nanny one day, nursery the others?

[sleeplessinderbyshire]

My DD1 will be 35 months when DD2 arrives in late summer. She's currently at a wonderful nursery 3.5-4 days a week and I had planned both DDs would go there 3-4 days a week again when I return to work when DD2 is 6 months old. DD will get her 15 free hours from september 2012 so I will keep her in nursery 15-20hrs a week when on maternity leave.

Our regular babysitter works at DD's nursery and another doing supply (i'm friends with manager of DD nursery and she doesn't have enough regular hours to give her a contract, not that she's not good enough to take on IYSWIM). She would be keen to nanny 1 day a week for us when I first go back so both DDs wpuld be home with nanny on a monday, with me tues, home with me weds am, nursery weds pm and then nursery thurs and fri.

Thinking monday as it's the one day I always work a full day (alt weeks i do short day thur/fri). DD adores babysitter. Babysitter has her own car and is generally great fun and a really nice girl (although being a bit of a snob possibly not the person I'd want having both DDs full time as she's not the brightest/best spoken - does that make me a bad person)

Anyway could this work? Thinking about this for the first 6-10 months or maybe longer (thinking then as home only 5 mons from work I could possibly come home to breastfeed DD2 at least once in the day which would save some expressing - expresed 3x a day for ages when RTW after DD2 and was a bit of a PITA TBH)

Yes it could wok, sounds like a good plan.
Several of my friends use nannies p-t and nursery other days. Helps to alleviate child's tiredness as a full day at nursery can be v. busy and noisy.

work

I have had a mix of childminder and nursery for the last 3 years due to lack of space at nursery initially. Initially I worried, like you are, and for same reasons (exactly!). However, it's the best thing that could have happened. The kids benefit from the change of environment and you also have a backup should nursery be closed for whatever reason and vice versa.

Our childminder is not the most eloquent or academic person in the world, but she loves those kids, and it shows in how they respond to her. That's good enough for me! Plenty of time for the serious side of life later on - children need warmth, love an fun just as much!

We could only ever afford to employ a nanny part time and used a nursery for the two other days. But for a whole host of reasons the arrangement worked for us. Do it.