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I can only give you the experience I have after 8 years with my LA. Other LAs may be different but I doubt it. The LA advertises respite as being the norm. In reality most FCs never get respite. The LA only gives respite to carers who have disabled children (sometimes) or those with very difficult children when the placement is under incredible stress. This means that most of the time the children who a respite FC cares for are really difficult. If you are happy to do disabled children then I would say give it a go. Otherwise I would be reluctant to do it with children the age of your bc.

Ditto the above. Respite is usually for families that are struggling with disabilities. Again, although respite is offered for doster carers who need breaks it rarely happens (and is frowned upon). I've known FCs who ask for respite for holidays have children moved to other carers and stay there. What about short term fostering? Although with our LA they like a 2 yr gap between FC and BC - so that might be difficult. You can but inquire - see what your LA says. You could just register with EDT and offer bridging placements - emergency placements until other carers are identified.

I would have thought your BC would be considered too young and needy of your time. They would have to be considerably older before you'd be considered for respite.Maybe in the future?

I think if you are considering fostering for a private agency the picture is very different. The private agencies around here actively recruit respite carers and include respite care as part of the "benefits" they offer their fulltime carers. The amount of respite is agreed up front when a child is placed and depending on the carers and the child's needs can be a weekend once a month or even one night a week. Respite is also provided for up to two weeks so a carer and their family can go on holiday. With LAs it very much depends on the LA who of course are totally budget driven and I understand do now just use other carers when they have to provide it. However respite is not just for other carers. When I started fostering 14 years ago all my respite placements came from their birth homes with SS arranging the respite to give the children a break from home and try and keep the families together. They probably don't do this now but it might be worth enquiring. I had some lovely children (one of whom is now my daughter!) and really felt like I made a difference albeit for short periods of time to some very difficult lives.

Thank you for the replies. I would be happy to do respite for disabled children with training, I hadn't realised respite was so hard to get in normal foster care situation though.Sounds like the best thing to do would be to talk to them and see what they say.

Hi,I would wait until your youngest is 4 and starting primary school. Fostlings can be very demanding and your children might need time away from them.Your children are still quite young and need lots of attention to develop and competition at this age might be tough. Also, ideally to protect your children there should be an age gap of at least 2 years from your youngest to your oldest Fostling.The other thing to consider is how much are you willing to change your family routines because of fostlings? You know they aren't allowed to have a lay in in your bed with fostlings like you do with birth children on Sundays, they can't share bath time with your birth children, nor be in the kitchen when you cook, nor playing unsupervised in the bedroom with other children, so you'll need to change a few things in your family life.I'd say both for adoption and Foster Care, it might be a sane idea for the children you already have if you wait until they are at least 4 years old.Lots of people have smaller age gaps and it works, but when it doesn't it's your children's childhoods at stake.Best of luck,S

I started off my fostering career when my eldest (now 25) was 2. i did it through a private agency and had specific children with complex disabilities for week end a month usually, though i also had some came for teh day once a fortnight and another as an emergency coz her usual respite carer went into hospital. it was hard work but my son was fine with it but tehn the children were much older than him even if less able. i ahd to stop though when i got pregnant as i couldn't lift the children. and one of teh children died, not in my care, but a few hours before i was due to have her, that was very hard.I started shortterm and additional respite fostering again when my daughter was 4 and son 7 and that worked very well as well though i did end up adopting the LO we fostered 'shortterm'!My LA generally only offers regular respite to fc's if a child has partiuclar needs or very challenging behaviour, only small bubs has had this and it worked fine for me but was very hard at times on the respite carers son (5 at start of respite). they also offer short breaks/holiday cover to fcs but only when asked for and will ask if there is anyone known to the child who could offer that instead. they also have a number of children with regular respite from birth families as someone else said, to keep families together.

Thank you for your comments everyone. It is really useful to read everyones experience.It is because of the age of my boys that I am considering respite care, not full time foster care or adoption. Like I say we do want to adopt but we know that won't be for a few years yet because they are still so young . I thought this way we would still have time with the boys as it would only be part time so to speak.I have been reading about the banardos short break care and it does sound like something we could maybe do, but we would need to find out a lot more first.