nursery or childminder?

vroombroom

koalamummy wrote: »

Vroombroom are your days and times at uni fixed for the next academic year or will they change after Christmas when the next block of modules start? Also worth bearing in mind is how you will be traveling to/from both work and uni....if you find that you need to use public transport for uni due to parking restrictions you need to give serious consideration to the accessibility of your chosen childcare especially during the depths of winter when you need to keep both your little one and yourself dry and warm and healthy in our delightful British weather.

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Hi KM, yep the days and times are fixed for the remaining year:D There is a nursery on site which I get an automatic place in (if I chose to send E there) and they also have plenty of parking around the college I am going to as the bus route isnt great (you have to walk around a mile from town!)

Thanks for all the advice guys, will get emailing a few nurseries and I'll contact the council for a list of childminders x

brians_daughter

its all down to you and your childs needs.
with ds1 he started at nursery and didnt settle so went to a cm, ds2 started with the same cm but didnt settle and then went to nursery lol

recommondation is the best alongside ofstead reports - available online and site visits,start looking now and introduce the child very gradually as soon as you find somewhere.

ds2 went for 1 hour once a week then 2 hours once a week then 1 hour twice a week, onto 1/.2 days. All this wasnt chargeable as it was part of his 'settling in plan'

dangers

Can I just correct rachbc as to ratios - generally a childminders ratios are:
1 Under 1
total of 3 under 5
and 6 under 8.
If you want to vary these ratios, you have to write to Ofsted requesting a variation, detailing the exact hours you need the variation for and why.

bylromarha

I'm much more in favour of child minders. I think the care is personalised, they get a much more rounded view of family life and importantly, they have the opportunity to go on out and about walks far more than a nursery have capacity to do.

I think nurseries are too busy for a child to learn to focus and concentrate on a task. Also think they're too noisy for a child to learn peace.

Good childminder wins every time for me...although I'd go for a good nursery every day over a poor childminder.

stephyt23

Having worked in various Nurseries I'd opt for a Childminder. I don't have children myself but having seen the way the majority of Nurseries are run there is no way I'd send my children to them. I've worked in about 10 nurseries either as a permanent member of staff or on a supply basis, and out of those there is only 1 I would feel happy for my children to go to. These were a mixture of private and national chain nurseries and I do think the way a lot of them are run is nothing short of disgusting.

I'm certainly not saying that the nurseries in your area are run in the ways I have seen as I am sure many are run just fine.

Nicki

galvanizersbaby wrote: »

lol! not sure what sort of nurseries your friends worked at but at ours they changed the babies whenever they needed changing and similarly feed them when needed.
The older children had set mealtimes and snacktimes though (similar to school environment)

Lol. They worked in a variety of places from those servicing ordinary working mums, to those offering long hours for busy city types.

They all described lining up 6 babies on a mat, and changing them one after the other at change time. Although each child has a key worker, it seems quite common for one nursery worker to block change a group of kids like this. They also talked about how if a baby started to cry, they couldn't drop everything to comfort them, as there were other children to look after and scheduled tasks to be done, so from that respect not as responsive as a childminder looking after a family unit sized group of children.

GobbledyGook

No-one could really advise you because it entirely depends on you, your child and the facilities in your area.

Some might think a childminder is better than a nursery at that age, but that would depend entirely of the quality of childminders in your area.

Your best bet is to go and look round a few nurseries in your area and meet with a few childminders to get a feel for what you like and don't like.

When my eldest was little I was adamant she would go to a childminder when I went back to work instead of a big nursery. When I went looking I didn't find a single childminder I clicked with, but one of the nurseries completely surpassed my expectations.

One good way of sussing out nurseries is to ask if they mind you popping by without setting an exact time. The one my daughter went too was happy for prospective parents to pop in and they'd show them around. They had no fear of unexpected visitors whereas another I visited felt very much like they geared up for visitors and I wasn't convinced that's how it was when they had no visitors.

Go with your gut feeling. If you don't like it or trust it your child will pick up on that and neither of you will be happy. Also bear in mind that just because they are more expensive doesn't necessarily make them better and reputation is great, but not everything.

vroombroom

wow a lot of info there!!
thanks guys x will let you know how I get on

grey_lady

stephyt23 wrote: »

Having worked in various Nurseries I'd opt for a Childminder. I don't have children myself but having seen the way the majority of Nurseries are run there is no way I'd send my children to them. I've worked in about 10 nurseries either as a permanent member of staff or on a supply basis, and out of those there is only 1 I would feel happy for my children to go to. These were a mixture of private and national chain nurseries and I do think the way a lot of them are run is nothing short of disgusting.

I'm certainly not saying that the nurseries in your area are run in the ways I have seen as I am sure many are run just fine.

Do you happen to know if the poorly run nurseries had an accurate ofsted rating/report? Just wondering how useful these reports are.

flutterby_lil

We work full time, our son goes to Nursery Tuesday and Thursday and a childminder Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He loves it and knows what day he goes where and is often disappointed at weekend when he asks what day it is. When I tell him it is Saturday and he is staying at home with mummy he asks to go to the childminders!! Best of both worlds having the mix.

Good luck.