To think we can avoid the need for full time paid childcare for a while?

[hopingforbabyy]

We’re trying at the moment but just pondering our options, as I will need to return to work after 9-12 months maternity leave and people are having to put their name on waiting lists as soon as they get a BFP around here. I have worked in nurseries before and would not want to leave a young baby there, in my personal opinion.

DM is available and willing to help us out on Mondays and Tuesdays, I am hoping I can condense 5 days into 4 and have Wednesdays off, and DH can hopefully put in a flexible working request to not be rota to work Thursday or Friday.

It would leave one day not covered. We do have other family who might be willing to help such as MIL but they haven’t explicitly offered and live a bit further away for it to be practical.

DH shifts are on a rolling pattern and I’d say he would maybe do two Fridays in any normal month anyway, one of which would be a night. If he put in flexible working request to have Thurs off then even if he was working Friday night, he’d be fine to have DC until I finished work at 4pm as his work is really close by

On the one or two times a month that it is a day shift, I could book annual leave or ask another family member. I usually work from home Fridays anyway and my job is flexible so I could just book half a day of annual leave if it needed to be

As I say, I have worked with young children - I understand they need your full undivided attention and would never give them anything less than this.

AIBU to think we could get away with not having to use nurseries or a childminder until they’re a bit older in these circumstances?

Paid childcare, even if just a couple of days.

We ultimately took our inlaws up on an offer of childcare twice a week. Here are the things I'd recommend thinking about:

• Reliability of childcare all year round. We had a very frank discussion about this with our inlaws.
• Awkward discussing issues especially around things they do that aren't current guidelines or things that are your preference.
• Difference between being grandparents only (treating the children etc) and undertaking childcare (less treats and needing to be much more parental).
• Hard to get out of the arrangement if it isn't working for you without upsetting the grandparent(s). We had this with wanting our child to go to school nursery but grandparents wanted to keep the arrangement the same/missing their time with our child.
• The more days our inlaws helped us, the more they felt they had a say in our choices around our child. Potty training was the one for us as was the nursery decision above.
• Can get tricky with the other set of grandparents.

Family childcare is really unpopular on here but most of my friends have their parents/ child’s gps looking after the child(ren) when they are at work.

We do a mix- 2 days nursery and both compress our hours (7am-5pm) and have one day off each, grandparent looks after her the other day (we had an offer from the other grandparent but wanted her in paid childcare for 2 days so she’d feel settled there.)

It works for us BUT we have grandparent help before and after work on the 2 days a week we are in the office as we are out from 6.30am-5.45pm. Grandparents looks after DD from 6am- 8.30 then DD goes to nursery and they pick her up at 4 and have her till 5.45pm. Technically she could be at nursery 8-6 but grandparents wanted longer time with her and we are happy with that.

+1 Family can work fine.

i would definitely start researching CMs though it’s good to have options

i was surprised at how comprehensive the hours were (eg ours does 8-6)
it’s also often way more flexible than a nursery. So for example, if your mum can’t do a Monday the CM might pick it up instead.

i had braced myself for screaming and tears (me and her) at drop offs but my DD is coming up 2 and still trots off into the CMs as happy as Larry…i barely get a bye bye over the shoulder 🥴

I wouldn’t you’d be constantly trying to find people to do a favour. If book baby in for two days a week at nursery. Just gives you that bit more flexibility.

I think it's really hard to generalise - the nursery we used was the size of a large childminder setting really. The 3-4 room was 4 children. Of course some nurseries are huge.

I personally couldn't have looked after an energetic toddler all day and then worked all night. If your DH can, good for him (genuinely it's very impressive) but I think it would be wise to have a back up plan.

Does she not work if she is under 60?

I use a mixture of nursery and grandparents. Grandparent 1 usually flakes out once a month; hair appointment, day trip, driving husband somewhere, not well etc. Grandparent 2 is more reliable but does like to go on holiday.
If I was to do this again, I'd put DC in nursery an extra day. Eats better (more variety, no ready meals), sleeps better (grandparent can't always get them to nap) and a wide range of activities.

I think you're a bit naive tbh.

We were promised grandparent care, both very reliable, both had worked in childcare/education their whole lives.

It was a total shit show and I ended up having to leave work 12 weeks after I returned. They were poorly one after another, one went on holiday twice at short notice and the other suddenly developed caring responsibilities (elderly parent) elsewhere. I found that even though on paper it had looked great and I honestly thought it would be air tight the whole thing was just such a mess.

