Bad first impression to prospective parent! Oh dear!

Well I had a lady come round to meet me. The baby I look after who is really clingy anyway kicked off and refused to nap so instead screamed the house down - no amount of dummy, cuddling or rocking in her buggy worked today. My own baby decided to open a cupboard in the kitchen and trap her fingers (I only have cupboard locks on the cupboards with anything dangerous in), then my cat who has had a dodgy belly for a couple of days did diarrhoea all over me and the carpet in the front room! I highly doubt I'll hear from her again! Lol.

I had a prospective client here once when my granddaughter toddled out of the toilet and said, "I did a big poo and wiped my bum-bum but I left a big floatie what won't go down." :D

You might be pleasantly surprised. If you stayed calm and dealt with it all in a way she approved you might well here veey soon.

I had a nightmare during a parent visit and they signed up then and there because of being able to keep a level head :-)

I stopped doing first visits while working just because of this. You might be surprised

I never do first visits while working. Hope they come back, good luck

I'm another one who never does first visits while I'm working, so it does tend to prevent situations like that. Your prospective parents may well come back, so don't count them out yet :thumbsup:

I think I will arrange first visits out of minding hours after reading this thread :p Seriously though I agree I think it would give me confidence as a parent to see that you dealt with all of this while under pressure :)

yes i'm another one who never does first visits while kids are here. i tell them its because of safeguarding as they are strangers to me

Oh dear, I thought you may have got away with it when I first started reading but when I got to the poorly cat I thought it was unlikely. Poor you - I always do visits while minding so that parents can see how I am with the children and how attached they are to me.

Years ago when we were trying to move from our old house, we shut our old incontenient dog in the garden when some prospective buyers came to view but he sneaked in again when they went to look at the garden. When I was upstairs with them, my daughter came to whisper that the dog had done a huge wee on the lounge carpet, I left the couple looking round on their own, went downstairs and jumped up and down on a huge pile of kitchen roll to dry up the wee - luckily it was a patterned carpet and there wasn't a tell tale mark when they came down a few mins later - I got away with it and they put an offer in.

I went to look around a nursery once and a new starter was screaming the place down. I think the staff were embarrassed and were getting quite stroppy with her, thinking she was putting me off. In fact, it was their total lack of compassion that put me off because I knew that my daughter would probably scream the place down too. The fact that a child was crying didn't phase me at all, poor little thing - it's what toddlers do! I just wanted to hug her.

Btw, did you remember to exclude the cat for 48 hours? :rolleyes:

I also do first visits when I am not working. That way, they get a good sense of you as a person and your practice and then you feel more comfortable when they return with the child/ren(IF they return)

Sounds like it went badly for you- but I have to say it may go in your favour. It's all at how you handled it. :)

Thank you everyone - I'm not too worried if I do or don't hear from her to be honest -she was lovely and the child was lovely but she only wanted one morning a week so maybe the cat was helping me out! :-) 48 hour exclusion - love that - locked outside for 48 hours would be even better! I was only supposed to have my 1 year old and a 2 year old mindee today - the 1 year old screamer needed today instead of her usual day but I'm definitely taking that advice on board and only doing visits when I'm not minding. X