To this £400 a month for two morning sessions a week at nursery is a lot of money?

[strawberrycheesecake1989]

I haven’t looked at many other nurseries as this one is very close which is really convenient. Anyway, as it turns out it’s the only one in the vicinity with any availability at all.

DS will be 2 when he starts. In order for me to take on more business it would be really helpful for him to go to nursery 2 mornings a week. It also means that I could just have some time to my self every once in a while. If I didn’t have to utilise that morning for work occasionally.

on a separate note, I feel a bit anxious and sad about him being away from me like that and like maybe he’s too young? Shall I wait till he’s 3

ah! I digress 😆

Anyway…is £400 quid a lot per month for 2 mornings or is that just how much nurseries cost

thank you!

Sounds pretty normal for SW London.

I pay £50 for 9-12!!!!

We pay around £260 a month for 3 x 4hr sessions a week (3 mornings) including her lunch. But we're in the NE

It's southwest London. Of course it's expensive.

Don't think of the fees of coming out of your income solely - they are a shared expense. And are you being paid to work from home? I wasn't clear from your post.

Nurseries are very expensive and half days in nurseries aren’t very cost effective I found as they tend to charge over half a full day’s fee. I would strongly recommend a child minder, they are more reasonable and we preferred the fact that dc would be taken out and about and have different experiences.

Alternatively given your dc is close to preschool age, and next year would get a free preschool place each morning, you could just decide to suck it up for one year knowing it’s a short lived cost?

In the SE and I pay £80 for a full day, which includes meals and nappies.

Half days are usually expensive in comparison - ie. Around here a half day is not simply 50% of the cost of a full day. It usually works out a little more.

Sorry but I’m in an “pricey” part of London and it’s currently £76 from 8-6 my previous area was £56 for 8-6. That is ridiculous

Alternatively, if it works for your business, you could set aside one of dh's non working days where he has a day with the child and you step out to work on your business.

The way my nursery charged it was cheaper the more you had the kids in, so half a day was almost twice the price per hour of a full week.

£65 for a morning session for a 2yo at our nursery (also SW London - £90 full day) so equivalent to £560 a month. We have 4 local nurseries all with similar fees so there wasn’t much to choose from making a decision

£35 for 7.30am-1pm inclusive of breakfast, lunch and morning snack, as well as nappies, wipes, sunscreen etc.

as it turns out it’s the only one in the vicinity with any availability at all

Maybe there's a reason for that if the manager sounds cold? I think I might wait and see if I could find a different nursery or a childminder.

It is expensive, but at my son's nursery I wouldn't have been able to have a half day anyway, it was all day or nothing, and they probably prefer that, so price to incentivise people not to go for half days.

I pay just under double that for two days in the South East. It's ridiculous. So glad she starts school in September!

Oops, ignore the bold..... that was from anther thread. Sorry. I've reported myself to see if MNHQ will remove it

For London this is about right. I’m in SE London, zone 3. DD is in nursery 2 days a week and it costs us £825.

Don’t worry about plonking him in front of the tv for the odd hour or two.
just make sure they are a bit educational and then all guilt gone!

I think half days are often more expensive than half the cost of a full day if you see what I mean. Because they work on strict ratios you'd be taking up a space that another child that wanted a full day could use, hence it's probably a bit worse value doing half day sessions rather than full days.

I'm in the SE and I'd say that price is the upper end of normal. Also remember you'll save 20% of the fees if you can use the tax free childcare account to pay that was linked above. And the term after they turn 3 they get some extra funded hours which helps with the bill. DD2 has just turned 3 and we're holding on til September when our nursery bill reduces but in general, nursery has been brilliant for my DDs and DD1 was definitely well-prepared for starting school having been used to going to nursery.

Ours is £15 per session

I’m a childminder and charge £40 a day including food, drink, outings, nappies, wipes and suncream. (7:30-6)

I'm gobsmacked at the prices of childcare!! I pay £634 a month for 4 x 8 hour days a month with a childminder. Roughly 35 a day and a bit extra for food.

I mean 4 x 8 hour days a week!