Family as child care

littlemonkey

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I'd appreciate feedback from those who use family members as their main source of childcare. How has it been for you, good or bad? What sort of arrangements do you have with them?

There's loads of logistical problems we have with possible childcare such as only having one car and I work shifts. My sil is a full time stay at home mum, with her youngest starting school in Sept. She's talking about getting a job now. OH has suggested asking her to look after our son. We would pay her, but don't know where we'd stand legally on this? It would help massively as she's likely to be more flexible than someone independent. But I worry our son wouldn't mix with other children. My main concern is if there are any issues with how she's looking after it, I want to be able to speak my mind without fear of causing a family fall out. I'm not saying there would be, but I would feel reassured knowing that if anything did go wrong etc, I could deal with it as a customer paying for a service I'm not happy with. I probably sound very ungrateful, but I feel sometimes it's best not to mix family/friends and business.

Thing is, it would help us out massively! I just don't know!!
 
I only work part time but on the days I work, my mum looks after Ethan. My mums pretty good at sticking to his routine etc but I'm not gonna lie, we have had a couple of problems. One of which, she let Ethan climb up to the tv stand and he smacked the screen resulting in a damage screen. My mum doesn't allow us to pay her for child care though, so I think it makes it harder to confront her about anything bad that happens seeing she's doing us such a big favour!

Xx
 
My mum has B 2 days a week which has been great and made the transition back to work easy. I technically don't pay her wages but as we live at her house at the moment we pay the mortgage plus extras so it means mum doesn't have to work if that makes sense. We are looking for B to start nursery soon for the interaction but mum would pick him up after lunch to help us save on costs.
I find it great that mum has him as she knows him so well and she can have him even if he's poorly which I wouldn't feel happy leaving him at nursery.
Downsides are that mum doesnt rush! So if I need to leave for work she'll make me late as she needs to make herself a coffee!
Also if she's ill I can't work but at nursery there would be other staff.
 
My dad does 2 days and my MIL does 1. My dad is self employed so just decided not to work and have lo for 2 days and my MIL doesn't work Fridays and offered to have her when I returned to work.
As it turned out my FIL was out of work at the time so he had lo and MIL did overtime for about 4 months :)
 
I have no family nearby, so that option was out.

Due to our job, OH and I could get away with switching Cay between us. But we decided on nursery two days a week.

Plus side of nursery... Sickness is replaceable. Other child interaction. Access to many different toys and activities. Child gets used to being away from family.

Plus side of family... You'd imagine they'd get the utmost care as they're family. There's the possibility of them staying overnight if needed. One-on-one attention.

I lost my train of thought...
There's some pros to each, anyway. Xx
 
The weekdays im at work my mum has keira in the morning and nursery in thr afternoons and at weekends i work my mum will have keira for ne so ive got best of both worlds. I dnt pay my mum but treat her every bow and then sne as my cousin and his gf who pick keira up for me from nrsery. X
 
Although we have loads of family nearby they all work so family having James isn't an option.

My sister had offered but she is having baby number 3 in Sept and there is no way she could commit to having a 2 year old, James (14 months) and a newborn.

Our current plan is OH will have James when I go back for the first 6 weeks - which is his quietest time of the year - then take it from there!

I would say that if your SIL does have the bub then make sure it doesn't interfere with any benefits she gets?

xxxxxxxx
 
My mum doesn't allow us to pay her for child care though, so I think it makes it harder to confront her about anything bad that happens seeing she's doing us such a big favour!

Xx

Ditto, this is what it was like when I had family looking after LO. So to avoid another 'Well fine I'll just not watch her then' - I left my job!! :D
 
We had family looking after LO for months and it was fine while our ground rules were being stuck to, but when people started getting too big for their boots and taking it upon themselves to make important decisions, I said enough was enough.

I would recommend family childcare, but only if you know they will stick to your rules xx
 
I use family childcare and its ok until the person you use can't have your LO and your side of the family won't help out :(!

I don't mind having LO with family but sometimes I feel like I'm putting on my MIL too much and sometimes she talks like that to me as well.
 
My mum has ruby 2 days a week and my sister 1 and being honest if I could afford nursery I would opt for that .
It just causes problems the amount of arguments I have had especially with my sister is unreal . Xxx
 
Thanks for your responses everyone! The more I think about it, the more I think it's a bad idea! I would never criticise anyone else's style of parenting, but his sister is very different to me and I just know it would end up with her doing a lot of things I don't want for my son. And then I can see it causing no end of arguments with the in laws if I speak my mind. I don't mind her having him the odd afternoon here and there, but long term I'm just thinking no! I wouldn't even ask my own mum to do it full time cos I know she would be the same, she would ignore my instructions too much!
 
