In home childcare

like do i tell the mother she goes out clothes shopping while caring for her son?, that poor baby is strapped in that umbrella stroller alot (small town i notice her places)

Sorry topic has swayed somewhat

Has anyone who is telling these negative in-home stories actually had their kid in in-home daycare? Or do you just fundamentally disagree with the concept? I find it extremely strange that you seem to be judging the system as a whole when it is the most rapidly growing area of childcare directly responding to demand from parents who are interested in attachment-parenting (when the parent cant be there, having 1 person who they can rely on all the time!).

Girlsrock - do you live in a particularly dodgy area because you have some pretty nasty stories! There are always going to be dorks out there who do it because they think its an easy way to make money while they can stay home with their own young children - but tarnishing everyone with that brush is just unfair. You dont see any in-home people here bagging out center care!

Girls Rock wrote: Im not a trained teacher in ECE and thats not my specialty thats why I like to send my kids along to a centre where they can learn from teachers that are fresh in the knowledge/interested in what is the best thing to teach little ones.

How do you know that the home based caregivers are not ECE trained?? We are all actively encouraged to study towards ECE.

Girls Rock wrote: I just would rather my child playing in sandpit/blocks/painting/learning etc than being dragged into Mitre10 and supermarket and up town on her errands yep they take them to m&m and the like too.

Obviously you are talking about one "bad" care giver. I tend not to take my kids to the shops, basically cause we're busy with activities that i take (drag ) them to where they can do all those things you say. But supermarket shopping, going to other shops are all learning experiences, it's life learning which you don't get in a day-care (which is why I chose home based).

Girls Rock wrote: So I say just do your reaserch in your town and figure out what works for you & your child

Absolutely agree! you need to do what works for your family.

I know with my child, the carer was ECE trained, and generally she was good, did good educational activities with the children etc, but as she lived 15 mins from town 2 x runs to town for kindy drop off/ pick up etc meant a lot of time in the car. Also she would take the older kids to swimming lessons then moan that she had to watch my child so much around water and couldnt wathc her own kids at thier lesson. There was countless trips to doctors appts dentist appts etc where my child was dragged along to hamilton (30 mins away) for hours at a time. I often found my child un settled and often did not get a decent sleep on days she had appointments. I have been mucked around heaps with carers wanting holidays, then changing dates, then saying they dont want my child any more then wanting him back in a couple of months...very unsettling and inconcvenient. Also find that the inhome carers I have had dont realise how much work is involved looking after another persons child. They think it will be easy and just can carry on their normal life while earning extra money. They get a rude awakening anf have had 2 of them decide after a couple of months that they dont want to care for my child after all. That irks me as it is quite a big thing for an under 2 year old to shift carers. I had 3 shifts in 6 months with PORSE! So for me I think the decision to put my son in a centre was definately the best

Thanks all for your opinions. I have 6 different ladies through different companies to see over the next few weeks. Luckily im in no rush and will want to make sure im comfortable with a carer before leaving them.

I guess going shopping etc wouldnt bother me much if it was too a certain point. DD loves shopping so for her its a bit of an adventure out. I guess those are all things i will discuss with the carer as to what i find ok and what i dont and what they would want to do :)

that's bizarre - I live in a fairly small town, and we have a massive oversupply of home carers! Go figure.