To thinkmits a bit crazy thst 9 month old babies are in nursery for 30 hours when a parent is ionly working 16 hours

I have a full time nursery place for my baby although I only work 4 days a week! Half the time I keep him off with me but sometimes I send him and I batch cook and sort the house that day - or I do soemthing nice for myself !

we have no help /‘no family or anything near us so we how can be the only way I get things done

also I’ve had the worst sickness of my life this week and was physically unable to care for him - so nursery was a godsend - I wouldn’t have coped without it

zero guilt here

you are super judgmental op and don’t know anyone’s circumstances

Did the kid not have a dad?

I work two days a week (16 hours). With commute time and I need nursery care from 8-5pm. I work 8.30am-4.30pm.

Nursery is only a short drive from work but traffic is so terrible it often takes almost the full half hour.

My child’s nursery stretches their funding all year round so 30 hours works out to about 22 hours a week. My child attends for 18 hours a week leaving 4 hours of unclaimed “free” hours available. I still have to pay for his meals and consumables charges and my bill is still around £150 a month when using tax free childcare.

I couldn’t afford to work a third day even if I wanted to. By the time I’ve paid for commuting costs, parking, a half days private nursery fees, consumable charges and nursery meals it would be more than I had earned in that day. My child is three and his nursery charges much higher private fees for 1 year olds too.

I can’t see how many could afford to send their 9 month old to nursery full time when they’re only working two days a week.

I would say go for it 💯 here home on my own with 3 children while hubby is out today, tired and with a cold, at least in a clean house and have home cooked lunch and dinner already prepped in the fridge that I only need to heat up. The kids are loving the Christmas
tree and although I’m only half way through the Christmas shopping and wrapping etc, it’s a lot better than stressing about not having started when not even time to do the dishwasher. I tried to do December one year without any additional childcare, with everything there is to do and all the illness etc and almost
had a breakdown 😩
We don’t have much money at all but the £20 we spend on an extra morning of childcare is priceless, think I’d even skip lunches for it, it makes the world of difference to the rest of the week and I will never not book a week’s leave in early December again

No, as you said they spend it under the care of someone else, that’s not being raised by them. Simple to understand if you try.

This 💯 thank you!! 🥰

This will end up as SAHM vs WM. It's never about the dads. All mothers should stay at home, dedicating themselves full time to their children until all children are 11 if not older. Then return to work, in a school hour/term time role. All financlly supported by a man. And all will be well.

Ffs

Whenever I see somebody saying 'sad' on a thread now I think 'fuckwit, possible maga, right wing etc'.

Of course they aren't. They care for them during working hours.

They don't financially provide for them
They don't think about and plan for their future
They don't hold them in the night when they are poorly or have nightmares
They are long gone after the nursery years and raising a child doesn't stop there.

It’s a bit of an extreme example yes but everyone I know who had both parents working full time throughout their childhood is maladjusted. You remember the crazy parties at that other kids house as a teen? When we did things we really shouldn’t have been doing? Always that kid whose parents were never in because they were at work 24/7. Why have kids just to never be around them?

Bit of a leap.

30 hours is 3 nursery days a week. In this scenario maybe Mum works 2 of them (8 hours a day). On the third day maybe she uses the time to do all the housework/shopping etc and maybe have a few hours breather- a coffee with a friend or something. The other 4 days baby is with mum (or/and dad). This works well because mum has been able to work, get up to date on housework and have a bit of time for her own mental health and full attention can be given to baby on the other 4 days.

mine went to nursery from 9 months for 3 days a week when I worked. It has done them no harm. I did pick an excellent nursery though with so much outdoor learning. My youngest was so upset during Covid when she couldn’t go.

I don’t think we will end up with warehouses next door to each other….

I feel this so much! I think I'm going to book maybe 2 days in the new year to do similar. Our house is giving me palpitations it's that awful 😔 we don't have any family that ever take our kids out or anything like that and our youngest also is a horrendous sleeper. Also no money for a cleaner. I know my mental health would be better if I took some time to sort some of it.

So mum works 2 days, child is in nursery 3 days and mum gets a day off?
Sounds perfect to me.

Yabu. 30 hrs is term time only so most al-year-round nurseries allow parents to take it as 22.5 hrs per week, but that's the maximum the gov't will fund, there's no obligation for a parent to use all of it if they want to pick up early. There's no automatic right to work exactly 16 hours a week across 2 days, that's just the minimum. Some might be working 4x 4 hour shifts on 4 different days a 45 minute commute away from nursery so actually need 22hrs to cover that. The rules are there to ensure most reasonable decisions can be supported, without nitpicking authoritarianism to approve or disapprove of each family's choices. Keep your nose out of other people's decisions and stop being so judgemental.

What’s so funny? The hyperbole. It’s hilarious.

either that or some folk are really dim.

Get a grip and mind your own business. Mine were in nurseries 2 days a week from 6 months and I wasn't working at all! It wasn't a free service though, I paid for it.

What's so funny? If your children spend the majority of their waking hours under the care of someone else, you must surely agree that they are being raised by those people too.

It’s childcare not adoption. 🤣🤣🤣

This is not quite how funded hours work. Most nurseries are open 10-11 hours a day, and most will charge for a full day (yes, some might do half days but you can’t always choose). My DS is never there more than 6 hours because I do part time hours, but still having him in nursery for 2 days already uses up 22 of the 30 hours. Then nurseries often stretch funded hours across the year, so you won’t get more than 2 days per week for free. This matches the 16 hours per week you need to work. And TBH although most people don’t like sending their children to nursery, I do think it’s good for women to get support with going back to work.

How about the children who do 9 hours a day, 5 days a week?

If you can come back and reply to that then you can come back and explaine you’re government warehouse babble

Under 1 is ‘insanity’ but being unemployed until your youngest in secondary school is idllyic?

People need to work, and most people would rather work than hang around at home and not have financial independence.

What a bizarre thread this is, honestly, who really cares what other people do for their own families?

Children under one in nursery is insanity I agree, my own mother never had a job until my youngest sibling started secondary school, no she was not “privileged “ married to a rich man or whatever I can hear someone getting ready to say in fact my parents divorced when I was about 5. She prioritised time with us over material things. My other half’s mother was the polar opposite at work 24/7, never there for her kids and now they don’t really bother with her much

Surely people who comment stuff like that can see that a child going to nursery for a few hours a day is not ‘being bought up by strangers’. Behave!

Quite a jump there OP! Things ok with you?
The vast majority of mothers put their kids in to cover work and otherwise have them at home. I dare say the mums who utilise every extra minute even when off need the time either as they aren’t coping or aren’t being brilliant parents on their days off and therefore the child is better being off in childcare if decent quality.

Do we have an idea of what the perfect childhood is,that we should be aiming for? It seems to me everything is a bit of a compromise - we value spending time with children, but also find it important to be financially independent - both for the actual money and setting an example. We want to do enriching activities with them, but also maintain a semi clean house.

Apparently now we spend more time with our children than previous generations, even while working. https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-time-with-their-kids-than-moms-and-dads-did-50-years-ago/

This makes sense to me - parenting seems much more active these days, we are very child focussed. Jury is out on whether or not that is better , but accusing us as a generation of stepping back from our children doesn't seem accurate.

My grandmother had 4 kids, and while none of them went to nursery - I am not sure how much enriching, quality binding time they got to spend with her - she had a mangle, no dishwasher, a husband who worked away, limited funds - her life was exceptionally busy just with the daily businesses of life! The children were expected to be much more independent earlier, walking to school from 4. Society has changed. If I sent my 4yo down to the shops, is have social services called on me