To not opt for term time only childcare?

I guess I’d enquire about how busy places are in the holidays, and see if you could book them in now? The other option is you keep them in 3 days and have some time for you in the holidays!

Do it; take the child free time! It’ll be so good for your sanity. I have one day a week off without my two kids at the moment (just returned from
mat leave) and I feel so guilty and try to hide the fact from everyone but it is so so wonderful and shouldn’t be anything to feel guilty about. I give you permission to breathe and have some space during holidays 😉

Oops, I just suggested this but you had beaten me to it. So, what you said

Yanbu at all and I'm surprised at the voting.

I suggest that you ask the nursery if you can have a year-round contract but reduce to 2 days a week instead of 3 during the holidays. You could have 1 day a week for yourself, when they're both in nursery, and then 1 day one-to-one with each child.

I use almost all my annual leave for holidays and childcare (my oldest is in school) but I do sometimes use annual leave or TOIL to take time off work when the children are in school/nursery, and it's a sanity saver.

Your needs matter too and if you can afford you should definitely allow yourself a break.

You could also change the contract to term time only at a later date but I would suggest waiting until after the summer! The 6 week holidays are the hardest, and the others are easy in comparison.

So DS is in a private nursery and your DD will go there too? And you have the choice of moving nurseries to a term time one - for the baby too?

Personally I would keep some childcare over the holidays, you deserve downtime too! Perhaps have them both in two days during the holidays rather than 3? So one day each so you get 1:1 time and a day they’re both in so you have a day alone?

Please don’t feel guilty, I promise you’re not alone!

How about looking for a nanny/babysitter/childminder who could basically babysit for the odd ad-hoc day in the holidays? That might be a compromise so you can get some respite. Given the ages of your children it's a really tough stage- on the plus side it will get easier, either with more babysitting options or holiday clubs.

How much are you likely to spend on keeping them entertained?

By this I don't mean what is the lowest possible budget one could possibly do it on. I mean what are you realistically likely to do, knowing yourself and your kids. Are you going to have the discipline to go to the park yet again or are you more of a sod it type.

How much is the difference in cost ? I would be very tempted to do it this summer whilst they cant entertain themselves - and give yourself some time off and 1:1 with the older kne - you'll really appreciate it. Think of it as the cost of a nice holiday - but having a staycation instead?

Agree that settling your DD and then 6 weeks off isn’t ideal. Could you use built up annual leave to cover those 3 weeks before summer (or you could use unpaid parental leave but think it has to be taken in full weeks not days so not very cost effective). That way no settling needed till Sep when she will be older.

Appreciate that gives you even longer with both kids though!

There are plenty of free or almost free activities to do with young children. But even most of the less cheap ones are cheaper than childcare!

If you make most of the cooking/food prep a family activity, and get the children involved in a fifteen minute session of housework every day, that might help. Well, not necessarily for the first couple of weeks, but after that!

The cooking will take longer, but my 14 month and 3 year old children can do some basic tasks that keep them happy while I cook, like stirring something, or transferring peelings into the compost container.

For housework, my 14m loves loading washing into the machine and I then use the time to hang up wet washing or food dry laundry. My 3y can wipe counters with a damp cloth or use a dustpan and brush. Their help is minimal, sure, but it trains them and entertains them.

Some of our favourite regular days out include local picnics (even in the rain) with scrambling over logs or paddling in streams (free if we walk a mile or two) and going to the beach in all weathers (50 minute drive is the only expense).

Mine are really energetic, especially my eldest, but lots of running around outside and plenty of training them in good habits are starting to pay dividends, and I'd be sad to miss out on spending time with them.

Unless you cannot afford it I wouldn't be starting a 11.5 month old for 3 weeks to then have a 6 week break before having to resettle them. On that basis I would keep them full time for at least this summer then I would be reassesing after Xmas.

I'm a teacher, and have several friends who are teachers and none of us use term time only nursery! Throws them out of routine and means I would never get a break whereas friends who work all year can book the odd AL day while their children are at nursery

Also to add @9mon I had an abundance of annual leave to take this year from my maternity leave and on some of my days off, I still put my DS in nursery so I could sit in silence for a few hours 😂.

Parenting full time, plus working full time, running a household etc is so full on that you do need time to rest and look after yourself. You shouldn’t feel guilty for that.

Also I meant to add I think it's a bit different if you are the only teacher in the family and it's all on you. I joked to my DH this year that I was going to pay myself £77 a day from the family pot to look after DS on the days I had taken him out of nursery! If your partner gets to take annual leave without the children and you are looking after a child all holiday I wouldn't want that.

I've done both (DH and I are both teachers). This year I've been on maternity leave and money has been tighter so we went down to term time only for DS 3.5. Its been manageable as we are both around. He has also dropped down to 3 days and does the others with me and the baby.

When he was full time we have family near and far so find we did pay for a lot of days we didn't use. But the last three weeks have been fairly relentless with very little time to ourselves or to get anything done. We usually spend at least 20/30 quid entertaining both of them for the day if you factor in food/travel etc and often it's more than this. I do try to take a packed lunch and we have a few memberships but very little is free.

Both of them will be in full time from September and we will probably be away with family for some of each holiday and then use the rest for DIY/working/time to ourselves/appointments like hair and dentist. The money we have saved on childcare this year will help pay for having both of them in full time. There's a lot of things to balance. DS obviously prefers being with us but he's also more settled in a routine when he's at nursery.

When they are both in school i reakon we'll do half with us and then some time in holiday clubs they want to go to so we can get stuff done. There's a lot to balance but don't feel guilty - it's very hard work looking after other people's kids for 6 weeks and then your own for 2 with no break!

DH is a teacher and we haven’t opted for term time only childcare simply for the same reasons - he needs a break and gets very burnt out from working full time in a school that has a lot of behavioural problems. However, soon he will never have a school holiday child free once our DS is in school.

However, he does spend most the time doing DIY on our house as we bought a renovation project late last year and he couldn’t do half the things if our toddler was around.

So, I totally get why you wouldn’t opt for term time nursery if you can afford not to.

However nice it would be in some ways to have them in nursery year round, if you're struggling for money then I'm afraid it's a no-brainer for me.

I'd go for the TTO option, and put in ad hoc days over the holidays.

Any way you can find 9 days of DH annual leave or grandparent care to cover the first 3 weeks, and then start nursery in September?