Finding Childcare in London

I came home on Tuesday night to find my wife in tears, my first thought was that something was wrong with our daughter. "No, she's fine," she said, "but you need to watch this". I sat down and started watching the BBC Undercover programme about childcare and all the discussions we'd had about finding a nursery and her going back to work came rushing back. It's still available on the BBC iPlayer for a couple of days if you get the chance to watch it, or there's an on the BBC website.

Some horriffic stuff going on, as one of their reporters went undercover and spent time in an handful of nurseries. This first hand account was backed up by an Ofsted officer who said that Out of 700 nurseries she and colleagues had inspected, she had found only five that she would have let her own two children go to. Ofsted inspectors are under a lot of pressure to pass child care facilities unless something is just too bad to ignore. There is a real shortage of day care and the cracks are definitely showing.

I guess I was a bit naive and somehow thought there would be higher standards when looking after children, but it seems fake CVs about in child care as much as they do in other workplaces. It seems almost anyone can be seen as fit to look after a child when the childcare company is trying to turn a profit - as always lower skilled and younger the worker the less you have to pay and the less likely they are to go and cause trouble reporting to the authorities (who don't seem too interested anyway).

Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a rant, but childcare is the thing I'm most worried about. What options do parents living in London have when maternity leave comes to an end? There aren't many who can survive with only one parent in work, even if you just want to live a "normal life". Our daugther is so precious I sometimes wonder about leaving my wife in charge of her (hopefully she doesn't read this!). Seriously though, we're looking at some places at the moment and it's easier to cross places off the list than put them on it.