Hang on in there until school age doesn't work?

I don’t use holiday clubs but I think you can use Tax Free childcare on those too.

Have you factored in Tax Free Childcare? The government will pay 20% of your wrap around care.

I completely agree op! Me and my husband essentially work opposite days to each other to make it work and it's tough, but it means we don't have high childcare costs and we can make more efficient use of our annual leave.

I found school a bit tougher too in that some of our annual leave now has to go on things like sports day, Christmas play, school picnic afternoon and all the other events that school have on! It's knackering!

We decided to stick at one, and this was one of the reasons why 🤣

I live in London and there are plenty of holiday clubs that are significantly cheaper than £325 per week. That’s definitely the higher end of the market.

Also, parents tend to help each other out during the holidays. If you have a week off to look after your child, you take someone else’s child too, that way they have a friend (or 2) to play with. The parent of the friend then reciprocates another week during the 6 weeks holidays.

Your wrap around and holiday club fees are similar to mine, OP, I'm not at all surprised.

It must depend on location - I'm on the outskirts of London and holiday camps are around £35 per day for 10am-4pm (which doesn't help many parents working FT) or £70 for 7:30am-5:15pm with a top up of £7 for a 6pm pick up.

I'm wondering if it's because of the discrepancies that exist across the UK. I'm in a part of the UK where we don't get 30 free hrs childcare and it would be life changing if we did. I pay £1000 a month for one child to be in nursery 5 days a week and it was one of the cheaper nurseries we looked into. For us we'll only be able to consider a second child when ds is ready to start school because right now a second would put us in debt and likely me out of work.

Thanks to those who have shared their thoughts. I think I'm suffering a little bit of mum-guilt over the toddler being at nursery so much, when that doesn't seem the norm. We do spent lots of time together in the mornings, evenings and weekends - I don't have any family support, so all other childcare is me or her dad. In effect, the nursery staff provide what many others have from grandparents. The baby was also an easy one- she sleeps through the night as often as she doesn't. Very fair point that if you don't have one as straightforward holding down a FT job is tough - I've had some very rough days when she's been ill and up 8+ times in the night!

I hated primary school myself, so I think that's why I dislike the idea of extending school days with wrap around care.

It's also partly to do with my career stage - I'm in the process of being promoted, which i suspect/ would not have happened if I'd not got back FT (was applying when I was pregnant, but one they knew I was pregnant... there was no way it was going to happen!) However, I'm approaching the point of being as senior as I'd ever want to be (who wants to manage 100 people and have to deal with all their issues - one toddler is bad enough :D!?!) so going part time once I've reached a career point where only sideways steps are of interest, seems like the more logical thing to do.

The little one is growing up so fast though. I can see why people want to watch and treasure every second by being at home with them as many days as possible.

I’ve said this on similar posts previously and been pooh-pooed.

Thanks for proving it with your calculations.

That’s dirt cheap. Is that 7.30-8.30am and then 3.15-6pm for wraparound care and then 7.30-6pm for holiday clubs?

Thank you.

the build I would add is:

the government and society really need to be encouraging people to have more children to stop our economy tanking due to aging population not punishing them for having them in the first place.

they should be making it easier and providing more support, and Uk society should stop hating on parents and children. The attitude that children are your “fault”/“choice” so sit down and shut up is ridiculous.

In my case, I wanted more time with young children, and, as DS didn't consistently sleep until he was 3.5 I physically couldn't have coped with full time work.

Whereas by school age they can do much more on their own, sleep through the night and they can attend clubs etc at school (if your school offers this). DH and I were also able to work flexibly (some mixture of early starts, and short and long days) to minimise the amount of wrap around care we needed - you can't do that with full days at nursery stage.

The hard part at school stage was being about for the random school things that you are expected to attend during the day (at least DC went to a sensible junior school that minimised this). None of this at nursery.

It got easier for me when mine left school for good took so much stress away.
No advice sorry.

If you each earn below £100k a year, you’ll get 25% off your childcare costs as long as your childcare settings are registered for tax-free childcare.

I know how shit it is. We get 9 weeks’ annual leave between us but both have to keep a week for Christmas. We never take time off together and I have to sneakily work from home during half terms so I can look after my son. Holiday clubs here are 4 days a week at best and are usually just 9am-2.30pm.

Yh. As others have said if your almost entirely covered for childcare as it is school will be a massive blow (as my own mother discovered in the 90's) so I don't know why your suprised to be honest ?

