Childminders part-time - mornings/afternoons or full days?

[Sunrise888]

Just looking for some other thoughts on this. I'm feeling a bit of separation anxiety about returning to work and leaving my then 1 year old in someone else's care. Our preference is a part-time childminder and hopefully they will go up to near full time at some point.

My preference is for mornings or afternoons as I thought the regular routine and shorter time apart would be easier on lo (and me). But this limits the number of available childminders, and I guess limits what the childminder can do in a day, e.g. trips/outings which is love my lo to do. It also restricts what I can do at work - I've already been passed over one promotion because I was on maternity leave, and I will probably be passed over again with such restricted hours.

The alternative is a childminder for 3 days a week but I hate the thought of being away so long from lo 😪.

Is there anything else I need to consider?

I would do full days for e.g. 3 days for all the reasons you outline. In my area it would be vertly hard / expensive to find a part day childminder as no one wants the other half so childminders charge more for short hours or don't offer them. This will also mean you get full days off with your dc which will be nicer than a few hours post work. If you are going to be full time eventually then you also might as well bite the bullet. If you can do slightly early days by e.g working 8-4 then that can work well.

I would do the full days. Rushing to cm and to work and back for half days every day is stressful and it means you never get those lovely days alone together anymore. When I went back with my first I did 3 days 9-5 to start and it was perfect.

It really was refreshing to be back to work and not to be rushing those days. And then we still had our 2 full days together.

You could always do e.g. Mon, Tue, Thur so you get a day in the middle with your lo.

Half days aren't a good idea for the reasons already given.

Thanks for the advice. I think if end up with full days then I'm going to have to ask for a long settling in period as I'm struggling with the idea of leaving my baby for whole days 😪. I have no idea how baby will respond. We both have family who are very far away so we've never had the opportunity to leave him with someone else.

I did consider Mon, Tues, Thurs so that I wouldn't have more than 2 working days in a row, but I was worried it would feel a bit disruptive for me, for work, for lo, doing on, off, on, off. I know I'm overthinking this a lot.

I think you are overthinking it. We have no family nearby either. Mine had stayed with my mum for a few hours while we went to a wedding once at 7 months. We started nursery at 9 months and she did 2-3 mornings a week for 2 months and then she went to 3 full days. It was nice to have those 2 months to adjust before full days but it meant taking time out of mat leave as I didn’t go back to work til 11 months. You really will be fine. Babies adjust and you’re incredibly lucky to have the option to work part-time, so I would enjoy it and make the most of it and not worry about it.

2-3 mornings sounds like a good start, we might try that. Thanks for your advice.