Weekend/Evening minding

[TabbyTuTu]

Hello! I regularly attend groups at the local children's centre with my DS, a woman from the council comes once a month with various leaflets about healthy eating, discipline etc she also supplies lists of all the CMs on the Island. My hometown has the most CMs available (It is of course also the most population dense so probably why!) she told me last time that moving to another town might be more profitable for me or providing weekend/evening care as they desperately need this. DH works three towns over so would quite like to move (The town he works in only has two registered CMs) I can't drive though so will be away from family and friends, and am quite happy where I am! DH is open to me weekend/evening CMing if I must, so I would love to hear from peoples experiences doing this? Obviously DH will be at home these times, I know he has to have a CRB anyway but would he need to be registered as my assistant? I'm not even too sure what classes as evening hours!

[tulip0803]

I do weekend, evening and bank holiday childminding and started offering partly because DH and I had done shift work in the past and partly because I was the new kid on the block and didn't have the reputation that the other local childminders have after I moved across the country.

I have sometimes worked from 6am to 8pm so it can be very long hours. I have also done later evening on occasion and the LOs have gone to sleep at mine and then the parent has collected a sleeping child. I am not registered for overnight care so they have to go home at some point:D. I have one LO on a Sat & Sun and she slots in with what we are doing.

Although I offered it when I lived in Essex I only ever had one child, whose Mum was a nurse, and it was only occasional evening and a few weekends.

Here I have had up to 4 children on a weekend day, a shift worker who did early starts, and one that needed a 7pm finish. On Good Friday all my mindees bar one were in as all the parents were working.

In October I will be virtually full (fingers-crossed) during the week and I am stopping working on Sundays - Mum is OK because she is happy to change days so I am not loosing out. I am also going to be wary about taking on early starts as I have the late finisher.

I charge more for earlies, evenings, bank holidays and weekends and even more for weekend evenings.

BUT evening childminding cuts into your own time with your family and your relaxation. Weekend childminding does the same. Many courses are on a Saturday so I have ad to negotiate more than the usual 4 weeks holiday into the contract. If you do get children during normal hours as well as the children that are in the evenings it is a very long day. My children sometimes resent the fact we have another child coming out with us on trips at the weekend but on the whole they are fine.

Out of hours minding allowed me to offer something that other minders are not offering so enabled me to start and get a good reputation so more people have started passing my name on to friends. I still state that I offer out of hours but I will now be a bit more selective IYSWIM.

[TabbyTuTu]

Thanks for our reply Tulip. I think there are definite pros & cons to it. A good way to stand out being a new CM like you say, plus I can charge that bit more. I think evenings will be too much, it will mess up my own LO's bedtime routines but weekends might be alright. My previous job was every Saturday so I don't mind working then, plus I'll be with my family while I work