Ok first of all, I'm sorry for the long winded potentially confusing nature of this post. Looking for advice about how to deal with parent!
I currently mind a baby 10 months 3 days a week and a 2 year old two mornings a week.
The 2 year old is a lovely boy, plays well with my DS also 2 and no trouble. It's his mum who is the problem. Very odd and nit picky and questions everything I do.
The baby is lovely too but has attachment issues and is quite hard work at times. However his mum is lovely. Really understanding, helpful and always sending me little cards and presents. Perfect parent.
Anyway a couple of months ago parent 1 (annoying one) who has a 5 month old baby along with the 2 year old, asked me whether i could potentially have space for her baby in September (Who by then would be 10 months old.) she wanted to increase 2 year olds hours to full time along with the baby. But I said I couldn't because already got hands full with the other baby and my own DS and even through continuity of care id find it a struggle with 4 children under 3 and didn't want to jeapordise care for any of them by taking them on. She agreed to look elsewhere for 2 year old come September and I started to advertise for a space. (I was secretly relieved to say no as whilst children lovely, I'd struggle with the mum)
Anyway in meantime, lovely parent number 2 comes to me, she's pregnant and due in September! She was upset about potentially leaving me and said in an ideal world, both her children would come to me but she didn't know if she could afford to send her child to me whilst on maternity. We talked about a retainer etc and she said she would get back to me after holidays. (She's a teacher so child is TTO which I prefer)
Theoretically if the other child of the annoying parent left me in September I would have a space for 2 children. So if nice parent decided to send both children to me it'd be ideal situation.
However yesterday at toddler group I bump into annoying mum who tells me that she's heard other mum pregnant and does this mean she now has a space? Being put on the spot and hating confrontation (she makes me nervous!) I say I don't know yet, waiting for other parent to get back to me. However I got the feeling that annoying parent assumed the other child would be leaving. Not only that, but it was like she didn't consider that nice parent might want to send both children to me.
The thing that I can't get my head round is, if nice parent decides to send both children to me, it could only work if annoying parent removes her child. But I get the feeling that annoying parent will keep the child with me just to make my life difficult and she might argue that she wanted a space for her two children first, and I've give the space to the other mum. But the thing is, when she enquiried about the space, the nice mum wasn't pregnant, and there wasn't a space! And there's only a space now for nice mum because annoying mum was going to look elsewhere as there wasn't a space when she enquiried.
But am I right in thinking that the nice mum should get both spaces? Her child does more hours at present anyway so seems fair.
If so how do I explain this to annoying parent without getting in a muddle and potentially getting a bad reputation?