Term time or full time nursery?

[MummyK23]

Hello,
I’m due with baby number 2 in summer, and in September my daughter will be starting full time school..

we are currently filling out our nursery application for DS for after my maternity leave and can’t decide if to send him full time or term time, to be off with his sister when she is on half term at school?

financially it would probably work better if he was term time (as we qualify for the free 30 hours, but aware it’s 22hrs per week if we do full time).. we can afford the extra day at nursery (wanting him to do 4 days) but just trying to work out what’s best.

we’ve had mixed reviews of parents in similar situations who have said full time all the way, so you can have time with your eldest on their holidays and little one still at nursery?

what is everyone else’s opinions / experiences please?

TIA xx

I have a slightly different situation but been asking the same question. DC1 starts school in September and DC2 will be 2yo. I’ll be working but with one day off. We’ve decided to keep him in year round. So DC1 will have some 1 on 1 time when he’s off. Also we don’t have the leave to cover all the school holidays and he’s not old enough for holiday clubs. We don’t have family that could take both. We would also struggle to up our hours if we dropped them as they have a long waiting list. Does that help?

What's your work situation? Generally there are holiday clubs for school age children but not young children. If you don't need childcare in the holidays, I would do term time only.

Thanks both, I will be working during the holidays unfortunately - four days a week, but generally can split time with my husband so we can both take AL, and there are grandparents they could spend days with too

There are quite a lot of days to cover in school holidays, assuming you also want time together on holiday, are you absolutely sure grandparents will do them all? If not, year round nursery would be less stressful

Obviously, no guarantees, but most nurseries will let you add sessions in the holidays. They should have space as your child isn't attending.... I would do term time only and add sessions as needed as presumably you'll need to take family holidays in the school holidays.