When you are pregnant and later a just new mum, childcare seems far away. But you have to start thinking about it because a lot f the centres have waiting lists.

But how do you know what you want for your child and what would be practical and feasible. There are so many factors. 

The most important one should be what is best for my child and what fits best with my vision of raising a child. But very quickly the practicality starts pushing. How flexible are your work hours? How much can you spend on childcare? What location makes sense?

With our oldest one we really did not know what kind of childcare was available and what would suit us. We did not do anything until about a month before I was going to start working again. We went to a big childcare centre close to our home, mostly because it looked nice from the outside. But when we were inside it was rather daunting. For the babies there was a big room and a sleeping room. But it looked so sad to me, these little babies just there on the floor in such a big space. That was easy, this did not suit me but it might have been the only choice if that was what was available. 

Through talking to other people I learned of the existence of In Home Based care and that sounded after the experience in the daycare centre a bit better. Surely a mother in a home would be a nice environment for my little baby. I rang all the available In Home Care agencies and to be honest I did not really look at their philosophies but was mostly interested in the availability.

You trust that the agencies do all the professional checking and you as a parent only have to meet the care person and see if you get along and if you think you think similar about raising children.

We also thought about a nanny but for me the costs and the fact that she would be in my own house it was not really an option at that time.

We met a few In Home carers and have been very lucky with the person we found for our girl. Only later you realise your children are spending an awful lot of time with these carers so it is good if you get along and become friends.

One of the hard things I found in the beginning was that I sometimes felt jealous when our educarer would tell us of big developmental achievements of our girl and I would feel that I had missed out but that has passed as well.

It doesn't mean it always goes well and in home care is the best. For us it was the best solution but for other people it might not work at all and we had a bad experience with in home care as well. 

So I hope that a lot of parents will review and rate the child care centres, the carers, the nannies so that it can be easier to find the right care for our children.