As someone who took up the offer of family childcare for a few days a weeks and then was left in the lurch when they could no longer continue at very short notice, I really recommend at least some paid childcare. Luckily as we were already using a nursery two days a week we managed to get sorted quickly, but we’d have been stuck if DC hadn’t already had a place and we’d had to start looking from scratch.

I wouldn't use GP for childcare.
You'll be so beholden.

Having worked in education and seen this from the child’s side, there are too many different people involved, which may affect your child’s emotional security and attachment.

Just a warning about childminders - there are some great ones out there but there are also childminders who do it as a second best option to being a SAHM to their own children. I used one in the latter category for a brief time for after-school care for our oldest. I was really not impressed and ended the arrangement after a few weeks. No way in hell I’d have wanted my baby there being her side hustle, getting dragged around on school runs. So I’d approach it with a bit more of an open mind that childminders = good, nurseries = bad.

Another thing is that you really can’t predict what kind of baby/toddler you’ll have until you have them and how grandparents will feel about looking after them. My parents were super keen to help with childcare when I was pregnant, to the point they actually talked about moving closer to us. I talked them out of it on the basis they should wait until the baby arrived and see how they felt then. Sure enough, when the baby arrived they realised they’d forgotten a lot about what looking after babies and toddlers entailed and they just weren’t up to it. Which was fine but I was very glad I hadn’t based my childcare plans on them!

My grandparent care was SUPER reliable. Until she was called for jury duty and it went on for 8 weeks. Luckily my childminder could pick up the slack but I would have been stuffed if I'd had nothing like that already in place. DM was doing 2 days and childminder 2 days.

Make sure you have back-up plans for when you, DH or your mother are ill, or your mother is on holiday etc

I would probably consider a day of paid childcare just so the setting is a backup for if other things don't go to plan. Eg. if your mum was ill or went on hol etc, you could always ask the setting if they could add a day.

My mum looked after my first child 2 days a week and then suddenly died, I was fortunate I could get her in full time to the nursery she was at the other days at very short notice. Not that it's likely, and it's rather morbid, but it's possible.

I don’t think it will work. DM maybe sick, what happens if you can’t do consolidated hours? And that will mean less time with the baby some days. You also can’t assume you will get a days holiday, or even half day, as others maybe taking full weeks holidays so they cant accommodate odd days

I can't see this working and sounds terrible on the children

I had a similar arrangement but used a nanny for one day a week. Like you I was trying to avoid nursery until older, we managed to keep it going until 18months then gradually phased in a nursery.

My aunt is a child clinical psychologist and Ed psych and was very keen to ensure I tried to avoid nursery for at least a year ideally two. According to her it helps with socialisation and development post 2 but pre two the disadvantages outweigh the positives according to peer reviewed research. The research she shared with me was pretty compelling (no I don’t have links, this was a decade ago now) but obviously most people don’t have a choice as they need to work and nursery is usually the most practical and cost effective solution.

I did this throughtout my 30's, for one night it is not a problem, you just make sure you sleep when the baby naps.

As long as your mum and your/DH’s work patterns are reliable, it sounds fine to me. It’s also worth considering a nanny share.

And I echo what others have said about things to watch out for with grandparent childcare. My PIL liked to go on holiday A LOT and didn’t appreciate just how much notice we needed to get our ducks in a row.

I get what you're hoping to achieve. And it would be lovely for your baby to have such a network of loving people caring for him (or her). But there are lots of pitfalls here, and I think you should be open to alternative plans and have a budget that has room for paid for childcare.

What stands out to me is your DH taking care of the baby on Thursday and Friday followed by working Friday night. What if baby sleeps poorly on Weds and Thursdays isn't? Poor DH will be hugely sleep deprived by the time his Friday night work shift comes around. As well as knackered from looking after a tot for 2 days. Will he be safe to work.

Your plan sounds fine on paper. But it hangs on a knife edge.

I agree there are excellent options out there for childcare, but ultimately as a parent you have to do what you’re comfortable with. I am uncomfortable with a childminder so won’t use one even though I know many on here like them. It’s individual choice and that doesn’t reflect on anybody else’s.

See this depends on your child - mine were not cot nappers and dropped the nap by 2 so sleeping while they slept wouldn't have worked

I've always felt that where there's a will, there's a way. I couldn't get comfortable with the idea of nursery (although lots of my friends have used them and their children have turned out very nicely, it was just a personal thing). I'd grown up with my mum working night shifts then looking after us during the day so more stressful/less conventional options that allowed me to keep the children at home longer didn't put me off. I definitely think you can make your proposed arrangement work, especially if your mum isn't 60 yet. Try it out and see if you can muddle through for that first year back at work. By the time they are able to communicate with you, you may feel more comfortable putting them into a daycare setting.