Cm club....shift workers?

[hennipenni]

I am in the process of signing a child of shift workers and have been approached by another parent who is also a shift worker with long/late hours (it's been famine here for so long and now looks like it's feast time)

Do any of you minders mind shift workers children? do they all slot in nicely?(iyswm)
As a former shift worker myself I know how hard it is too get good quality childcare.

no they don't slot in nicely :-( I don't have any at the moment but the way I've done it before is to agree reserved hours on the contract, ie each weekday they might require care and earliest possible start time/latest possible collection time. We agree when they will notify the actual days/times, this goes on the contract. they pay full fees for time booked and half fees for the remainder of the reserved time.

If they've told me I'm not needed on a particular day, I am free to book place out to someone else, in which case new person pays instead, and shiftworker gets retainer waived/refunded for the time their place was used for someone else. But sods law, people always want the times that are already full and not when I have gaps to fill

I've not had a problem yet but I've been lucky in as much as my shift working mum was a new starter at her work and she could tell them right at the beginning that until the summer she wasn't able to work the two nights a week that I am already booked. I do not do school pick ups but she was happy to get them a taxi from school so it's all worked nicely for me so far.

Thanks for the replies, having invesigated the hours required further, i have decided not to take the second shift worker as the late finishes were far too late for my family.