Tier 2 and multiple childcare

[Littleguggi]

So we are moving into tier 2

My 1 year old DD attends nursery 2 days a week, is with one set of grandparents on 1 day and another set of grandparents on 1 other day. So 4 days of childcare, split between 3 settings.

Is this allowed in tier 2? I cannot seem to find any clear guidance, which shouldn't surprise me tbh! As nothing about this whole thing has been clear and I am sick of it now!

How are other people managing multiple childcare settings, or are you just sticking to 1 setting? I cannot afford for her to be in nursery 4 days a week, as that is doubling my current bill!

I should probably add that I work in a clinical healthcare role so not in a position to WFH, therefore childcare is important!

Guidance on gov website says must be one informal bubble only.

I’d ignore it and stick to your childcare.

I'd either keep DD in nursery for the 4 days or I'd form a childcare bubble with one set of grandparents ( if possible).
At a push nursery and one set of grandparents but I'd not be spreading DD around 3 different 'settings'.
I think the rule is one child are 'bubble' where GP'S are involved.

One childcare bubble with grandparents allowed.

I'm in tier 2 and ignoring this rule. I do not have one person that can help me out with all childcare so I have to use multiple people through the school holidays.

yes it's supposed to be one childcare bubble but I would not count nursery.
That said everyone I know where possible is using both sets of grandparents. Both for childcare reasons and also for the emotional wellbeing of the grandparents! We could probably make do with one set only if we needed to but we're tier 3, there's no real other practical way of the grandparents to be able to see their grandchildren and frankly that's unacceptable if it's going to last all winter, which it probably would.
In your case I would just press on.

Officially only one set of informal childcare- and that must be exclusive both ways, so the grandparents cant look after 2 different sets of grandkids on different days.
I've not seen anything about mixing nursery and grandparents - but school and grandparents would be ok, so I guess nursery and one grandparent care bubble would be ok, but not sure.

See Linked Childcare Household in the legislation.
www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1104/schedule/1/paragraph/7

Nursery is fine. Linking with one set of grandparents providing informal childcare is fine. Linking with two sets of grandparents providing informal childcare is not allowed.

Will it be enforced? Personally I doubt it. I expect quite a lot of parents will need to use multiple informal childcare to continue being able to work.

Not sure on the legalities but we have increased our nursery after school club days and stopped the grandparents coming every week to protect them as they are 70+ and I’d rather pay a bit more to keep them safe.

Thank you all for taking out the time to reply! It's fascinating to see the variations in views, some saying to ignore guidance whereas others saying to stick to 1 childcare arrangement only.

Of course everyone's situation is unique to them and we are in different parts of the country, but I have never been so split and confused in my life! I'm struggling to place myself in one camp, my head says one thing and my heart another.

And I totally get the point about childcare also being in place to support the emotional wellbeing of grandparents, grandparents live for their grandchildren and this situation makes me so sad! I cannot choose 1 set of grandparents over another and like I said, financially 4 days in nursery is not an option.

That’s another good point that the grandparents are not supposed to help with, say, two sets of grandchildren but I’m not going to ask my MIL to choose and she has made it very clear that she won’t! She is very aware of the risk to herself (healthy 76 yo) but she has made it very clear that she doesn’t have much to live for except for her grandchildren at the moment so she wants to continue. It’s stuff like this that gets lost in all the bloody rules.

I'm not sure but in general the guidance does state:

consider carefully the number of settings they attend overall

Easier said than done.

Tier 2 and ignoring it here. Can't afford not to.