Kim has looked after our son for four days a week since he was nine months old (now 21 months) and before that he did short settling sessions from the age of six months to enable Kim to bond with him. We had seen three other potential childminders and when we met Kim we immediately chose her. Kim has adapted her home to provide a space dedicated to looking after the children; it has lots of toys, storage, space for music and stories, colourful displays on the wall and its own toilet facilities. The children eat in the adjoining family kitchen. Kim is very experienced and seems always to be attending courses to add to and refresh her skills. We have always been happy to leave our son with Kim confident in the knowledge that he will have a busy day, with a good range of organised activities and free play time, and space to relax and take his regular nap. In fact his naps have always been more regular at Kim's than at home! We provide our son's breakfasts and packed lunches and Kim feeds him at teatime with a good range of dishes, taking into account his vegetarian diet and also working around his extremely fussy toddler appetite! Jesse has never come home hungry. These days when we drop him off at Kim's he hardly looks back, he is happy to join his pals and get stuck in with the toy cars and the play kitchen. If our trains are being unreliable, Kim always sends us messages to reassure us that our son is fine and not to worry if we are late. Overall it is this flexibility, the family environment and Kim's cheerful, down to earth yet professional attitude that led us to choose her as our son's childminder and we would definitely recommend her to other parents.

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