30 hours childcare - parent vs nursery!

Did you not have short settling in visits gradually building up ...as a childminder I would have had you visit about 3 times before leaving baby for an hour then gradually at her pace build time up to cover feeds and naps. I start settling about 8 weeks before you return full time.
Babies benefit from a consistent carer....does the nursery have one person...the jey worker...who takes her in settles her and plays with her? Or do they swap staff about a lot?
Visiting 2 hourly is not a great idea baby will get unsettled and want to leave with you.

Nurseries are excellent at settling babies and there's a big sleep regression at four months which affects sleep so it's probably that. You have to give them a chance to settle - normally there is somewhere quieter where the babies sleep at a nursery?

Is it too disruptive having you visiting the nursery during the day too? It can make it harder for them to settle if you're constantly reappearing.

My daughter is 4months old. 4 months I lived in my home having her grand father and my sister in law at home.

now m back to work. I take him to a day care that is near to my office but she is crying there . She can’t sleep there because of noisy environment. What should I do?

should I leave her at home at my sister in law?

or should I wait for her to get settled in day care?

is there any side effects of putting child in day care in this early age ?
in day care I can visit her every two hour

but if I left her in home I can’t visit home and I will be back home after 10 hours

30 hours free for a nursery open all year round is 22 hours a week free. This can be set as 9-12 1-4 so you'd pay outside of these times or can be anytime they are open. The funding rate here is £4.56 an hour so nurseries have to add on where they can as this doesn't cover staff costs never mind rent, resources, food, admin etc.

@kitcat15
Wrap round at school comes under different and much higher ratio rules often with mixed ages and again has all the subsidy of being on school premises yours is actually quiet expensive many charge £6 or so a session ...£4 is a typical childminder charge

The council ones are v area dependent - there were a couple in our old area but they only offered (obviously!) 9am - 3pm during term time with no wraparound available for a child that young. And local holiday clubs wouldn't take a kid under 5, which caused problems in Reception year, let alone before that.

Whereas we needed at least 8am - 6pm to cover a day at work and commuting. DD's nursery was actually open 7am - 6.30pm so, although a lot of money, was perfect for us. The food was also fantastic (far better than school dinners) and included all meals and snacks so a lot less to think about every day.

[quote jannier]@Kitcat15
Don't forget school nursery is different they have buildings and overheads funded by a school....heating 2 extra classrooms in a whole school site dosent add much, rates will be for the site, rubbish collection for the site. Staff ratio is higher as qualified teachers can have a lot more children each....and they get volunteer help. Bulk buying of consumables and food etc.
All nurseries can claim free school milk but free meals is different to schools.
They have staff to cover training and sickness so no extra costs at premium rates as well as training being free. Hours are a lot shorter and are not open 7amto 6pm 51 weeks a year on the same funding as a school that does 9 to 3 for 38 weeks.[/quote]
Hours are 9 to 3.15 free 5 days a week ...but wrap around care is 7.30 to 6pm at £4 per hour or £2 per half hour...and holidays are extra ...closed Christmas week only....the free luches are not great...pizza...pasta...jacket potato...fish bites....but its all tbats on offer round here and given the prices think its OK

Sounds completely normal, it is confusing but the nursery will be able to give you a breakdown. We've just started with the 30 hours 'free' and our bill for four days has reduced from £1000 to £550ish. Hurrah! Day rate is about £65, and they charge an additional weekly fee for all the extras they do (which are why we chose the nursery) - forest school, movement and music classes, day trips etc.

Pre-schools seem to be MUCH cheaper - my friend's son goes to one which only charges about £10 for lunchtime cover if they use less than the 30 hours a week. But it's only open term-time as it's attached to a school, and it closes at 3pm - useless for working parents.

Essentially, the funding the nurseries receive from the government is nowhere near what they need to actually run a nursery. And with food and utility bills going up, that is only going to get worse. There's no way we could afford to have two in nursery at the same time.

@Kitcat15
Don't forget school nursery is different they have buildings and overheads funded by a school....heating 2 extra classrooms in a whole school site dosent add much, rates will be for the site, rubbish collection for the site. Staff ratio is higher as qualified teachers can have a lot more children each....and they get volunteer help. Bulk buying of consumables and food etc.
All nurseries can claim free school milk but free meals is different to schools.
They have staff to cover training and sickness so no extra costs at premium rates as well as training being free. Hours are a lot shorter and are not open 7amto 6pm 51 weeks a year on the same funding as a school that does 9 to 3 for 38 weeks.

