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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask how you afford childcare for 2 children?

125 replies

SunSparkle · 02/09/2022 14:12

Hi

i currently have one child (18 months old) and am starting thinking about having a second.

She’s in nursery 4 days a week which costs £65 a day or £1100 a month. After tax free childcare help it’s about £950 a month.

her nursery said at 3 years old that will drop to about £700 due to FEL hours.

how do you afford to have two children in childcare at £1650 a month!?

What is your household income and what is your nursery bill? How do you afford a second child?

i don’t want to wait too long as I’m coming up for 35 already. We don’t have family who can help. We both work 10 days in 9 to have the alternate Friday off and I don’t think we can condense our hours any more in our jobs.

OP posts:
OkyDoke · 02/09/2022 14:13

We waited til #1 was at school I'm afraid!

Isis1981uk · 02/09/2022 14:13

We deliberately made sure we had a 4 year age gap for this very reason! As one started nursery, the older was starting school!

YellowHpok · 02/09/2022 14:14

Deliberate age gap to avoid this.

User154871 · 02/09/2022 14:16

We've have the maternity leave to bridge the gap until we qualify for free hours and then I'm going further part time. Not perfect but unexpected 2nd baby.

Wnikat · 02/09/2022 14:16

The short answer is you either find a way to pay it for a year or two until the older one starts school. Or one of you gives up work.

You might get some UC towards it if you're household income isn't too high (and I believe the threshold is higher than you think).

You might be able to find a childminder who is a bit cheaper than nursery.

alanabennett · 02/09/2022 14:16

We have three children. Once we had two, a nanny worked out cheaper than a daycare - and it was much more convenient.

as an aside, we had the same nanny for 7 years and three years after she left us, we are still in close contact.

gwenneh · 02/09/2022 14:17

I think that unless your household income is high enough, it's a matter of waiting until one child has a free nursery provision or school to reduce the cost and there's not much else that can be done.

We don't have that large of an age gap, and it was a struggle for a while when my two oldest were small.

MintJulia · 02/09/2022 14:17

I only had one child, as by then I was single and childcare for one plus a mortgage by myself was enough of a struggle.

I guess the alternative is to leave three years between them, and aim to have August babies, who go to school at 4+ a couple of weeks, rather than nearly 5.

Rutland2022 · 02/09/2022 14:17

We didn’t have a second for exactly this reason. I had DD at 41 and couldn’t wait until 45 for a second but we couldn’t fund 2 at nursery.

DuesToTheDirt · 02/09/2022 14:18

I was lucky enough to have flexibility of hours, so I did 7-1 (6 hrs per day) and DH did the normal 9-5. This gave us a bit of work time without needing childcare, and also gave me afternoons with the kids.

Hugasauras · 02/09/2022 14:19

We waited till free hours at 3 but our nursery is obv a lot cheaper as we are three full days for £168 (less with the 20% tax free childcare) across 48 weeks with the funding.

OkyDoke · 02/09/2022 14:19

My second is 18 months too so will start school in Sept 25. Assuming you will have 9 months off and baby is born 1 Jan 25, and you got pregnant immediately you would conceive March 2024. That's not a huge time to wait? And you might have longer off, take longer to conceive, afford to be able to pay 2 x nursery for a few months... it can become quite managable?

Hugasauras · 02/09/2022 14:20

Also remember you are at home for the first 9 months/ year so if you wait till first DC is approaching 3 then you only have like a year or so of them both in nursery to deal with in most cases or even leSs.

BridetoBee · 02/09/2022 14:20

Number 1 thing to consider is putting your eldest in a nursery that will let you use your 30 hours without restrictions or extra charge!

Lockdownmummy · 02/09/2022 14:21

Have two at nursery and no free hours yet (they are 1 and 2 😬) and honestly we are using some savings to help with childcare for this year until oldest gets free hours.

Playing the long game as overall we will be better off with both our jobs and riding out the expensive nursery years. We are not badly paid but SE London prices so not cheap.

NarNooNarNoo · 02/09/2022 14:22

As others we waited until there was a big enough age gap to avoid any nursery overlap. I gave birth and took maternity leave during the eldest’s last year at nursery and started work again just as he started school.

Jules912 · 02/09/2022 14:27

Waited and took a full year's maternity so I only had one in nursery at once.

MyNameIsAngelicaSchuyler · 02/09/2022 14:27

Three year age gap, I went part time for a few years.

Mummum25 · 02/09/2022 14:27

I gave up work to have them, I’ll go back when the youngest starts school. We’re fortunate in that we can just about afford this. And I do mean only just about…

Accuse · 02/09/2022 14:27

We made the agreement that DH would work enough to cover the costs of working (including childcare) and my salary would cover all our actual living costs.

We’re in the very fortunate position where I struck gold professionally-speaking so we can live that way. Unfortunately, it’s the terrible situation of that you, quite simply, don’t have more children than you can afford. It’s awful and unfair but, unfortunately, it’s how it is. People afford to have two children either by earning enough for two lots of childcare, by one parent giving up work (or both going part-time), by changing your jobs to manage childcare yourself whilst working (like conflicting shift work or some forms of being self-employed) or by relying on free childcare from family/friends. If none of those options are available to you then I’m afraid it’s an awful situation.

mightbeyesmightbeno · 02/09/2022 14:28

I work 3 days a week and use a childminder, who charges £4.20 per hour. I think this is fairly cheap but it might be worth checking out CMs instead of nursery. So we've just gone for it without thinking too much detail about it, because otherwise we'd probably realise it's going to be crazy but I'm exactly the same as you - am 36 and don't want to wait longer. Our DD will be 2 years 4 months when baby number 2 arrives.

If you want a second, go for it and somehow you will work it out. Look at CMs.

Porcupineintherough · 02/09/2022 14:28

I had them close together and stopped working for a few years. Then a mix of school hours, paid childcare and grandparents. Plus I've stayed in a lower paying but v flexible part time job rather than climbing the career ladder.

ShadowPuppets · 02/09/2022 14:30

We are high earners but due to surprise baby 2 (had planned a 3 year gap) we’ll be doing this. Our solution: no savings or holidays for two years, and we’ve both stopped paying into our pensions for the duration of that period. Feels reckless to stop pension contributions for 2 years but our plan is to top them up by upping contributions from 2025, so we’ll make up the amount once nursery fees are a thing of the past. It’s still going to be tight but we should just about manage it that way.

Fluffruff · 02/09/2022 14:31

A bit of a gap then when the youngest started nursery (age 11 months) the older started at the school preschool (so the final year before school starting ) - that was free and as they had wraparound care on the school site they did breakfast and teatime club some days at the school, nowhere near as expensive as private nursery fees.

Porcupineintherough · 02/09/2022 14:31

Is it "awful and unfair" to not have more children than you can afford? Seems quite sensible to me. I'd have loved to have had a large family but I never felt that the universe or society owed me one.