My parents have Hannah while I work full time and its worked amazingly well.....I trust them to the right thing by her 100% and they do all sorts of activities with her and take her places. They also have a huge garden which she just loves!!! X
 
My mum has my LO for 2 days a week when I'm at work. It works really well - she always asks me about any big decisions, but as she's my LO's main carer during that time I pretty much leave it to her (she brought up me and my sis after all!).

I'd always said when I have my second that I would take a career break until they were both old enough to actually get something out of a nursery/pre-school environment. Unfortunately my boss won't allow me to have a career break and after lots of thought I don't want to completely give up my career. My OH is going to be home on one of the days I work and will work Saturdays from home. My eldest will start nursery when she's 3 and my mum will have our other LO for one day per week until they're old enough to go to nursery.

For me it's worked very well, but that's possibly because my mum and I tend to agree on most things. I'm not sure there's anyone else in the family I'd trust to look after my LO.
 
My dad offered but I don't want to leave j there every morning because I don't want my dad to feel like he has to get up every morning when he doesn't work to look after a baby LOL plus, I want him to be socialised etc.

J goes to nursery soon, I start back in September. I'm actually quite looking forward to it. He's such a little happy soul and loves interaction and attention so I think he will love it.

He's only goin in Mon-Thurs mornings, my dad will take him a friday because he stays with my mum and dad at the weekend.

My mum will prob pick him up in the afternoons as she is round the corner from me and our nursery charges £10 an extra hour!

Whatevr works best for you!

xxxxx
 
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Max goes to my sister 1 day a week and a childminder 2 days so we get the best of both worlds. My sister is a childminder herself so max gets to interact with children of all ages and does numerous activities and days out. It helps us out financially as my sister refuses to charge us. I did still want max to go to a different childminder 2 days though so he got used to being with different people and so my sister didn't think we were using her. If my sister can't have max for any reason my mum steps in and I must admit they are both great at following my rules and Max's routine. My mum won't even give him
Calpol or anything without ringing me to make sure it's ok xxx
 
See my mums like that taffy. My mum rings to ask if she can give him a yoghurt.

MiL doesn't she informed me she gave him a yoghurt a sugary one dispite me saying he was on milk only.

It wasn't the fact of the yoghurt a bit of sugar won't kill him but I hated that I wasn't asked but I just says which things I'd prefer him to have and to ask first.. Sometimes mothers have to bite their tongue when it comes to MILs lol xxxxx
 
See my mums like that taffy. My mum rings to ask if she can give him a yoghurt.

MiL doesn't she informed me she gave him a yoghurt a sugary one dispite me saying he was on milk only.

It wasn't the fact of the yoghurt a bit of sugar won't kill him but I hated that I wasn't asked but I just says which things I'd prefer him to have and to ask first.. Sometimes mothers have to bite their tongue when it comes to MILs lol xxxxx

See it's things like this that worry me! My OH's family are all fussy eaters and SIL's kids are also fussy eaters. I'm paranoid about my son turning out the same. I don't want him to be given crap all the time but I fear he would cos it's normal to them!

I wouldn't be able to bite my tongue though. Anything else I could let slide, but not when it comes to my son and this is what worries me. I can see it starting world war three if I said I didn't agree with what had been done.
 
Sorry to put my Childminding head on but it's illegal for an unregistered person to care for a child and be paid. Even a family member! Just thought i'd let you know so you son't get into bother. I'm so lucky i get to keep my boys with me but at the same time they take up 2 of my 4 spaces (not working at the moment though) so i lose a lot of money. I think family care is a great thing if your rules are adhered to. I'd like to think i could leave my boys with family members but they wouldn't listen to my rules on food (they would everything else) and it would do my head in x
 
Sorry to put my Childminding head on but it's illegal for an unregistered person to care for a child and be paid. Even a family member! Just thought i'd let you know so you son't get into bother. I'm so lucky i get to keep my boys with me but at the same time they take up 2 of my 4 spaces (not working at the moment though) so i lose a lot of money. I think family care is a great thing if your rules are adhered to. I'd like to think i could leave my boys with family members but they wouldn't listen to my rules on food (they would everything else) and it would do my head in x

Thanks for the heads up clairebear! That's given me the perfect reason to go back to OH with a no.
 

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