Best age gap to reduce cost of childcare?

[HeidiBM]

If fertility was guaranteed with no struggles or set backs, what age gap would be best to keep childcare costs to a minimum? (Aside from having them 5 years+ apart)

And in terms of child development, what age gap would be best?

My siblings are 5/8 years older than me and personally would prefer to have my own children closer in age.

Around 3 years is good as then your DC1 will be receiving 30 hours funding around the time you go on mat leave and perhaps even into reception when you go back if you take a full year. You certainly want DC1 to be in receipt of 30 hours funding by the time you go back to work!

The proposed changes to how childcare is funded will mean that from 2025 all children over 12 months will be entitled to 30 hours. So unless you want to wait 4 years it shouldn't make a huge difference.

@Dogsandbabies wow, how did I not hear about this!

thanks both.

There's no guarantee this will ever happen though tbh. The government promising it almost certainly won't be in power to deliver it. I wouldn't recommend anyone base their family planning on a politicians promise, they're not really known for following through.

Yeah, I wouldn't be making any plans based on that happening tbh. The sector doesn't have anything like the capacity at the moment, people working in it seemed unconvinced and the Tories won't be in power by then.

WRT childcare costs, a big part of the question is whether you're talking about formal childcare or not? Because if the plan is a SAHP or one/both parents dropping hours, then a smaller gap is more efficient. Whereas if both parents will be working and using a nursery or childminder, you need to factor in things like length of maternity leave (babies under 1 cost more because of ratios) and free hours entitlement.

Two years and seven months as a gap here. It’s worked fairly well to be honest because DC1 will be entitled to some free hours at the point my maternity pay goes down to SMP. We will have one tricky year with two in childcare, although one will have thirty hours to access. I’m sort of resigned to it!

The younger they are, the more expensive the childcare.
So, the smaller the gap, the less of the expensive stuff you need to pay out, HOWEVER there are some eyewateringly expensive years when both are quite small.

So, do you want to reduce the absolute cost, or not have any prohibitive years?

Almost 4 years between my two. The oldest started school at 4 1/2 when the youngest was 6 months old which meant 18 months or so of reduced nursery fees followed by 5-6 months of no childcare while I was on maternity leave. The childcare costs after maternity leave weren't easy but a lot better than 2 sets of nursery fees.
In terms of development 4 years works well for us as the gap is big enough for the oldest to understand the younger one needs help with things but not so big they can't do activities together.

This will almost certainly not happen unless there are huge changes.

The ‘funded’ places are not adequately funded and nurseries are closing left, right and centre because they can’t operate at a loss.