Hey Guys,

I know this question has been done to death but seeing as I never needed to know before I never paid attention

OK, my work have been in contact with me today and we are trying to work out my working hours for early next year. Given I expect to still be b/feeding Ayden but I have so much trouble expressing I wanted to try and book him in some where close to the City or surrounding suburbs. I thought this way I could feed him in my lunch break etc. The other thing is I want him to stay in his cloth nappy's so would need somewhere which could accomadate this. So...my question is...where could I find a list of family day carers in the ACT or childcare centres in the city area? OR, even better - any you specifically know which might fit the criteria? I did not actually ever honestly think I would be considering this so it has seriously snuck up on me

Anyway, sorry to be a broken record and ask questions which have been asked so many times before. I greatly appreciate your responses


Mel
DH - Tim

Hi
You can try Reid early childhood centre from memory they use cloth nappies and b/f is welcome there. and if you can ring a few places like the children's services on 62071114 and they can send you a small booklet on all chn's services in the act and ring a few centres in the city area like campbell cottage honey tree anslie d*ckson -north side community services and magic tree house braddon ANU child care and Heritage child care at ANU too just to name a few.
Just ring now for next year and go and visit the centres for the feel and how you are feeling as you walk in the rooms and centre
Rosie

Rosie
Dh Robbie
Krystal
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Wow Mel what a quandry to be in.
The area that does FDC is called Central ph 6125 200 (i just googled that so i hope its right). The bad news is that i know that carers are in critical shortage where you are looking so i really dont like your chances. However its always worth a phone call.

Otherwise i would be ringing around the centres and trying your luck. You have Christopher Robin in Turner and Magic Treehouse in Braddon. I have no idea of others. I think there is one over in Acton but i couldnt tell you name of it sorry.
I cant give you any specific feedback on centres as i havent used any of these but i guess you could just ring around and see what you get.
Good luck with the never ending childcare hunt.

Carol 34 DH Milton 41
DD Taylor 6/9/93
DS Ethan 30/6/02
DD Brielle 31/12/04 Mosaic Down Syndrome <ahref="http://www.snugglepie.com"><img border="0" src="http://www.snugglepie.com/ezb/122702.png"></a>

Thanks for the info guys Will have to get my butt into gear tomorrow.

It is a quandry really Mum was going to have Ayden but on top of being too unwell now she also just accepted a teachers aid position for 2 afternoons a week and I just don't feel like I can add to her load that with Ayden each week.

Damn - I wish I hated my job so it was easy to just resign LOL

Mel
DH - Tim

Hi Mel,

ANU has three places, Heritage, University preschool and childcare and Acton childcare, see http://www.anu.edu.au/equity/childcareservices.html. They do give preference to those working at ANU though and the wait list is over 1 year. As others have said, Magic tree house and Black Mountain childcare in Braddon, Christopher Robin in Turner, and Campbell cottage in Campbell. There is alos Wattle street childcare in lyneham too. Magic tree house has a huge wait list, and so does Black Mountain. We applied for these and others in March and will not get a place next year.

I wish I hated my job and could quit too. Good luck :-)

Nicole

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Hey Mel,

I have Brenna in at Magic Tree House in Braddon, and I cant say enough good things about them. They would be accomodating of the B/F'ing, plus they currently use cloth nappies during the day. This is going to change in the new year, but they already have a lot of experience with fitted cloth as me and a couple of others at the centre use them, so I am sure if you provided the nappies, they would be fine to use them. The baby carers are just wonderful by the way
I do know that their waiting list is awfully long though... Hope you get some thing worked out!

Rhiannon

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i know this isn't what you'll wnat to hear mel, but my personal opinion is htat unless you are literally 2 minutes walk from the CCC you might not be able to keep feeding like you want. my kids are only 5 minutes drive from my work, but the walk to get in the car, drive there, feed, come back, search for parking, walk back from the car, it just wasn't going to happen. i found expressing witha good book stressful enough - so many times there was just too much work and too many meetings to do it. though you'll probably be able to be a bit more flexible with your hours to get more time - i had one hour a day to express / breastfeed plus my lunch break which was only 1/2 hour (i find that preparing and eating my lunch takes most of the half hour). i work an 8 hour day and found that being ready to leave the house before 8am or staying at work after 5pm to get more time just wasn't going to happen (i'm lucky to last til 5 most days LOL)

anyway, i'm not sayng you can't do it, because it will be wonderful if you can. i think (?!) what i'm saying is if it isn't possible or if it turns out to be more stressful than you ever thought, please be kind to yourself about it.

hope that came across as supportive and not negative, i'm late for work and shouldn't be on here at all!

Thanks everyone - your replies are all great and very much appreciated.

Karen - I know exactly what your saying. I guess it is the reality to, and despite most workplaces promoting themselves as family friendly etc when it all falls into place some hardly are at all. I work for the Dept. of Employment & Workplace Relations (not that I am admitting that to readily ATM with the new work choices changes ) and I read up on our OH&S policy to see what the support is available for b/feeding mothers. On top of your normal lunch break you are also allowed 2 extra breaks of 1/2 an hour to express, so I figure that rather then use those breaks for expressing I would feed Ayden then, and eat lunch at my desk. I am only planning on returning part time and if I go back before April then I am going to try and do those part time hours spread over 4 1/2 days in the office (not sure how realistic that is either). If I don't end up returning until April then Ayden will be 1 and I won't be as concerned about his feeds as I assume by then he won't be having as many as he is now! Anyway, it's all good in theory and on paper - IRL is another thing hey! Thanks heaps for your thoughts - I took them exactly as you intended - helpful advice

Ok, better get on the phone!

Thanks again everyone

Mel
DH - Tim

Edited: to fix my poor spelling

This message was edited by Mel_Mac on Wednesday, 30 November 2005 @ 9:44 AM

Hi Mel
I also have Maddison at Magic Treehouse in Braddon. I can highly recommend it. I got a spot for Maddison in April last year. My advice to you is to tick the P/t and fulltime box as I got 4 days a weeks which I wouldnt have been offered if I had only taken the fulltime option on the form IYKWIM?
Also I was number 30 on the list when I was offered my spot as other mums didnt want p/t or had a spot at another daycare centre so dont worry too much.
Good luck
Shelly

Hi Mel,

I can't praise the ANU's preschool and childcare centre enough. They have been wonderful with Magnus.
They do cloth and disposable and a lot of mums come in and BF in their lunchbreaks.

I agree with Brazen, it can be hard to always be able to go over and feed and I'm finding expressing hard enough. But you never know till you give it a go! And if you're PT it's not so hard to express or pop over to feed for 2 or three days.

My daughter goes to Campbell Cottage (run by YWCA). They have a cloth nappy service, their own cook, and there's a couch in the baby room if you need somewhere to sit while you're feeding. The staff there are fantastic.

Emma
Sophia 10.04.04
Juliet 11.09.05

Mel, my niece and nephew go to Honey Tree in Ainslie, it's a sweet little daycare centre with lovely staff and children. Honey Tree have a cloth nappy service (I doubt they would mind using your Baby Beehinds) and are very BF friendly

Quick update: Campbell Cottage will be using disposables as of 1 December (nappies provided by the centre). This is because their cloth service are no longer able to do the job, due to rising costs and lack of demand. However, they have always been happy to use nappies provided by parents who didn't want their kids bums in cloth all day - worth asking if they'd be happy to use cloth provided by parents instead? I've sometimes sent her in a fitted cloth nappy instead of the usual disposable, and it's always come back to me.