AIBU/WWYD - Nursery Choice

[ImNotHeartlessHonest]

We have two good nurseries shortlisted near to us. Not much in it price or quality wise, we'd be happy with either. Arguing the toss with DH, won't say who has which job etc.

Both WFH mostly, both compressing hours to do 4 days, so only 3 days in nursery. Home is in Birmingham, some grandparent cover for emergencies, but lives an hour away and doesn't do early starts.

Parent 1 - WFH but occasionally in London by car and train, some overnights. Will do pick ups.
Parent 2 - WFH but occasionally in city centre. Will do drop offs.

Nursery A - 20m walk. 10m to bus for parent 2. Option to book extra days ad hoc.
Nursery B - 10m walk. 5m to bus for parent 2. No extra days option.

Driving can take as long as walking due to traffic.

One parent swayed by emergency bookings option so we can both look like eager beavers at work/help with travel, other parent more keen on a close pick up as the compressed hours make the days a bit of a slog as it is and could usually rely on grandparents to cover sickness.

WWYD?

Nursery B.

I don't get what you'd be using the emergency cover for, a cold you can just struggle through especially with only one DC, a proper emergency eg one parent in hospital then the other parent is likely to be able to cope with emergency leave etc.

On the face of it I would go for option A, but it does depend on hours and if the extra 40 mins a day travel would make things tighter.

I mean, it's a guaranteed extra 40 mins a day (not nice in cold, rain, dark in winter etc) in nursery A for the possibility they might have a free space when you need it once or twice a year?!

I vote B based on just this info, but I think you should be making your decision based on other things ie quality of care. Outdoor spaces, food, activities etc etc.

Our nursery offers extra ad hoc days and we've barely booked any, maybe one a year. They're amazing for the things I listed above though.

How often is occasionally going into work for each parent

So one thing I found helpful with mine is thought whilst term times days are set by contact for school holidays it's a club and you can request extra days so I have but LO in for 5 days rather than 3, even though from the outset it's not needed it is helpful to have those NWD child free to do stuff ok to do lists.

Our nursery policy is you have to be able to collect within 30mins if child is ill so as long as you days in London and city aren't the same then the local parent collects and waits for GP to come if they need to carry on working and then work later to make up the time so for you that would be 1hr +

OP has said all that stuff is equal though.

Whenever I've looked there's been several that have been very similar in those categories so it's come down to distance/convenience etc.

The two nurseries are pretty much neck and neck in that regard, otherwise we'd go for the better one!

Parent 1 - perhaps two overnights a month and two long days.
Parent 2 - once a week minimum in city.

(all of this could be pushed where possible to the days outside of nursery)

For those who've asked about emergencies, things like picking up DS when he's sick (for collection from nursery) or "emergencies" such as major work meetings needing us both on the same day or a usual non-working day.

Tbh, "emergencies" is just something I've seen others mention about nursery choice - we're new to this!

If DS is sick then extra ad hoc nursery days won't be relevant?

So the ad hoc is only for when you can't both be WFH (can't parent 2 just do pick up and drop off those days?) or for non working days? We're just both really clear that we don't work on non working days, things get rearranged if it's important enough for us to be there!

As close as possible! We looked at one a bit further away and every day I am so glad we picked the closest one. It’s between our house and the tube (5min walk from either to the nursery). It gives you so much more flexibility. Ours opens at 0800 and means when I’m wfh I can make an 0830 meeting, and my husband can leave the office at 1730 and still make pick up before 1800.

Nursery B all day long.

Distance is way more important than i gavw it credit for. By pure chance our fave was the nearest (5min walk) but i look at our 2nd choice now and think i was insane. It was a 20min drive each way ie 40min drop off morning, 40 min pick up in the evening,

Close is handy if one if parents is sick and needs to drop dc off so they can have some rest

The rest of the antenatal group are super hyped about a nursery that's probably better than both of our picks, but it's a 30m walk or 25m by bus!

It's important to me that we have a pleasant morning routine (well, you know, toddler pleasant). That would be annoyingly far for both of us (even though it's on the city centre bus route tbf).

Don't forget that in a couple of years you'll be doing it with a child who wants to walk, and that 10 minute walk will be more like thirty ... So distance is definitely crucial.

Excellent point!

I was thinking similarly. Our nursery is less than 10 minutes away at adult pace but it can feel forever with a small person who isn't cooperating. Bitterly remember one particular walk home in the pouring rain with a screaming 18 month old. We were both crying by the time we were home.

ETA DD was in the buggy! But hated both the rain cover and the rain.

If the ad hoc days are for when one of you is asked to work on the day you'd normally be doing childcare, consider

• can you just say no if grandparents are not available (if contract is Mon-Thur, for instance, they might not be able to insist you work Fri)?
• would the other parent's company flex so that you can swap non-working days if one of you is asked to work on their non-working day?

The contingency you're more likely to need is when your child is ill and not going to nursery at all - which for some children is quite a lot in the first few months.

The only time I've extra used an extra nursery day was when we moved house so that wouldn't be a concern for me.

I'd go for the closest one. When it's chucking it down and dark you just want to get home, when they're sick you want to get to them as quickly as possible, when you've forgotten their bag with their sleep stuffy you don't want to have to walk all the way home again to fetch it.

One nursery can take children ad hoc? I'd avoid them. Nurseries should be bursting at the seams in the current climate. If they're confident they can just let more children in I assume they're not doing very well.

Definitely B. The biggest issue you’ll have is DC getting sick a lot when they first start and adhoc care won’t help with that, it’ll have to be you guys taking time off or grandparents. I’ve only ever used adhoc days with DC2 when DC1 had things like a school play that weren’t during the usual session and DC2 definitely wouldn’t want to sit through it. I wouldn’t consider it important for one DC, with WFH and grandparents sort of available.

The "better" than is so subject and will likely look totally different in 6m / 12m

2 of our 3 of our friends who went for the laa dee dah nuesery which i really liked but it was a 20min drive and im lazy that the foorballers and ex popstars sent there kids to remove their kids as they werent happy. 1 almost immediately the other after 6m there were a couple of incidents i think.

Basically its hordes for courses...

I think it depends on how likely you are to want ad hoc cover. In my job being able to move my non working day isn't really to make me look like a 'keen bean', it's necessary to accommodate client requests without making me unbelievably stressed, so I'd need to go for the one further away. In reality is the parent who is more keen on option 1 thinking they'll need that flexibility?

Horses*

To be fair, that isn't really the case around here. There's a good balance of availability to places needed it seems, with only a few not able to offer us our preferred dates - that goes for all the price points and ratings.

Parent 1 wants to progress in their career at their current employer, has missed a couple of promotions and thinks that showing their face will help more.

Parent 2 not fussed, will move jobs at some point when they're not as reliant on flexibility, no real room for promotion at their work anyway.