than 1?

Any advice gratefully recieved - I really don't want to get on her wrong side as she is so highly recommended.

Ask her . Perhaps you could compromise on two half days, or have fewer hours but have the ones that your CM prefers - she might have a couple of afternoons that need filling for example. Am sure she'd appreciate being consulted rather than you trying to second guess her. Worst case scenario - she wants you to stick to the hours you agreed.

Thanks Beshy. THe awkardness is that I see her regulary (we live in a small community) so I wanted a bit of reassurance before trying to change things around as I don't want to make things awkward!

I have older kids at school so afternoons aren't really any use to me - and she will only do whole days..