I’m sure that children are able to have a great time in Stacey’s care and her setting is very child orientated. Our initial meeting with Stacey was lovely as she comes across as a nice, informed, and caring childminder. However, our experience has not been as we’d hoped for a variety of reasons.

The introduction of our son to the setting felt a bit awkward and a little impersonal. We got given an ‘all about form’ to fill in but would have much preferred an opportunity to discuss our son’s needs/routines in person prior to him starting, however this was not offered. Instead, we received a lot of WhatsApp messages in the first few days with questions, that could’ve been discussed during an initial ‘getting to know each other’ session. Furthermore, there was no guidance on how the settling in should be structured (as first-time parents, we would’ve appreciated this).

The settling in that Stacey instructed were a 1x3 hour and a 1x5 hour session, with our son attending on his own. At first our son seemed to get on well, with him being a bit upset for just a few moments during his time there. Stacey did keep us updated on this. The following week, Stacey rang us to pick up our son because he was so upset, and because she was having a settling in session with another new child and didn’t want our son around during this.

Stacey proposed an option for the week after for our son to attend for four days straight (his usual days were Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday) in an attempt that consecutive days would aid his settling. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t seem to help and at the end of the week, we received an email (with no pre-warning/discussion) from Stacey in which she gave us her 1 month notice to terminate the contract. She had stated that our son was distraught whilst in her care and that she felt her setting wasn’t for him. We were shocked as we’d been researching and talking to other parents about settling in 1 year old babies for the first time and this can often take several weeks, and a variety of approaches should be used. We would have appreciated not only more direct communication during the week if our son was genuinely this upset but additionally an opportunity to review how we settle our son instead of simply giving up after less than 9 days. Stacey simply stated that her setting wasn’t the right fit for our son and that he’s affecting the other children (including her own) without trying other ways to settle our son. She’s also recently doubled her childcare business and with other children currently settling in/due to settle in, placing a lot of change in her environment. When we proposed options around attempting to settle our son in a gentler fashion (with parents present and shorter periods to help build the bonds with the carers and other children) this was rejected. Despite saying in the notice email she’d be happy to talk on the phone, she refused to have any conversation about options and merely messaged about contract termination.

We thought very highly of Stacey in the beginning, respecting, and trusting her with our son, however our experience has shown that she isn’t interested in working together with the parents. Considering there are childcare settings that run settling in sessions for 4 weeks + and seeing Stacey not even giving our son 3 weeks to settle in, we are frankly appalled. Appalled not only at her lack of willingness to try to settle our son but also in the impersonal manner of just sending an email with no opportunity to discuss.

Stacey wrote that our son is distraught while in her setting however it was clear by this point, she wasn’t willing to work through different options to help settle him. She still explained she’d welcome our son for the next 4 weeks (we felt that only because she’s contractually obliged to) but as parents we obviously didn’t feel comfortable sending our son back. Not only because he has been so upset, but also because Stacey said that he disrupts the other children. For this reason, we asked for a partial refund, which was ignored leaving us with no childcare moving forwards and a month paid in advance which £700 of that has now been wasted.

Furthermore, Stacey has since blocked our account on childcare.co.uk, which seems as though she’s trying to hide from our review. There’s no doubt that children feel loved and cared for with Stacey, but we’d warn parents to be mindful of our experience.

• Overall
• Setting
• Cleanliness
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• Communication