How do you afford more than one baby?

[Bossbaby12]

Reposting for traffic, hope that's okay!!

Hi! So me and my partner have been discussing the possibility of having a second baby. We currently have a 17mo DD. The only thing that is making us both panic is the cost. How do you afford two babies? DD is currently in nursery a few days a week and I now only work part time but if we were to have another I have no idea how this would work because I would still want DD to go to nursery so she can interact with children her age but I don't have a clue how this would be affordable, especially when it's time for the second one to start nursery. How do you manage?

work around each other so that there's no need for childcare ? This is what we have always done. DH worked 9-5 ish and I worked nights/evenings/ weekends.

when we had dc no2 i gave up work, dc 1 was 3 and qualified for 15 hours as 30 free hours didnt exist. now dc2 has qualified for 30 free hours, i'm back in the game.

i work 3.5 days a week and dh travels - cant be flexible and we have no family so a private nursery open 07.30-6.30 is our only option.

normal rate is £5.30 ph. even with 30 free hours for dc2, my nursery bill for 40 hours per week is still aprox £500 due to meals and all the weeks unfunded (this term its 7 weeks unfunded i think).

dc1 is in wrap around care and that still costs £5 per but only advantage compared to nursery is that there are fewer hours.

unless you earn £27K plus pa and have a kid at school, then i think you may have to stay at home until they're both at school.

good luck.

If you are on mat leave, there are ways of socialising your toddler without paying £53 daily which seems mad if you are trying to be frugal and are available to provide the care. You can go to a couple of free toddler groups or meet friends with same age little ones etc. I could never understand my friends who paid for kids to go to nursery whilst they were at home.

We’re waiting until dd is in school as two lots of childcare is absolutely impossible but so is giving up my salary.

We’re in that in between place where we earn a decent wage but only just enough to afford childcare, but aren’t entitled to any help either (until dd is 3, then half her nursery will be funded).

So we’re just waiting, getting broodier and older....

We have three. I worked pt. All my wages and some of dh went into childcare but viewed it as not much different if I had become a sahm and we only had dh wage. Thing got much easier when they all started school.

Good maternity package helps a lot too

Vdb I’m a sahm and we pay for ours to go to nursery. It’s the only 2 mornings a week I get without a clingy child on me and it’s the only time I get to clean the house, batch cook, do chores etc.

Worked FT from when they were a few weeks old with a PT nanny and DH with flexible hours. Meant not s massive cost for DC1 and that the marginal cost of each additional DC wasn't huge.

babyroobs Unfortunately neither of us have the option for evening/weekend work.

vdbfamily DD absolutely loves nursery and she is coming on leaps and bounds so I don't really want to take her away from that. Also to be honest, I'm really not a toddler group person.

I second 'are you sure your wage is less than childcare' - it almost certainly isn't. And if it is then child tax credits would top you up. If you don't want to do back to work full time it's fine, you don't need to justify it. My friend used this excuse to work part time even though nursery was £50 a day and she was paid about £120 a day after tax.

champagneandthestars Yes its more than my wage, that's if I were to go full time. Part time it's currently affordable. We don't get any form of help currently other than standard CB.

I would happily go back to work FT as I actually enjoy my job (not that I don't absolutely love the two days home with DD). This wouldn't make any financial sense though as I have said, if I were to go back full time, nursery would be more than my wage.

That made me a bitter laugh champagne. Most people I know having 2 in FT childcare would be more than their wage. I think I worked out you’d have to earn about 40k round here just to break even.

To the poster who gets 5% discount for twins... that's crap! Can you negotiate? Mine aren't twins but have a small age gap and nursery gave us a 20% sibling discount.

To the OP, it was slightly cheaper second time round because we were set up for a baby with all the furniture and equipment etc. Your first will be 3 when your second is born so go for the free hours. Are you in the tax-free childcare thing? That helps.

champagne it's not just about the wage covering the childcare bill - there are also costs associated with going to work. It costs me £15/day commuting costs for a start (cannot be reduced with season ticket if working part time) plus we also need to run a car for childcare pick ups/drop offs so that cost remains.

If it were a case of 2 in childcare, it would make no sense for me to go to work

DD1 was 2.5 when DD2 arrived. I am a SAHP because with my earnings (even with free hours) it wouldn’t be worth my while working. OH earns an ok wage but we struggle. We rent and live month to month with very few luxuries. But I know it won’t be forever.
Eldest starts school in sept, and I will have one more year at home before youngest qualifies for free hours. Will get back into work at that point.

We have one -not through choice but secondary infertility and combine household income of about £75k. I do sometimes think how would we have afforded another, I thought costs would drop dramatically when DS at school, but by the time we factored in wrap around, holiday clubs, more expensive holidays in school holidays, birthdays, after school club, uniforms, other bits we haven’t really seen a drop, as kids older they get more expensive. I think for 2kids you have to make a choice tocutvback substantially for a very prolonged period of time not just nursery years. How much is realistic to cut back depends on your starting point.

Iwanttobe that is how I envisage it to be over the next few years. My daughter is still 1 but I am surprised at the number of people who come and say how much easier it gets when they reach school. Unless they are fortunate to have a term time job, I can only see it being harder trying to juggle wraparound care together with holiday care. Plus as you stated, everything costs more as they are older.

As a couple, we decided it is better I substantially drop my hours for the foreseeable future to be available for all this and then my husband can make all the commitments necessary for his career (and salary) to progress to finance the lifestyle we want. I feel it's the perfect decision for now as my hand is in my career (making it much easier to increase my hours and progress if I want to) but for the time being, I am providing most of the childcare and saving on all those costs.

I became a SAHM after DC1 (have 3). My earnings weren't high enough to make it worth paying childcare for, at the expense of losing out time with dc. To give DC sociable time I made use of all the free/cheap playgroups in the area and plenty of playdates with friends.

My DS is 5 this year and starts school in September. He currently does 3 full days Nursery a week, no way could we afford two in Nursery the thought makes me shudder!

We have just started TTC number two, if cost weren't an issue would have had another a couple of years ago.

The median household income for a family with two adults and two children is almost £50,000. In other words, half of these families earn more than that. If your household earns £30,000 a year, say, you are in the poorest third of families.

I mention it because people tend to over-focus on things like the average industrial wage. The reality is that most families who choose to have two or more children afford it because they earn well.

I also mention it because people often seem to fall over themselves on MN to proclaim how lucky they/DH is, £30k is such a good wage and they know how lucky they are etc - the reality is that most two-parent families earn a lot more than this.

But tonydanza aren't you mixing up individual and household income here? If you both work and both earn £30k then that's an above average household income of £60k. £30k as a household income for two working adults is indeed low because it means they make an average of £15k each.

Of course lots of two parent families don't have two working parents - but if they do then both being on £30k is a decent - not spectacular by any means, but decent - income.

Neither of ours went to nursery until the free hours kicked in. After my mat leave husband became a SAH dad. He took them to loads of playgroups etc - I didn’t feel either missed out on social interactions. We managed fine on my salary (I have a good job but I am conscious we are less well off than most of our friends who both work). I wouldn’t change what we did. All the couples I know who try to progress their careers + having young kids are tired, stressed and snappy- there is constant conflict between job and Home. I was very lucky not to have this. Now kids are both at a school my husband is thinking of picking up his career again - probably part time.