> £4,000pcm nursery fees

[MidnightPatrol]

For those of you paying this, how bad is it? How do you cope?

I am hoping to have a second baby but it’s going to cost ~£4,200pcm (ignoring any future fee increases…!) in childcare for a year or two.

Slightly terrifying, particularly in context of higher interest rates / higher cost of servicing a mortgage when I come off my low interest deal next year.

Ah! Admittedly I did think the figure you gave was quite decent for two children in nursery…

And yes, I do suspect fees will increase to accommodate the funded hours.

We did the sums on this a couple of years ago and tbh don't think we would end up any better off; plus, even less time actually seeing the children with the longer commute.

And the cost of stamp duty on a new London commute belt house would instantly wipe out any nursery-related financial benefit...!

Whilst it didn't cost me 4k a month, I had two in full time nursery for a while and when I went back after the third- my net contribution to household income was about £10 per week (I was earning good money in a senior role) for the first six months. As my children got older childcare costs to a more reasonable level. Others might have chosen a career break

@zonder your example confirms that if only one partner earns above £100k then you don’t qualify for help. Both partners do not need to earn over £100k to lose the help.

Basically if one earns £100,001 and the other £10,000, then they don’t qualify for help.

I have two at nursery OP and the way we have looked at it is just that we are accepting that we will make a loss for the next nearly two years whilst both at nursery. We have remortgaged our house and taken out a childcare safety net. Leaving a bigger gap didn’t feel right for us due to age and also the stop starting of my career felt better if they were closer together.

It is totally ridiculous really but here we are. We are really lucky that we have been able to have the two kids that we wanted and that we have a house that we can borrow against.

Everyone gets 15 hours free. If you earn just over 100k use those pension contributions to get under and you become eligible for the 30.

Then you aim to time it for a 3 year age gap. Eldest in their last year of nursery when you’re on mat leave so you don’t need to add on much over and above the free hours especially if you move them to a term time only preschool/school nursery- this has added benefits too if they can attend the nursery attached to their likely future primary school. Then eldest starts school as you go back to work and baby starts nursery and you only have wrap around care to sort. I also think a 3 year gap is great for loads of other practical reasons like only 1 in nappies and eldest being reasonably self sufficient so you’re not being torn in 2 directions.

35 isn’t old and if your baby is currently about 1 then 37 for your second is pretty average, maybe even on the younger side for London!

Ah, that’s tricky then. Do look into nanny-share. There are a few London agencies that can facilitate this. You could offset the cost of a live-out nanny by sharing with a family with a school aged child that needs wrap-around care. A few friends of mine did this.

Well, I know someone who had a child at 52, completely naturally. So what? Statistics and the medical science are against waiting at this age.

I had mine 4 years apart, which I appreciate isn't possible for many. My friend who had hers close together, took the full 12 months maternity leave, and I think she only had to pay two lots of nursery fees for a few months.

@Pookerrod nanny-share sounds like it could be a good idea. How many children is one nanny allowed to look after?

@PolkaDotStripe mad that you have had to remortgage to acommodate, but I can see having a 'safety net' makes it feel a bit more comfortable.

https://www.korukids.co.uk/nanny-share/about

These fertility tests (if you mean ovarian reserve, AMH, FSH etc) are almost as good as a horoscope. Ask any qualified OB/GYN who is not trying to sell you one. There's no conclusive evidence that there is a correlation between commonly tested biomarkers and chances of pregnancy in women without known fertility problems.

I was thinking the same, knowing a handful of women around this age and younger spending thousands on IVF… It’s sad but true.

https://www.korukids.co.uk/nanny-share/about

I'm sure you've thought of this but can one of you reduce your hours enough to get under the threshold for 30hrs funded. Just til are least the eldest starts school.

Plus Maximise pension contributions so you don't need to decrease your hours quite so much.

Not ideal but you could still earn a decent salary and it would only be short term

I haven't RTFT and I am not sure if this is something someone already has suggested, but could you move outside London and work remotely?

Agree since I have a friend with unexplained infertility. Tests all totally normal for both her and DH. And she has a DC, conceived first month or so of trying.

I don't mean just anecdotal evidence. Here, for example - no predictive power in women 30+

Association Between Biomarkers of Ovarian Reserve and Infertility Among Older Women of Reproductive Age | Pregnancy | JAMA | JAMA Network

@Curiosity101 That's useful thanks.

That's horrendous! I agree a childminder will be cheaper- that's the route we took. Plus only having 1 child! We also had 1 day per week childcare from my mum.

Appreciate you might not want to list your actual salaries, but have you done the sums to check whether dropping a day or making additional pension contributions to take you under the £100k threshold would make a significant enough difference to nursery fees without impacting your family budget etc?

Also, which part of London are you in? All those fees sound incredibly high! Could you travel a bit further afield? We are in z3 SW London but just outside the SW postcode. Our fees are about £350 a month cheaper than some nurseries we looked at inside the SW postcode (£1600ish vs nearly £2000). It might depend on your working hours and commute though - im lucky that DH and i alternate WFH days to enable one of us to do the the long office days whilst the other does the nursery run.

I had DD1 at 34 (just before my 35th birthday) and currently pregnant with DC2 at 37. So i do get the not wanting to wait. But I'm glad we did as I'll still be on mat leave when DD1's funded hours kick in so we'll at least have a couple of months of making some savings before baby #2 goes into nursery and the big bills start.

But you don't disagree - because you've seen how much it negatively impacts women's careers and you're not going to give up work yourself on that basis. So it's mad to keep pushing that idea as if it makes sense when you personally don't ascribe to it. Some others may well make that calculation and stop working but whether they are better off overall is not a given, especially given how many women end up financially dependent on men who then leave them. As @Mumsanetta said, the only reason women should choose to make that calculation and sacrifice their job is if they actually want to, not because childcare and the costs is seen as theirs to cover not a household expense.

Some people space their kids out so child starts reception when child 2 is ready for nursery (if you take 9-12 months mat leave). That’s a 3 year age gap, not so bad.

Have read about half the thread. How the hell do people manage? :S

We are trying, and since we only have a combined income of 60k (probably never be much above 70/80k) seems we will only have one child.

It does suck and the system shouldn't be like this. It doesn't get easier either, as when they hit school age you have 13 weeks of holiday to navigate through, and school drop up and pick up times that are not conducive to working parents.

But, at this stage, I would say you need to see the financial hit as a longer term investment in your career. Also, mentally divide the costs in half, so you see them as been shared by you and DH and split between your wages.