Nursery or Childminder?

What are people's preference when going back to work?

My little boy will be a year old when I return to work.

I'd much rather a child minder whilst he is still so small but my partner would rather him be placed in a nursery and we just can't come to an agreement on this.

What are everyone's experiences on both and their pros and cons.

Thank you x

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We chose nursery because we struggled with the concept of a child minder to begin with. If they go on holiday or are sick you need to source different child care, most child minders don’t have security cameras and operate from their house rather than rented space with no access to strangers and the list goes on.

We have a hybrid model, see if you have similar locally it’s perfect!

She’s a childminder but has 3 assistants and 9 kids under 3 each day. It’s a purpose built outhouse in her garden with their own private garden and then they nap in cots inside the house. It’s the perfect mix of personal but reliable x

I went for nursery just as I liked the greater security of it. There’s cameras and all locked doors etc.

Although yes you choose a childminder that you’d trust, you never fully know who is around your child. Say family visit or a neighbour pops in to say hi..

We chose nursery for the reliability around holidays and sickness, I love the idea of a childminder but neither of us have flexibility enough at work or enough extra hands around to take in any last minute childcare if a minder is off sick etc x

Nursery, as they will have better contingency, so with childminders you have to contend with any of their sickness or holiday, if you have someone else who can support if the childcare falls down then it's great but we have no one so would need to cover anything unexpected ourselves.

If the reasoning for a childminder is a small setting, could you explore a small nursery? My daughter is 1 of 6 in the baby room when she started and is now in the toddler room and is1 of 9 or 10 so still small.

I chose a childminder who was recommended by a friend as I had left it too late when looking for a nursery.

If I could do things differently, I would've gone with a nursery. Like the others stated above - it's a pain in the bum when she's gone on holiday or has other commitments & we've gotta find an alternative or sometimes even miss work cuz of it. So I'd definitely choose differently or just not leave it last minute again😬🥹😭

in our community

Starting to come to the conclusion my daughter will be a only child, just like me 😭💔

Me and my partner have been together for almost 14 years. We waited so long to have kids, and then we went through infertility struggles for a while before finally having our daughter. I always dreamed of having a big family, at least 3 kids, and I truly thought we would build that life together.

But now, things feel so different. We barely get along anymore, and he has become such a miserable person. It feels like he’s constantly unhappy and always bringing up negative things , many of them situations that he created himself, but now he wants to play the victim in.

Before I had my daughter, I used to stay quiet and be more compliant just to keep the peace. But now that I’m older, and especially now that I’m a mother, I’m exhausted from pretending his behavior doesn’t affect me. It does affect me deeply, and I can’t keep carrying everything like this anymore.

What makes me even sadder is that I still want more children, but now I’m scared. Even if I were to go through IVF with a donor, part of me feels like he would make our lives miserable anyway. It hurts so much because the dream I had for my future and my family feels like it’s slipping away, and I feel overwhelmed and heartbroken.

Is this a reasonable take or do you feel judged?

My opinion is that you can do whatever you want as a parent, given your circumstances and your goals. But for me, giving my baby / toddler screentime doesn’t match my personal goals as a parent. I don’t even have my phone on me when I’m with her - it’s never in my hand or my pocket. It’s either sitting on a shelf somewhere out of sight or it’s in my backpack. It definitely affects the way she interacts with me and others, and her ability to focus and not get side tracked.

Text message draft to MIL

I hate confrontation but for my own mental health, I feel I need to send this to my MIL. Would appreciate your thoughts before I send?

Hi XXX, I really appreciate you looking after XXX on Wednesdays, but I wanted to mention something so that our relationship can remain positive moving forward.

A few comments about our parenting choices recently have left me feeling like I need to defend our decisions as parents. For example, comments about his diet like “babybels are the worst thing you can possibly give him” and “sweetcorn has no nutritional value”, comparisons around breastfeeding timelines, suggestions about offering him cool drinks when he’s asking for milk, and comments about car seats such as “he’ll have to forward face soon or he’ll feel sick / it won’t be good for his hips.”

We make our parenting decisions carefully based on current guidance and research, so I’d really appreciate it if you could avoid giving unsolicited advice or negative commentary about our choices going forward. Thank you.

IM FREEEEE!!! (Kinda)

My kidZZZZZZZZZZZZ (emphasis in plurality) start their summer program in a couple weeks! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Yall! My daughter hasn’t even ever been to preschool! And when she was an infant she wouldn’t take a bottle 😭😭😭

YALLLLLLLL

I’m bout to have afternoon independence there’s too many options of things to do!!!!!

Dad not agreeing to have son when I want to go for a weekend break.

Right, so this might be a long one. My son is 3 and me and his dad broke up nearly a year ago. It’s been up and down but I’ve done my best for it to stay civil for my son.
Anyway, I asked him about having his son for a long weekend as it’s my 30th this year. He agreed. He then said he was going on holiday for a full week and wanted to swap weekends over. I said that was fine (Makes sense why he agreed about my time away so easily)

This was a couple months ago…
Last night he decided to tell me that he will look after OUR son but everyday he loses from work, he will deduct from child maintenance?
So if he gets 220 a day and loses that, that’s going to be 4 weeks no payments.

Surly this is all about control right?

I literally was looking for the weekend that’s his weekend with my son anyway, so it’s only 1-2 days he would need off and believe me all the stuff I’ve helped him with, including sorting his flat, car and just making sure he’s all set up and he just continuously messes me about and tries to control everything.

Am I right or wrong? What can I do?
If I went to family court, would they sort out an agreement regarding holidays per year/the other parent agreeing to be fair. Like for example, one week per parent can go away and we have to accept it.
As well as the usual every other weekend stuff

Thank you, hope that makes sense! Any advice welcome x

Am I a bad wife?

My husband says I'm a bad wife because I refuse to leave my 3 yr old and 9 month old with other people to go on a date with him. If that makes me a bad wife, so be it. But what do you all think?