Child care dilema advice please!

[slipperandpjsmum]

I will be increasing my hours in Sept and am unsure what to do about childcare. I have 4 children aged 12, 7, 6 and 9 months. At the moment my youngest is in nursery and I currently pick the middle two up after school, however, from sept they will also need childcare. I feel very confused about what to do. Ideally I would like them to be together as much as possible. Do I go for a childminder? Or should I leave my youngest at nursery and book the others into before/after school club (not open during hols), or would a nanny be better?? Advice please!!

Have you space for an au pair? We use an AP to cover before and after school. That way you could just pick up the baby and the AP could pick up the bigger children and they would be in their own home (chilling out and doing homework).
(Having said that, when my kids were at their last school we used the after school club and they loved it - lots of time to play with their mates rather than do lessons alongside them - I prefer the AP because I'm not desperately racing home from work to pick up the kids.
Have you done the costings of nursery+afterschool club compared to nanny? I would think nanny is still about twice as expensive (would be round here) but then at least you have school hols covered...but then you have nanny hols to deal with.
Oh...I'm not helping much am I?

my 6 yr old loves his after school club

if the baby is settled in nursery,i would keep her there and just put the other 2 in after school club

although what will / do you do in holidays?

does the nursery offer holiday care ? ( some do up to age 8 or so )

or you could go for a childminder who will have the baby all day, and all of them in the holidays / before & after school etc

you need to find out whether there are any CMs that do pick up / drop offs @ the school your children attend and if they have spaces ( you can pay a retainer til sept )

good luck

xx