How many hours do your DC do at childcare each week?

[WhatcanIdoplease]

At the moment our DD (3.5) does 9.15-3.45pm 3 days a week at pre school and the grandparents do pick up each of those days, look after her after school and bring her home at 6ish so I suppose that counts as 27hrs childcare in total a week (19 hrs ish at pre school and 8hrs ish with grandparents)?

The reason I’m asking is because we’re trying to work out what to do from September. DD has a place at the local school nursery from Sept for mornings 5 days a week but that’s only 8.30-11.30 each day (15hrs provision). I’m a musician so do a mixture of teaching and collaborative work (mainly teaching as there’s not exactly much else around these days!) and so my teaching work is mainly after school. The grandparents are happy having DD in those after school hours 3-6pm 3 days a week which covers my teaching kids bit but don’t know whether DD needs to go to somewhere else in the afternoons?

Please no judgement on childcare hours, just a mummy over here trying to work out what’s best for a 3.5yr old (will be 4 in October)

DD1 went to a nursery 5 days a week, 8am-6.30pm.

When I had DD2 I went back 3 days a week. Initially DD1 was at school, with wraparound at a childminder, and DD2 went to the childminder all day. Then DD2 went to the school nursery 5 days a week and joined DD1 at the Childminder's on the days I was working (and I had two lovely days off to myself). Now they're both at school and both go to our childminder in the evenings on the days I work (4 days a week).

Do what suits you, there's no one size fits all. I would say the opposite to the PP - DD2 really benefited from being at the school's nursery before going into reception. It meant she knew the school, knew a lot of the teachers, understood what was expected of her, had already made friends and generally settled really well. Plus the school nursery was £15 a week for lunch cover whereas even with the over 3 funding a private nursery was the best part of £45 a day!

My 4 year old does 8-6 each day. Not sure what we will do when he starts school - after-school nanny I suppose (no local family, after school care finishes at 5, which is before I finish work).

My nursery age one is in 9-5 four days a week and has been since about 12 months. Personally I’d do longer days and less bouncing around so you can get work done.

I would consider though what you’ll do outside of term time though. Do you not work during the school holidays?