childcare for an hour or two a week, does it exist?

[phoneyjoanie]

I'm a SAHM of two toddlers and needing a break on a regular basis for an hour or two a week.
I'm approaching breaking point. No family near or friends who don't work.

What do other people do?

Childminder are great, mine is very flexible.

A babysitter?

Would a childminder be OK with just that amount of time?
DH doesn't trust anyone to look after the DCs I forgot to mention that bit.

I'm a childminder who'd be happy to do it - I don't work Fridays as it's nice to have a day off to go to the doctors, catch up with admin, chores or spend time with my own two DS's, but this has quite a big financial impact, so wouldn't mind doing a couple hours work for a bit of extra income and still have most of the day off. Phone around, you'll be surprised at how flexible some childminders can be.

Dont really have any advice on your DH's trust issue though.....how are you going to get around that one??

Some leisure centres have a creche - could you put the kids in while you have a swim or something?

Or our Childrens Centre has a creche that you can put the kids into while you do Yoga.

Can't help with your DH though. He's being a tad unrealistic imho - what about preschool / school. All childcarers, whether a creche, childminder or teacher, have to be registered with OFSTED.

You can get a mother's help for a couple of hours - put an ad in your local paper or classified mag.

I'm quite relieved to hear that there are some options available and worth exploring.

DH did agree a few months ago to a bit of pre-school after he witnessed a couple of shameful losing the plot episodes with DCs.
They would only do 2 days minimum so that meant I would have to go back to work to cover the cost (and still pay in addition).

He will go along with it if I say I really can't carry on.

Thanks all.

Like Jojay says, lots of leisure centres have a creche that you can use for an hour or two while you use the facilities, often quite cheap. Even if you're not into the active stuff, maybe you could have a sauna or something relaxing like that?

And maybe your DH would be less stressed about it as you'd be right there if there were any problems.

Mind you, if it were my DH, I would be talking very hard to him about why he wasn't looking after the DCs for some significant periods of time if he isn't happy for outsiders to do so.