Childcare for twins or children with small age gap in the early years

[GEW2024]

Calling twin mums or mums of children with small age gap: how do you manage/afford childcare in the early years (before they start school)?

We live in London and both hubby and I work full time (I’m returning to work in a couple of months’ time after mat leave). I am doing budgeting and just can’t figure out how we are going to afford childcare once I returned to work.

So our twins are currently 11 months old and will be going to nursery 3 days a week from next month, and that’s £2.2k pm where we live (same price at a number of nearby nurseries). The new funding scheme saves us about £350 a month which helps but is not much. For the other two days, I’m thinking maybe nanny (grandparents not an option as they live overseas). Based on my research nannies cost about £20/21 per hour for twins and I think we need 10 hrs a day. So that would be £1.8k pm. That is a whopping £4k a month after tax just on childcare!! We earn ok salaries as a household, but if we have to pay £4k a month on childcare, on top of rent, food and other essential expenses we will end up with nothing left! We were hoping to save a deposit for a house as we really need space for our girls.

As mentioned, grandparents are not an option as they live overseas. I don’t want to give up work and be a SAHM because my current employer is amazing - they are very supportive and flexible about WFH and working hours like early finishes (the only thing they cannot accommodate is working part time unfortunately) and job opportunities are very limited in my profession especially for someone returning to the workplace after a long career break.

So back to my original question: how do you manage/afford childcare for twins or children with small age gap in the early years? Will really appreciate any thoughts and love to hear your experience!

Goodness use a childminder! 3 days a week would be about £75 / week each with me.

With 30 free hours and tax free childcare, a £350 savings on a £2.2k bills for two children over three days doesn’t sound right.

Are you sure about these numbers?

Why not keep them in one setting all week? It would be more predictable for them and also with nurseries there are economies of scale - a full week is cheaper per day than individual days.

But as a PP mentioned, childminders are cheaper than nurseries and can be a great option for young children. You can get settings where there are two or three adults working together so there are a good mix of children and it feels like a mini nursery but with the advantage of being in a home setting.

With a cm the cost would be zero term time only though?
As they are both eligible for 30 hours funding per week?

3 days equates to 30 hours which all children over 9 months should be getting from next week (if eligible). Why are you paying an extra £2k per month for childcare when it should be covered by the 30 hours? Most settings charge extras but £2k extra sounds extortionate. Agree that the figures don't add up.

To add, you would be better off getting a full time nanny rather than paying for nursery fees and a nanny.

We had a nanny. It was difficult and still almost bankrupted us but we paid off the debts eventually and survived it.

Have you accounted for the 30 hours and tax free childcare? My London nursery is £105 per day but with the free hours it comes down to approx £38 per day for three days, and the government pay 20% of that. (Any more and it would be higher as my particular nursery only allows the 30 hours over 3 days).

I have twins and I dropped down to 3 days a week for this reason. I paid for nursery two days a week and grandparents had them on the 3rd day. I know you have said neither of these are an option for you. I also really wanted to work part time while they were little.
It was 10+ years ago as well so the free hours didn't exist, although we did get childcare vouchers but high earners so no child benefits.

I went up to 4 days when they went to school nursery aged 3. I stalled my career for a few years but got it back on track so it was definitely worth it.

Your maths don’t seem right. Either fhat
or your nursery are charging too much top up fees which I don’t believe they are meant to do.
If all of that is correct then you need to look at your work, can either of you work from home for example to cut down on childcare hours? Sometimes you just need to make some work
sacrifices for your children.

I know people just say ‘get a childminder’ but it’s really not that easy, especially in London where demand outstrips supply and the likelihood of a setting having two places for under 1’s available at the same time isn’t likely. 10 hours a day is also on the long end of what a lot of childminders will be able to offer and they’ll potentially be factoring in school drops offs and pick ups for older children etc. Not always ideal for babies when you want them to have a good nap routine.

I think the problem is the combination of nanny and nursery which will be expensive because you can’t claim any funding from having a nanny. However you’ll have to cost it up and bite a bullet. Having a nanny has a lot of advantages obviously (cover for sick days etc) enrichment in the form of being able to take them out to classes and playgroups etc, keeping up a good nap routine and meal prep. (I am a nanny, I just finished up a role for twins actually- yes that’s definitely the going rate!)

London nurseries are very expensive despite the funding. Some choose not to offer it at all as the demand is so high they don’t need to.

if there is any scope for either or both of you to do it, I’d attempt to condense your days into 4, then use a nanny to cover the rest, at least until the children are a bit older.

Both compress your hours so you need fewer days.

Then just do nursery with tax free childcare and funded hours. People say nannies are cheaper but I couldn't find any that would be unless you had three or more pre schoolers.

If you do go for a childminder, I would be really careful about how much they will follow your children's routine, and how much will just be schlepping about to do stuff for older mindees. I much preferred nursery because it was much more age focused and they spent 100% of the time on stuff for babies/young toddlers of that age.

I’m a single parent of twins - I know someone on one of the twin groups took a £25k bank loan out over 10 years - all put into tax fee childcare accounts which added 25% and then used that until funded hours kicked in (age 3) also used childminders not nursery and did term time only to keep the cost down and then use annual leave / bought annual leave / WFH during holidays

I understand that if the nanny is (Ofsted?) registered you can claim funded hours against his/her wages, as you would in a nursery.

In general:
Choose one setting, most have full time and/or sibling discounts
Consider a CM
Are compressed hours possible for you and OH?

It is incredibly expensive! Yet another twin tax.

No that’s not true, re the nanny. Unless you are on UC.

This is what I meant, if it’s of use to the OP.

Same can be said for nurseries. My local nursery was downgraded by Ofsted because they left babies to cry all day while they focused on the 3/4 year olds.

Yes you can use tax free childcare to get the 20% contribution from the government but they can't use them funded hours with the nanny as you stated in your first post.

Twins is a double joy but a double cost till they go to school

a cm is the cheaper option and do take funding but rare to find one that will have 2 spaces free

a nanny is lovely but costly tho means only have to get self ready for work

other childcare options means have to wake kids up. Get dressed. Take to cm/nursery - then start travel to work

a nanny will do children’s washing and ideally over time stock up the freezer with healthy meals

i was a nanny for 20yrs and it can work well and most of my families I stayed from baby to they went to school so 4/5yrs

many condense hours to 4 day week - if you can both do this you are laughing

I’ve known people to take out loans for childcare or to add into mortgage if any equity or even extend /remortgage and then once at school to overpay /and cut off years

Bonus with Nannys they also look after ill children and many for the first term or so catch every bug and illness which means they are off at home if they go to a cm/nursery so also something to think about

Nannie’s don’t take childcare vouchers but if you get an ofsted one you can claim the tax free scheme

employers pay for the ofsted costs as really no benefit for the nanny to register

Yes, I think it costs about £100 to register? I’ve never actually done it as a nanny despite nannying for 15 years, as yes like pp says no real benefits for me. However if an employer covered that cost I would register.

Can you both compress your hours over 4 days
or one of you work a weekend day to free up a week day?
would it be cheaper to get an au pair?
or full time nanny?
or childminder ?
You nursery costs shouldn’t be that high surely there is a mistake?
Have you considered moving further out of London and commuting?

Au pairs are definitely NOT for looking after infants for long hours every day, though. And very very difficult anyway since Brexit. They’re supposed to work a few token hours in exchange for a place to stay and an opportunity to learn a language with pocket money on top. Definitely not a reliable full time childcare solution.

both parents should request flexible working to work 5 days over 4, so you would only need childcare for 3 days.