Private Nursery vs Child Minders

[ddmacker]

Hi my ds is just 7 months old and I'm not sure if I should send him to private nursery or use a child minder. There are pros & cons for both, but just wondering what peoples thoughts were on this matter. Trying to find a decent, cheap nursery near to my dd school is rather difficult.

Cheers
D

there are loads of different opininons on here but i'm sure you will quickly get a representative sample.

my feeling is that a great childminder is probably better than a great nursery for your sons age. More flexibility, enviroment similar to that at home. childminders probably have the added advantage that they will have older children there as well which is really stimulating for younger babies.

BUT not all childminders are great. At because nursery staff swop around jobs a bit, have more breaks AND day is more structured. they are probably more patient with your lo AND you probably have a bit more control over their day. Thus IMO a good nursery is much better than an okay childminder

This is not helpful, my feeling is that you just have to go and see some places with ds. Your intuition will probably be right

why don't you split the week between a private nursery and childminder? I did this and it worked well.

He did extra days at the nursery when the cm's kids were ill and extra days with the cm if he had a minor lurgy (obviously if he had a major lurgy I stayed home)

It also gives you time to assess which you feel better about.

Ds now goes to a state nursery - it's a Sure Start children's Centre which is BRILLIANT.

There are lots of them opening all over the place - you should phone the local authority and see if there's one in your area.

I'm not sure its helpful to compare generic types of childcare, you need to look at both specifically. Visit a few local childminders and a few nurseries and pick the one you like best that will suit your DS best

Thanks witchandchips, my dd, who's now 6, went to an o.k. nursery, but the cost has gone up quite considerably and its not in a convienient area. It's so difficult to make decisions but what you have said is good, I'll just visit both childminders and some nursery's to see. I would prefer to use someone who has been recommended. Oh well see what happens.

Childminders vary, i had an excellent one followed by a not so good one so i then moved to a nursery when my daughter was just over 3.

I have since used nursery for my other two from 7 months and 1 year and they have been fine albeit part time. I like the security of knowing where they are at anyone time (not out in a car on a school run, or in front tv when minder is hoovering etc), and the structure of the day and variety of activities. On the down side its less like a home environment.

The main thing is to make the best of the time you have with them at home

Nurseries are much more expensive but both my boys were happy (part time) at theirs. I didn't like the idea of childminders because you have so much less of an idea what your children are up to/where they are. Also, they could be exposed to all kinds of people that you don't know about, unlike at a nursery.
My mum was a childminder, and a very good one, throughout my childhood but some of the childminders she knew weren't so good and the children were not as well looked after. The parents of the mindees were clueless, so that's put me off.

I know some great childminders, so don't want to offend anyone here (please read to the end of this thread before shouting at me) BUT I chose nursery because:
you can get one bad childminder, unlikely to get multiple bad nursery nurses
if your childminder is sick, you've got no cover.
Ditto holidays.
We had no family or other back-up locally
In principle, I'd prefer the home (ie childminder) environment, and childminders are usually Mums themselves so in my book far better qualified than NVQs etc. But we have no family locally, so were totally dependent on childcare, and nursery seemed to offer the best solution for us. Ironically, since my DCs have been at school, I've met some great childminders who are Mums of kids at school, but you don't always have the same network before your children go to school. Can you tap into any local networks to find out who the good/bad/indifferent childminders are? (apologies again to anyone who doesn't like that, but as with any job, there are different degrees of professionalism)

My DS has been going to a private nursery 2 days a week since he was 1 and he is thriving - and learning - and we are very happy with it. I just never kind of fancied getting a CM somehow (not denigrating any CMS) I wanted him to mix with lots of kids, ofr one thing and the nursery is very near home - we went in, had a look and it just seemed really nice so I booked him in. He's nearly 3 now and just about to move up into the Big Kids room (sniff... not my ickle baby any more).

I do think it depends how long they need childcare for too. I work part-time so probably made a different decision than if I'd worked full-time

I chose a nursery for DS for similar reasons to others' here. Also because at the time I wasn't driving and there were no CMs locally. For DD I chose a nursery again because we've had such a good experience with DS at one.