The problem is the government using the term 'free'hours. Actually the hours are funded not free. The amount per hour childcare providers receive from the government per funded hour is rarely enough to cover an actual hour of care, therefore settings have to charge top ups to cover the loss ....although we aren't allowed to call them top ups we have to charge for 'sundries' or 'materials' or make the hours outside the 30 more expensive. A lot of parents fall into the trap of thinking that childcare will become 'free' once their child is 3 and unfortunately it rarely is

We pay £700pcm for 25 hours... So considering you're getting 20hrs on top plus holidays spread out through the year, it seems like a decent discount. Don't forget they charge for food and other consumables.

I do in a nursery and stories like this make me cross. As a parent you should be able to access the ‘30hrs’ entitlement as you wish. If your nursery is open all year ask if the ‘stretch’ the funding. In my area if you stretch it over 48wks instead of 39 then it equates to 24hrs per week and then parents pay for additional hours (in your case the extra 6hrs per week) all year round. This means it works out cheaper for the parent plus is an even amount each month. Doing it the other way (30hrs per week term time funded then charging for 30hrs per week in holidays) works out far more expensive which is why the nursery does it this way rather than offering you the option to ‘stretch’ thefunding. Would be worth asking if you can do it that way as would be cheaper. I certainly wouldn’t be happy paying that amount when you get 30hrs funded. I also wouldn’t be happy seeing my child to a nursery who operate this way and wants to make as much money as possible (unfortunately this is often the case in large nurseries ime)

Mine goes to nursery 3.5 days a week.
I have 30 hours free from Gov
Monthly bill is around £800 pcm
Yours sounds cheap in comparison

Perhaps look at a local term time
Only pre school?

The stretched funding equating to 22 hours can be misleading depending on each boroughs rules. The funding runs April to April not a school year. Soe children get more than 1 year of nursery. My la tell us how many hours can be claimed each term this term there are 13 weeks paid at 30 hours but stretched funding needs to go over 22 weeks....that 17.7 hours a week not 22. If we give 22 we won't get paid the difference if the child leaves we would be out of pocket. If the child transfers to take 15 hours of funding at school we then have to also claim term time only and there must be enough funding left to pay for the schools term time fees of 25 weeks so again we won't get paid the full 22 hours this term ....parents don't always know what they are doing come September in March ....our deadline was last Friday.
So you need to find out what the setting is claiming as well as if they have set funding hours.

DS does 3 days a week, 9-4, all year round, stretching the 30 hours. Some nurseries do this, some don't. Its hard to book him in extra days though as they bunch these kids in on the same days and.dont have the staff extra for quieter days if you want to book in. I pay the consumables and meals for those hours so works out at about 70 quid a month usually Instead of hundreds a month pre the hours kicking in. If he did term time only I'd get 5 days a week him in nursery, but he'd be home for school holidays. You pay for any extra time/days outside of that provision. I can't afford him in 5 days, year round, so WFH on his off days when I can.

The cost will vary hugely depending where you are in the country. There's someone upthread who is only paying £40 or £45 for a day, whereas the nursery we used charged £75 for per day for that age group.

Ours also did the funded sessions as 9-12 and 2-5pm. So they then charged for 7-9am, 12-2pm and 5-6.30pm (= 5.5 hours a day to pay for, with 6 hours funded). And in school holidays 11.5 hours a day as no funding then. That was then averaged out over the year. Nursery was open 52 weeks per year and only closed on bank holidays.

Ask your nursery to talk you through how they work out your bills. I did this with my nursery when we became entitled to the 30 hours and they were not applying it properly. They adjusted it which led to a small saving for me, but we still paid a lot on top of the free hours. Have moved to council nursery this year - shorter days, no flexibility but it is actually free!

My DD goes 3 full days a week (10 hour days ) all year round. With the funded hours, we pay approx £250 a month after tax free childcare discount.

Don’t forget meals and other consumables are not included. So even for the 30 funded hours you may still have to pay. My nursery charges £2.70 for lunch then additional for snacks but they can bring their own.

I pay £110 a month for 3 days per week, which is just £5 lunch and £3.50 tea each day.

That's across the whole year, not just term time so sounds like we're getting a very good deal.

With my DD 'snursery at ages 3-4 you have to attend a minimum of 3 days a week for the entire year, 48 weeks.

Then they calculate 2 of those days are funded if you get 30 hours and you pay for the other days.

This makes it easier for everyone to calculate it.

Think we've lucked out with our nursery reading some of these figures! Ours is only £40 a day for 3-5s, so OP's funded figure is not far off what it would be for three days not-funded at all at our nursery! 🥴