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View Full Version : HELP AND ADVICE NEEDED PLEASE



OrlandoBelle
09-11-2009, 12:50 PM
This may be a bit long winded, so please bear with me. I really need some advice from an experienced minder who knows a bit about assistants and maternity leave. I was not sure where to put this thread, so I have put it in the forum babies and assistants...

Basically i'm 15 weeks pregnant. My baby's due on 1st May 2010. My husband was going to register as a childminder to work alongside me, but so far has only managed to attend the ICP as he has had to work when the next course was on. He has missed it 3 times now.

He was working as a duty manager in a supermarket, but didn't get on with the management there and couldn't deal with all the paperwork, so he demoted himself to a team leader. He then left the superstore he was working at and for the past few weeks he has been working at various smaller chains which he is loving. He has been told by one of the bosses that he can make DH a store manager in 12 months time which will earn him a considerable amount of money a year - a lot more than he'll get childminding.

I have just got off the phone from Ofsted. I registered DH as my assistant a few weeks ago and they called to say that they have reviewed my application to increase my numbers when DH is working with me. We are now allowed 8 under 8's, 6 children in the early years and 2 under 1's.

The problem we have now is deciding what to do - Carry on in retail and earn good money, or give his notice at Tesco, and work together as childminders, which will allow him to spend time with our baby when it is born. He will not be allowed to be left with the children or collect them from school yet until he gains his paediatric first aid certificate.

My other predicament is what to do regarding maternity leave. I was thinking of using my usual 4 weeks annual holiday. So I would have 2 weeks off before the due date and 2 weeks after - but then what happens if I am 2 weeks overdue??

I am thinking of changing my price structure in the new year. I am going to increase my hourly rate slightly. Also at the moment I don't charge for my holidays but charge Parents full fees for their holidays. I was going to change it to half fees for both mine and parents holidays after 1st January. Does anyone have any advice on this? Will it work in my favour or not? Should I just take normal maternity leave instead of using my holiday? Does anyone know how much this is a week?

Also, If my husband is working as my assistant, how does he go about getting paternity leave?! He said he'll carry on working as a childminder - but thats no good for me. I want time off with my new baby and family. Thats the whole idea of me having maternity leave!

The whole situation is really confusing me and stressing me out.
I really don't want to lose the children I already look after. One of the mums of a child I look after is also pregnant and wants me to have her baby full time when its about 6 months old (June time) which fits in well with my due dates, etc. At this time I will need DH with me in order to have 2 under 1's. Plus I don't think I could cope with all the children I look after whilst breastfeeding a newborn.

If anyone could please offer any suuport or advice I would be very grateful.

Chatterbox Childcare
18-11-2009, 11:15 AM
You have a lot of questions here but at the end of the day you have to do what is best for you and your family.

Will you get 6 under 8's by the time you have your baby?
Will there be enough money to support you through your maternity if you DH gives up Tesco?

Have you thought about still getting DH registered and then when the baby is born have your ML and he has his PL and when you get enquiries he can give up work and you can work together.

Remember that if you have a lot of children in the EY age group the paperwork still needs to be done and will you have time to do that?

If you are working you cannot claim mat pay. The children are contracted to you so even if you DH gets registered in time they are YOUR responsbility unless you are signing them over to him - have you spoken to the parents about him being in sole charge?

I think also that if you want your MAT leave then you are thinking about family time and I don't think that it will be that calm if you have you feeding a baby, other children running around and probably a stressed DH.

TheBTeam
18-11-2009, 09:25 PM
If it was me I would leave dh working at tesco at least until the baby was born so that you have the security of a wage guaranteed. I would then work virtually up to my due date with a back up plan to get the kids to a minder friend etc and take my annual holiday for a month after the baby is born and have a minder to cover my maternity leave, having dh around for a bit too and then maybe again for the first week or two when i started minding again.

I say this because I could only handle my dh around a little bit when my two were born, he needed the focus of going to work, it was doing my head in having his baby brain around he needed to get back to work asap at that time!!!