Nursery hours

[isthatsocrazy]

Not in the U.K.

I'd like to spend mornings with my 10 month old as I work 12-7pm. I'd like her to go to nursery 11:30-4pm. From someone who works in a nursery, or has experience with nurseries and flexible hours, is this an unreasonable request? My nursery doesn't seem to be able to accommodate it as it doesn't fit with their educational ethos.

In my dd's nursery there is an afternoon session but think it starts 12/12.30 rather than 11.30

Most nurseries are either (long) full days, 08.45-3.30, 08.45-11.45 or 12.30-3.30 in my experience. In busy areas there’s also no incentive for them to take kids for shorter days - it screws up their routine and deprives them of full-day income if they’re a popular nursery. You might have better luck with a childminder but again popular ones will be able to dictate their terms.

From an English scheduling point of view, that would mean they couldn't fill the morning of the days you wanted, as they would need the child to be out of the building before you arrived, or need extra staff. So you are effectively requesting a FT place on PT billing.

Generally they are either 3 hour morning/afternoon sessions (9-12/12.30-3.30) half days eg 8-1/1-6 school days 9-3.30 or full days. Some settings do only certain options. If you want different hours eg only a bit of the morning most will require you to pay for the morning because they won't be able to fill it with another child

The nursery we used only offered full days as they could fill all the spaces that way. There was also a waiting list.

Ours offered full or half days. For full days you need to arrive by 9:30 for half day you had to arrive for 1pm.

It will depend entirely on the norms of where you are.

Often a nursery copies school hours, especially for the older children to get them used to certain times and also to enable parents to drop off and collect at similar times.

Younger children may not cope well in the afternoon in a busy surrounding, if they need a nap that can't be easily done as there are no provisions for it.

if they offer a morning and an afternoon session than there will be fixed times for it as they have to follow rules about child to carer ratio.

A nursery who talks about educational ethos with regards to a baby or young toddler would be off my list anyway, they don't need an education at that age.

Maybe worth trying a childminder. My daughter's rolling shifts couldn't be accommodated in the half day/full day offer at local nurseries. Found a childminder who was happy to accommodate flexible needs and was just brilliant x

You could probably do the drop off at those times, but you would have to pay for the full day as they couldn't fill the time before with another paying customer. Nurseries are businesses first and foremost.

Most nurseries have full or half day sessions. A half day session would start around 1 so you would still.have to pay for the full day session if you wanted to drop off at 11.30 (it has zero to do with their educational ethos and is simply about financial viability)
Try a childminder. Some do have the same full.day only policy but many (myself included) are happy to accommodate different working patterns. I currently have a little one who starts late morning a couple of days a week due to mum's working hours

Yes nurseries in my area are generally full day, morning or afternoon sessions as others have said. The way around it would be having to pay for a full day

I run a nursery so may be able to give you an inside perspective
The afternoon session normally starts about 1 o’clock but we don’t like selling just afternoon sessions as it’s hard to fill the morning session, so we would ask you to book full days
Most children arrive between 8 and 9 am so the day is scheduled round that
Our lunch in the baby room is early- 11.30 to allow time for the babies to feed them have around 2hours sleep
Arriving at 11.30 would be disruptive
Also most children settle better if they arrive earlier in the morning before they get too settled at home
It’s less of a transition for them to get up and go to nursery then to get up, be at home with mum then have to go in to nursery

At the 4 nurseries my kids have attended, if I wanted your hours I'd have had to book (and pay for) full days.

I could have dropped off and collected at those times though. 11.45 is often lunch time.

Even if you were paying full time costs, I think a lot of nurseries would fine that a bit of a pain. In my DCs nursery, we need to drop off by 9, as then they often head out for the morning. Having lots of kids coming and going at different times would limit whether they could go to the beach, etc.

Obviously, less relevant in the baby room than for toddlers, but just thinking ahead to a year's time, they might not want to allow something now, that they will need to go back on.

Our nursery would do this, but you’d be charged the full day as you’re using time in both the morning & afternoon sessions.

Thanks. I'm more than happy to pay for the full day.

You'd be able to do it at mine but would have to pay for the day. It would cover the morning and afternoon blocks.

I'd make sure you find out when they do meals maybe so you can fit the ones at home in at the same time they do them there so there's a routine.

I think ours would accommodate (although not like it) but you’d have to pay the full day for the baby room. I’m not sure if they would be as flexible in the pre-school room as they have forest school and other routines that would be disrupted by non-routine starts.

Thanks everyone. I do see the difficulties with the routine. Just wish this had been mentioned earlier rather than later.

Would a childminder be more flexible with hours? The nurseries here do all seem to have quite a rigid routine.

How many days would be for?
If not a full week why not just put her in the full day anyway.

It's Monday to Friday. I get home at 6/7pm, so would just like to spend some of the mornings with her as I'm free.