Great childminder only does 4 days - go to 4 days or split childcare?

[PeachP]

We've got a currently 5.5 month old and are looking for a childminder for when we're both back at work in September (when DS will be 1).

A wonderful local childminder only works 4 days per week - so I'm wondering if there's a way we could make it work. Does anyone have any experience of similar and could help?

Has anyone split childcare between a childminder and nursery/another childminder from their child being young? Any pros/cons? We are keen to use a childminder for a home environment (but have signed up at a nursery as a backstop).

Or any pros/cons of going to a 4 day week, other than lower money but more time with DC? I earn multiples more than my DH but I'd love to go to 4 days and my job would be fine with adapting (DH not keen to go to 4 days). ... Or am I letting my feminist side down by considering it!?! We are lucky enough I think we could make it work money wise if we stopped overpaying the mortgage.

For context: we both work full time and mostly in the office, don't have family nearby, and this is our only child.

Can you do compressed hours? I returned on four days with DS 1 and found it was the right balance but it is a 20% pay cut. This time DH is going to compress his hours into 4 days so DS2 will have one day with him.

Thanks for the reply - no, my work won't consider compressed hours. I think because unpaid overtime is so common!

Four days a week will be perfect.

Would a 9 day fortnight each work? So you have alternate eg Mondays with ds?

Could you and your husband both do 9 days out of 10? So you alternate the day off work to look after your child?

I'm not sure why you think it would be "unfeminist" to reduce or stop paid work in order to look after children. I think the point of feminism is to value a woman's contribution whether that's paid work or child rearing or whatever else. I guess it would be "unfeminist" to feel that you are the one who should go part-time just because you're a woman, but if you want to go part-time, and you can afford it, why not.

Either way, I think you need to talk to DH about how it's going to work when DC is too unwell to go the childminder, is he going to expect you to take all the time off work? Because he will need to do his share.

It was some time ago now (children at uni); but I found having a little time when they were in childcare and I wasn't working made a difference to how I coped. I went full time as a lab student when the youngest was 1, and that was split 3/2 days childminder and nursery; I think I switched him to full time nursery at 3 for his preschool year, or maybe earlier. The combination worked well when he was little, but perhaps partly because we were comfortable with both environments from his older sister (childminder till nearly 3, then nursery for a year then school preschool).

I work 4 days a week most parents have just renegotiated work hours after visiting me. The one who couldn't uses my cm friend, the other day, baby sees her over the time she's with me so already knew her, I visit her house and she comes to mine. If one of us can't do a day we cover each other. Worked well for over a year.

I personally wouldn’t consider reducing my hours unless DH did as well. Our incomes are similar. The working 9 days out of 10 is a good option if you both do that, cover alternatively the 5th day each per week

I've always split 2 or 3 setting with my youngest due to living the nursery near my husbands work and cm near me, then pre school so he knows all the kids he'll be at school with, cm pick up. That way it is not all on me to do drop.offs etc.

I am a childminder who works 4 days a week. My families tend to use family members to have them on the day I am closed.

If you can afford the pay cut I'd do four days a week.

It gives you an extra day with your DC, gives your DC an extra day with you/a day off from childcare, if it's a Mon/Fri it's easier to get away for a long weekend. It also gives you a bit of time at home/to get stuff done, that's often hard with two full time jobs and a baby.

I think you will need to discuss with your DH what happens when baby is sick and can't go to the childmimder. If you've already taken a day out he may have to cover more sick days to even it out?

We have the same situation - brilliant childminder but she doesn't work on a Friday. So both DH and I do a 9 day fortnight - his job has allowed him to do compressed hours and take every other Friday off. My job doesn't do compressed hours (again, because the expectation is that you work all hours under the sun anyway), so I have every other Friday off contractually and work 90% of FTE. It works really well. I don't feel like I'm missing out by having every other Friday off at work - clients aren't affected. And it means that I'm not losing much money. And DH also gets to have every other Friday with DD too. So for us it works brilliantly.

DD was at nursery one day and the childminder 2 days, just the way my working days fell and there was no flexibility.
she was fine and it came in really handy to have the back up of nursery when the childminder needed time off for surgery.

Our first CM did a 4 day week. Since then we have used a multitude of combinations - sometimes my DH did a 4 day week, then we added one day of nursery. After than when my CM quit we went two different nurseries. Then two different child minders. . .

my point is that there are a multitude
of ways of making it work. While my first child was very little we negotiated with the CM where DH did a 4 day week with CM occasionally stepping in to help if we couldn’t manage. Once she was a bit older we started adding in nursery.

The 9 day fortnight is a great idea, with you and dh taking alternative Fridays (or whatever the day is).

If you can make it work money-wise, I'd definitely move to four days!! It can be difficult for little ones to settle into a childcare setting where they are only one day a week; a wonderful childminder is worth their weight in gold; and you will then still be able to do so many fun activities with your DS if you have a weekday left with him. Toddlers are really funny and there is so much to do and explore with them- it is going to get so much more interesting still compared with the small baby stage!

Thanks everyone for the replies, all really useful and will help us think through everything properly

I think a split of childcare can work really well. DD used to do two full days at nursery from 8-6 and then three mornings at pre-school. They were completely different in their approach and she enjoyed and had friends at both.
Our nursery didn't take children for less than two days a week as their experience was that it was too unsettling for children to only go once a week as they could essentially forget nursery during the days in between

I'd definitely consider 4 days a week if possible. It's one day less childcare to pay at least. Lots of childminders and nurseries won't offer just one day as children who only attend one day are much harder to settle.