Having children is hard work, and finding the right childcare for them can be even harder, especially when you don’t know what to look out for. I mean, there are so many options, and ones that work for others might not work for you.
I guess I am lucky in this instance as I currently work from home, although parenting and working at the same time is a task and half. But I’ve being looking at job prospects out of the home, and have recently been offered an office based role for an amazing company, and I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons of this, as well as working out how we’d manage childcare.
Whenever I speak to people about childcare and who, and why they went with, I’ve had plenty of people recommending I look at Childcare.co.uk, which is designed to help make finding the perfect childcare setting as easy as possible, and so that’s just what I did.
Using the free to use Childcare website, I was able to whittle down exactly what we wanted. At this point, you can choose options to fit your lifestyle – whether you want a childminder or nursery, or need a nanny to work in house. You can even search for a babysitter for a one off job, if needed too.
So, for us, we’d be looking at a childminder for all three children and I was shocked that there were 289 childminders within 5 miles of us. I then had to tighten the options a little to work for us, and found that there are then 28 Ofsted registered childminders within 2 miles of us – that gave me some hope that we would find one suitable, if and when we need them, and close to us too, so not much travelling when picking them up after work.
You then get a list of all their profiles and can look further into them. From the qualifications they have, what schools they offer pick ups at, times and fees they work with, and the children then can cater for, such a SEN children and newborns.
It’s a great way to go about things as it means that you can see if someone is a fit for you and your children before even needing to contact them for more information, and you can look at past reviews from people who have booked with them before.
At least I know that when I go back to working in an office, there are plenty of childcare places available to us in close proximity to me, which gives me peace of mind. It seems that Childcare.co.uk takes all the stress out of looking for childcare, and will be ideal for us, to find placements from the comfort of my own home.
Thats fab – will be showing my neice this thanks
That sounds great! I will make sure my sister-in-law knows about this!
A fabulous and valuable resource for an incredibly important family matter.
What a wonderful thing, I will be sure to pass this on to my friends
Thanks for sharing – will pass it on!
this is so helpful for people with children, so hard nowadays to manage everything as a parent
Good article lots of useful information for mummies
Im a childminder and have used this for many years, its a great way to finf families looking for childcare
Ooooh – I know several who will be interested in this.