Where to start with childcare

[crazymuseummumtobe]

I'm sure with DC1 in January, and will be looking to return to work (hopefully part time, 3 days a week or so) in November or December 2020. I'm in a bit of a one panic about childcare. How do I find out what's available? Nursery or a childminder? When do I need to start looking? It feels like such an expensive and terrifying prospect, I really don't know where to start. Can anyone give any guidance?

DH will be to help with drop offs and pick ups (he works much closer to home than I do), but we've no option for regular care from grandparents, etc.

If it's nursery or childminder then a good place to start is your local council website. Ours has a list of council and partnership nurseries plus childminders who are registered in the local area. Decide if you want childcare near work or home and then arrange to go and visit some different ones and get a feel for them. Inspection reports are also available online.

The biggest decision will be nursery vs childminder and you have to go with your gut feeling which is best. Personally I don't like the idea of a childminder (only one person, what if they get sick or need a holiday, no accountability or scrutiny by other staff etc) and my children have thrived at nursery, but some people love their childminders and hate the idea of nursery. It's down to your personal feelings.

Yes, it will be expensive, no matter which you choose!

Nanny share is a great option for little ones - one carer, two kids, alternating houses. Koru kids is a service we used to match with a family and a nanny in our area on the days we wanted

Nurseries are fairly easy, just google where you live & they’ll pop up! Or keep your eyes peeled as you drive around. Ideally, you want an ofsted rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ nursery (although ofsted isn’t the be all & end all - coming from an ex teacher). But it is a generally useful guide for private day nurseries.
You can check & read all ofsted reports on the ofsted website.

Then, visit as many as you can or are interested in. They are all different & you’ll get a feel as you are shown around. Different settings suit different children. I visited 6 nurseries & there were a couple small ones that would def suit quieter, shy children and then a couple large, quite noisy ones. And some in the middle.

I chose ours for a few reasons important to us:

1- near work, means we’ve never been late picking up daughter (late fees apply) due to traffic
2 - recently ofsteded outstanding
3- rural location - they have a farm next door they visit most weeks, I love that!
4 - the set up, the nursery itself is really spacious but serves a small community so it’s not super busy or super noisy. They had well used but clean toys & there was lots of organised mess when I looked around. You want mess as it means the children are having fun & playing with the toys & activities The staff were so lovely & friendly and most importantly, the children looked really happy and busy!

Turns out we made a great choice, our little girl loves nursery so much. She thrives in their care & attention and has learnt so much from them

My little one started in May & we did the looking around/applying in January..

Childminders, I found much harder. I did visit a couple through recommendations from friends but I couldn’t get a grasp on leaving my child with one person I didn’t really know all day. But for some people, that one on one, home environment is exactly what they want for their child. Childminders are def more word of mouth from your friends or people in your local area.. I actually now know way more childminders since we started going to a toddler group as there’s lots of lovely ones attend with the kids they look after. But when my daughter was a baby, I didn’t really have many connections!
But same principles, visit their home, ask about their routine (they may do school runs, trips into town, shops etc) & make sure you’d feel totally happy with the childminder

Good luck & don’t stress, you’ll find the right place for you & your little one!

Following as I'm in the same situation 🤔

When you start going to baby groups, ask around for recommendations as many people are likely to have older kids.

If your town has a Facebook group, ask on the. You'll probably get recommendations for every nursery for miles around (everyone thinks theirs is the best) but at least it gives you a list of places to research.

Or just Google "nursery in (town)" and see what pops up.

Once you've got some suggestions you can look at online reviews, go to open days or visits, read their Ofsted report etc.

Op we were in a similar situation...no idea what we wanted. Our baby will need full time care from 6-7mths, so we started looking early as there is so much on offer.

Some nurseries won’t take under 2s, so that narrowed our field by more than half. I thought about a childminder and we messaged a few locally, had a couple of emails. No one would commit til closer to the time, didn’t reserve places etc in case of sibling sets or something (two childminders knew one of their parents were TTC, so we’re holding out because they’re restricted to numbers they can have).

So we made bookings for a few nurseries. One was enormous and noisy and not quite for us. We saw one close to work, but it wasn’t open the hours we needed, or could only accommodate 2.5days/wk. We saw a Forest School that is recommended by my DHs friend, we loved it but it’s further out of town...there’s another that we’re looking at next week that is very local but only opened a year ago so not inspected yet.

It’s really hard to know what to ask, so I guess at this stage it’s instinct. Do you like the place? Is it clean, staff friendly and interactive, would you feel comfortable leaving your child here? Then all the practicalities: opening hours, inclusive costs, feeding, toileting, distance from home/work, OFSTED....

I used childcare.co.uk to find local facilities.

I think it's instinct with nurseries and childminders, I just knew when we had found the right one.

As a pp said, some nurseries don't take babies and some won't do the hours you need. A lot of council ones are oversubscribed (our local one is and you need to enter a ballot for a place) so it's worth checking these things out early.