Which childminder? Please advise!!

[beansprout]

After a bit of a saga, which I won't go into now, we have decided to look for a childminder for ds instead sending him to nursery. He is 11mo and I go back a week on Tuesday.

Have found two that I like. They both do the usual outings to playgroups, activities at home, good routine etc. The differences are:
One is very helpful, v willing to work out menus with me, buy particular food for ds etc. She is v professional, has 5 years experience and will have 2 others about the same age, so will have 3 under 2 years to look after. She will have the help of another childminder "if she needs it".

The other has 20 years experience and seems pretty unflappable. She has 2 other children who are 18 mo and 2 yrs. We would need to provide all food inc drinks and snacks. Her ways just may be a little more old fashioned but she clearly loves children and childminding and I feel her experience would be helpful although I suspect we would have a little less input.

I'm really torn over which one to chose. Please, any ideas or suggestions or experience would be welcome!

Which one would you be most disappointed about if one was suddenly unavailable as a choice?

Ah, good question, probably the first one tbh. I had decided on the first one and was almost hoping the second one was rubbish so I didn't have a difficult decision to make, but she was great, just in a different way.

I like the first one more but a bit of me thinks the second one is a safer pair of hands. That's the rub.

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If it was me, I'd go for the first one because they both sound great and I think the food option sounds just as good, but easier

Think hunkermunker has a point there - you are in the fortunate position of having two good-sounding CMs to choose from.
The providing drinks, food and snacks might be problematic both for you (we find it hard to remember dd's milk for nursery sometimes!) and for the children in the care setting. How does she deal, for example, with one child arriving with a tempting array of junky snacks and the other tipping with up organic hummus, rice cakes, grapes and water to drink?
But they both sound great, tbh.

Hmmm, I think there's a lot to be said for cms who do stuff with other cms - mine does, and there's both a sense of some 'backup' available - holidays, emergencies (ours as well!) and so on; and the kids get to have quite a network of friends and of adults who care about them.

From my recent experience of picking schools, I'd say go for the one you like and the one you feel you can communicate with most easily.

Good advice thanks everyone. Particularly like your communication tip MI.

My fear of the first one is how will she cope with three under two? But then, is it really easier if they are all under three?!

I nearly always have 3 under 2, due to the Nursery voucher thing most 3yo's are at nursery

But it's well within the rules and with 5 yrs exp. will she know what she can cope with? Probably

Good luck making your decision

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Current parents I mind for are always willing to chat to new prospective minding parents (I assume that they would say positive things!!) - perhaps you could ask the childminders if that would be possible for you? Or any ex-minding parents?

I don't think that you should necessarily take into account the ages of the other minded children as this is something which could change at any time. Children come and go all the time.

Re. 2nd minder - when you say "old fashioned", do you mean "strict"? Are her ideas something which you agree with? Do you think she would accept doing something differently because you would prefer it?

I don't think I would choose a childminder just because she has "back-up." Most childminders would probably be able to suggest other minders if needed.

They should both be happy for you to read their last OFSTED inspection reports.

As they both have a lot of experience, don't worry about either of them having 3 small children to look after. Most of us are used to this!

Good luck!

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Thanks everyone. After talking it through with a couple of people, we chose number one. I rang number 2 this morning and was asked lots of questions about why I hadn't chosen her, who I had chosen and why. She ended by saying, "well, I just hope that when you walk away from your son, you know he is in safe hands". Didn't like that. A bit of a "I know best" attitude really came across, which just doesn't work for me, so I think we have made the right choice.

Thanks again for your help.

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I can understand why she would want to know why you hadn't picked her - she might have been able to use the information to enable her to change something the next time someone came to see her.

She obviously hasn't done herself any favours by talking to you like she did - I assume she won't be on your list of emergency back-up/holiday cover! And I dare say you won't be recommending her to anyone else either!