What childcare arrangements did you have in place before TTC?

[warmcupcoffee]

We don't have any childcare so will be relying on a nursery or childminder.
I am hoping that I'll be able to take 12 months mat leave but I would also like baby to be settled in nursery/with the childminder maybe a month in advance of me going back to work.

Obviously we're looking at at least 2 years in the future. How on earth do you plan this all out?

Before TTC? Absolutely nothing.

None

Nothing.

We have no family support nearby. I had a vague idea that I might work 0.8 FTE, which I spoke to work about before starting mat leave.

I ended up going back early, so looked at & confirmed nurseries in the July before him starting in the September. We got the last place.

Obviously the time of year was on our side with school places meaning everyone moving up & having space.

Nothing m and it shocked me when I found someone I liked that I’d need to pay to keep my child’s place even before they were ready to attend to ensure they had a space for when I went back to work.

I made sure I could afford nursery fees before I started TTC. Once I was pregnant I registered my child at the nursery I wanted them to attend.

How can you put something in place in advance? Nurseries and childminders won’t take a booking/put you on their waiting list if you don’t even know when you will want to start using them.

It might take a long time to conceive or you might be lucky & get pregnant straight away. You might want to go back to work after 6 months or maybe not at all.

Work place nursery.

Would you be able to afford paying for nursery just for settling in?

Most recommend a structured settling in period. For my DS, he’s a bit of an all or nothing character, so easing him in wouldn’t have helped (plus would have been an additional expense). I would recommend using leave you accrue to help support the inevitable sick days you’ll have to take with all the nursery bugs.

What you are better off looking to plan now is money - how will you manage your finances while on mat leave? We planned to live off one salary while we TTC & pregnancy and use the savings to bring my mat leave pay to my normal salary. It ended up being 2020 so saved a fortune.

Nothing except doing the budget and knowing we could afford full time nursery, but hoping we may get some family support.

As soon as you're comfortably pregnant I'd recommend getting your name down at nurseries, we did straight after birth and had left it too late - got lucky as we wanted their less popular days

Before TTC? 😂😂 none. You never know how long TTC will take.

When I was pregnant my parents offered to have baby 1 day a week when I was back at work. I went back to work when baby was 6 months so we did sign up to nursery before baby was born to be safe. But I think we probably didn’t need to do. It was good not to have any stress of wondering if we’d get a place but I think the nursery were quite surprised.

So in short, no arrangements before TTC, all arranged during pregnancy.

I went back full time. Most people I know went back part time but didn’t have that arranged with their employer until towards the end of maternity leave, so they didn’t arrange childcare until then.

Do bear in mind that some nursery places get booked up months in advance, sometimes up to a year for the best ones. So you'll probably want to look round a few when pregnant if that's your chosen childcare, and register for one fairly soon after baby is born.

None.
I knew I wanted to be a sahm and give up work

I planned my finances

I'm a childminder and I wouldn't entertain saving a space for someone not even pregnant. You would have no idea what or when you needed care and it would be a massive waste of time for both of us.

Most contact me around birth, some leave it very late and are surprised there are no spaces starting in 2 weeks time.

Nothing before, booked nursery when ds was about 3 weeks old, for 11 months ahead, changes days about 2 months before I went back to work.

Oh also, our nursery had a brilliant (free!) Settling in programme over 4 weeks, starting with an hour with you and ending with a full day. So my last month of mat leave was spent doing that and having a little bit of time to myself which was nice.

Many just do a couple of hours though, so some friends did pay for an extra month to get some of the initial illnesses out the way before they had to be back to work

Everything seems so uncertain with finances. Nurseries here seem to range from £45 to £75 a day, but who knows if that will be £100 in two years' time?!

Good point to consider mat leave too.

This was exactly what I had hoped to find.

None. I was in an employee job, tried for ten years. Became a partner, self employed, ten years. Fell pregnant and carried, after multiple losses. They said one month sabbatical paid. All parents by that stage elderly, and covid hit and I resigned. And stayed at home.

So the moral of my story is you cannot plan to this type of level. But yes, dd is four, second two and I'm still living off savings frugally. Plus small top up jobs.

Before TTC? Nothing. We knew both my mum and MIL wanted to do some childcare but obviously hadn't agreed anything with them at that point! We started investigating nurseries when I was about 8 month pregnant due to lengthy waiting lists round here, but didn't sign DD up to hers until she was 3 months old to start when she was 1.

I looked at nurseries when baby was 3 months old. My preferred one was already booked up but that was partly down to timing as they only really had new baby spaces in September when they moved children up to new rooms. I had a Spring baby and couldn't wait until September for a nursery space.
But I was happy with the nursery I chose and they did 3 free settling in sessions. I then started her 1 week earlier than my return to work.

Nothing before TTC although I had looked at nurseries to get an idea of costs and where they were. With DS2 there are only limited options so he had a place booked for when he starts in June 2023.

None

I went back to work when baby was six months old. I think we started looking when she was three months old but I couldn’t say for sure. We had a childminder.

First time around I had no idea what days and when I’d go back to work as I was looking for something new so looked at nurseries when DD was about 7 months old. We did have grandparent help so only needed one day.

I got a place for the one day I needed with two weeks notice, it wasn’t considered a ‘top’ nursery for the area but I really liked it, so did she and it was amazing, when we moved I cried as they were just wonderful.

When we moved (less than a year later!) we only needed the same one day and a nursery had the spot but in 3 months time which worked out well with the moving process taking that long.

I had a second baby (5 years later), and one of the nursery parents I still talk to told me to sign her up before she was here which I absolutely did not. I signed her up at 3 months though as we needed two days and this is for the middle of next year and apparently only just scrapped in!