Book a nursery place and not use it??

[namechangeforissue]

So I may as well use my academic alter ego for this as it's slightly relevant...

We have DC1 who is in the campus nursery; DC2 is due in June.

The plan (and you know what they say about plans) is to keep the nursery place for DC1 two days a week and then in April 2015 to go back 3 days a week.

The nursery is massively oversubscribed but I am reasonably confident that they will have space for DC1 for those days, especially as most of that time will be in the 3 year plus room where ratios are more lenient.

Bookings for the whole academic year starting in Sept/Oct are in May/June and I've just picked up DC1's form for the next academic year. I was handed DC2s form but told "if you aren't taking a place till April, you can't book now, you'd be 'blocking someone else's place', we won't hold it, you have to book in Feb".

We already had a nightmare where DC1 started in the October but they forgot to give us a booking form in the May and they randomly slotted DC1 in to sessions that bore no relation to my working pattern, for the first term, and were not at all apologetic about it.

So I'm panicking about booking DC2 in midway through the year. Many, many of my colleagues have failed to get places on their working days.

As DC2 will be about 4 months in October I'm wondering about booking the minimum place (2 half days) for 2 terms and not using it. I might use it as extended settling towards the end of term 2 as I doubt I'd get a refund. It works out at about £800 for the two terms (after tax breaks, special staff price etc.)

It is ridiculous to block a place that someone else could use but they are putting us in a dreadful position! DC1s place is completely useless to us without a matching place for DC2. If we don't get places for both of them we'd have to find a nanny (we already tried to find a CM, several times, and eventually found a nice one who does the odd day but doesn't want to do more than that, all the others have huge waiting lists too).

A colleague pointed out that they may have a get-out clause if you have a life-changing event and "child not ready for nursery" could be construed as this. We have already said to ourselves that if DC2 has difficulties meaning they cannot really go to nursery in April and/or I'm unwell and/or I'm just generally not coping, I could put off my return to work.

Not wanting to drip feed (sorry this is so long) but we've looked at all the other local nurseries and they are all in the wrong location (the closest one closed) and/or very full (because of the closest one closing).

are you willing to pay the nursery a huge retaining fee to keep the place till you need it?
Then you need to speak to the nursery directly

I guess it is like a retainer. We worked out that - because a nanny is probably more expensive even if we'll have two DC (owing to the lack of tax break etc.) it would probably be cheaper to pay for about 6 months of one day a week in nursery of which we'd only use a couple of months.

We're going to speak to the nursery on Tuesday.

Just out of interest, does any other nursery work this way, where existing families have to book over a year ahead, and yet new families/children can only book a few months ahead hence having no chance really of getting their required sessions, especially if it's popular?

ours doesnt
but we dont have a waiting list (yet)
but if we did then the existing families would get priority but only if we had the space
so if in the meantime a child came along who could fill the space and pay fees we would take them on
they cant relistically be expected to turn other children away when they could fill the place and be paid for it
the other alternative being holding a place and receiving no payment for it doesnt make economic sense

Except they aren't holding a place that they would receive no payment for.

We want a place for a nearly-1-year-old in April 2015. We're happy to book and pay for that place now (well, along with everyone else, we'd pay for it at the time).

Someone else no doubt will also want a place for a nearly 1-year-old (or a just-1-year-old but in the same room etc.) in April 2015, someone who has a child who's starting in October 2014 though so can book it now.

I'm asking them to give us equal consideration to another family with a child of the same age - who is booking that place now - not to wait and hold that place empty. I can guarantee that (barring life-changing circumstances e.g. disability, moving jobs, which they allow for) we will want that space so it won't be empty.

It's very common for families who already have a child in the nursery not to get the sessions they want either for the first booked term of the year or for a subsequent term even if they got the sessions for the first term.

So booking term 1 (Oct) and term 2 (Jan) is no guarantee that you'll get the sessions in April though you book them all at the same time (now-ish).

But not being allowed to book it now is pretty much a guarantee that we won't get that space and therefore that our DC1's space will be useless to us as well.

I would have thought you could have the place as long as you're playing for it.

I think that's what we're going to have to do. It's daft, since we don't want it, and we may pay for a whole term that we don't use a single day of - the policy is that you never get a refund but that they will still rebook sessions that you aren't using if you tell them before the session. So they get paid twice too.

It could cause resentment among other parents if we completely blocked a whole term and used none of it, even if we'd paid for it (if they found out, of course), so we would definitely tell nursery we weren't using the whole term as soon as we were sure we weren't, but just because we say at the start of term that we're not using any of that term's sessions doesn't mean another family can book the whole term either - they won't book extra sessions more than 4 weeks ahead.

It is all rather odd but they have us over a barrel as there is no other campus nursery.

OK, so nursery were actually helpful on this one - they are understanding that the new baby may not be ready for nursery and seem to be treating it as "may go back to work one day a week but then again may not so we'll book the place and then someone else can use it if you can't".

And it might, as I say, be helpful to have extended settling in the spring term so therefore to use the place that term.

I am not sure if it's not occurred to them to do this before, so it's not in their T&C, or if they just don't want to write it down but it's quite common to do, or if they didn't really understand that I don't particularly want to go back to work so are assuming that's the only reason I'd book a nursery place.