But in general if your paying (massively) out of pocket then yes the school years will help lower it.

It's because you have other younger DC. I think it's when the youngest child starts school you are better off. Plus as others have said your nursery fees were very reasonable compared to many others hence less money saved when they leave nursery.

I don't think things get easier when they get to school age, at least not until they are a bit older and you have a lot of flexibility with work. While nursery cost us more in terms of actual money spent (funding only came in at the end for us when ours were that age), it was one site all day 9-5 even in school holidays. Breakfast and after school club is mish mash and unreliable around here, some days they are open, some days not.

Holiday club, there is only 1 within about 50 minutes drive and the race to book a slot when bookings open is intense. I literally set my alarm and do it at exactly the moment the booking go live several months in advance. Even then they only do 3 days a week, though it's 8:30-430 which makes for a longer day. The difference is it's £20 a day, snacks and activities included, you send a packed lunch. It's very good value for money.

We make it work because we can work flexibly. Dh is self-employed, so he just takes the dc with him to work or they watch tv while he has an admin day. I have paid leave at Christmas and Easter because I work in high ed, plus my 28 days of AL. Between us we easily cover the school holidays with 2-3 days a week of holiday club in the summer only. With some AL left over for a holiday. If we didn't have so much flexibility, there would be more expense.

In my experience though, 80% of the other school mums either work quite part time and do all the before/after school care and holidays, or people have a lot of family help (grandparents doing the bulk) or they are SAHP. There are very few women like me in professional careers at our school (I think this is why there isn't much wraparound/holiday club care around here, because there is low demand frankly).

Well, everyone has different priorities and different childcare availability locally.

I think if you're going to use wraparound/holiday clubs, it isn't any more hassle to use them 5 days a week than 3 or 4 really and our school's wraparound is excellent and just as reliable as nursery was.

We don't use it 5 days a week because we do find it helpful to be part time to facilitate things like swimming lessons after school etc but we don't see wraparound as a big thing to be avoided or minimised.

Some people prioritise time with their children when they are little, some when they're older, I think there are arguments in favour of both from a child development angle and also it depends on you and what ages you enjoy most with your children.

The comparison is mostly for the FT nurseyr fees BEFORE funding I've found.

We were paying £250 a week (after tax free childcare) for a FT nursery place. Ds turned 3 and the school nursery offered him a 30 hour funded placed - we went from £250 a week to only childminder pick up fees (£9 a day = £45 a week) so an immediate saving of Over £200 a week. I have arranged starting later with my employer so I do drop off every morning.

but, we have also completely accepted the fact that other than Xmas and 1 family holiday we don't take any other time off together in the year, that's kind of a part of it.

Are you sure all the holiday clubs are £65, OP? Around here the big ones like Barracudas are £65ish, but there are smaller clubs that are much cheaper.

I was going to say the same thing. A lot of holiday clubs don't really advertise or have a flashy website but do exist

Are you sure all the holiday clubs are £65, OP? Around here the big ones like Barracudas are £65ish, but there are smaller clubs that are much cheaper. Ask around parents with older children - they don't advertise because they don't need to, but you might find something else. There also seems to be much more choice after age 7.

Our school holiday club is £35 but only runs for half the holidays, so I'm always ferreting around trying to find other options. WFH really helps as you can pick up at whatever ridiculous time they deem a full day, but I'm still dreading the juggle over summer and really, really miss being able to take the odd day off for myself to sort my life out or just chill.

I would agree with everyone else that your nursery costs are low. My son's in Reception and last year we were paying £650 for four days at nursery. I know the cost has gone up quite a lot this year too.

I'm not sure why people are questioning or disputing the cost of wraparound care at school or holiday clubs. My DS last did ASC 4 years ago and it was £13/session then. (I think breakfast club was 4.50) As its attached to the school you can't exactly shop around.

And I've never seen full day holiday clubs for £15, even 10 years ago. £25 used to be the cheapest in our area, and like lots of pps said often they're 10-3 or school hours.

But most people seem to work part time during nursery years and increase hours when they start school. What am I missing?!!!

Nursery is more expensive than wraparound, and people want to be with their DC when they're so little. I was ft throughout the nursery years and am contemplating going pt in a few years to facilitate homework, hobbies etc as well as a bit more downtime. Nursery aged DC can have their needs easily met by others but that gets trickier as they get older.