Ruthy has looked after our daughter Lily for 2 days a week for the past four years, and we genuinely couldn’t have asked for a more caring and dedicated childminder. Lily absolutely adores her and has had the happiest time in her care.

Ruthy is incredibly hardworking and attentive and puts a huge amount of effort into making sure the children in her care have varied, interesting and enriching experiences. Lily’s days have been filled with playgroups, library visits, trips to parks and playgrounds, as well as lots of play and activities at home. Through these groups and outings, Ruthy and Lily have also built a lovely local friendship group over the years, which I know they are both going to miss enormously when Lily starts school in September.

Ruthy makes sure we know what Lily has been doing during her time with her, keeping a daily record of activities and sharing lots of photos and videos with us along the way. She is readily available whenever we need to speak to her and has always been approachable and responsive. She has also been very flexible and accommodating when we’ve needed to make changes to our usual arrangements, which we have really appreciated.

Most importantly, Lily has been incredibly happy with Ruthy. For four years she has gone off each day excited to see her and has come home full of stories about everything they have been doing together. She has felt safe, cared for and loved, and I think that says more than anything else could about Ruthy’s genuine love for her job and for the children she looks after.

We feel incredibly lucky that Lily has had Ruthy looking after her for such a significant part of her childhood. She has played a really important part in Lily’s early years, and starting school is definitely going to be a bittersweet transition. Lily is going to miss Ruthy enormously — and so will the rest of us. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to another family.

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