Retainer/Fees

[handeme]

Morning,

I have a mindee who comes to me 45 hours a week. Mum is having a baby and they want to reduce the child's hours to possibly 18 hours which will leave me with a 3 day space to fill.

Mum has now said she wants the new baby to come to me on a 45 hour week basis when she returns to work after 9 months maternity leave. At this time my current mindee will have left because he is going to a school I can't cover so will be going to after school club.

How would you charge? Would you charge for the two days as per normal while eldest child attends, then an additional retainer of 50% fees for the other three days?

I am concerned because I am going to be loosing a lot of money for the three days I am keeping open for the new baby. Places seem to get snapped up very quickly at the minute so dont think I would have any problem filling it.

I am also concerned that while at the moment she says baby is coming to me but when the eldest child leaves wouldn't it make better sense for the baby and brother to go to one childminder together.

[step11]

So far as I'm aware in nmca contracts it states that nothing should be agreed till baby is born. But I defo would charge 50% retainer and just let mum know you have to have your spaces open and notice needs to be given like a month before start date on either side incase you have another child.

[ChocolateChip]

Tricky one, hun. I have also seen that nothing should be agreed before the baby is born but have not had to put any maternity agreements in place. I would be wary though as you could be left high and dry, as you are aware.
In theory will the new baby be taking the sibling's place, or do you have other spaces available? If you only have this one space then you can:
Tell mum you can only keep the f/t space open if she is willing to pay for it, otherwise you will have to fill it in the meantime and she may risk not having the space available for the new baby. You could always come to an arrangement if you are happy to accept less than full fees as a compromise.
Or you could accept the reduced hours, take on another child, start the baby off part time and then adjust your numbers later on.
A lot depends on your relationship with this family hun, if you trust them completely you may be willing to take a chance on trust but that is a lot of income to lose if you get stung, I don't think I could afford to keep that space for nothing.

[The Juggler]

first of all take baby out of equation. you don't need to keep one of your 3 spaces for the baby as you can take them on as an additional child with a self variation once mum needs you.

the tricky thing is you need to keep the 45 hours a week for the current mindee so that you can have him back along with baby.

I had this last year. Had child 4 days, mum wanted to drop to 2 days during maternity leave. I couldn't afford to do this without filling her space and explained to her if I did this, she would lose space for the mindee and this meant I wouldnt have space for mindee or baby when she went back to work.

So we agreed that she would pay for 3 days during mat leave, meaning I could afford to keep open her space. Because we fixed it at 3 days (rather than a retainer for the 2 days I wasn't using) this meant I could also fill the 4th day temporarily during that period - which I did.

I also told her I would try to get a temp contract for as many days as possible during her mat leave so that way she could reduce her days right down - but I never managed to find anyone.

[ChocolateChip]

Just to clarify, is there going to be a gap between the first one leaving and the baby starting?

[rollypolly]

I have just been in this position. My mindee went from 4 days to 2 just after xmas while mum was on mat leave. I didn't charge a retainer for the LO or the baby, as I felt we had a very good and honest relationship and it was only meant to be until June. Mum has now told me that they are not coming back to me until October now, and has said that she will not pay a retainer. So I have been holding 6 days a week, no retainer, and feel totally mislead. It's been a hard lesson learnt and I will not make the same mistake again!