Cost, times and confused?!

[emjaylu]

Hi everyone, i am due beginning of October 2015, i wanted to ask if anyone had any advice/experience they could advise me with?

I currently work, however i am not entitled to any maternity pay as i haven't been here long enough, i wanted to go back to work a ear after baby is born.

My only concern is childcare.

I work 4 days on and 4 days off on rotation but i work 8am-8pm over those 4 days so getting someone to look after the baby for that long is impossible.

I could change my hours to 9am-2pm or 9am-4pm but im not sure where i would send the baby, would i have to pay? Would i get help paying?

I will be 20 when i give birth.

I currently earn £270 a week after tax for a 48 hour week (42 hours paid, rest is breaks)

My boyfriend earns the same and he will still work here when baby is born so this will be our only income....

Help? Advice?

I'd ask MN to move this to the childcare forum, it's much busier. You need to be working the same days and times each week for paid childcare, whether it be a nursery or childminder, otherwise you'll end up paying for a full time place that you don't always use. When you say 4d on 4d off does that include weekends? That would increase the cost. I'd imagine you'd get tax credits and you can use childcare vouchers to pay childcare from gross income not taxed. Does that help?

Yeah its 4 days e.g Monday-Thursday then the week after Tuesday-Friday etc

I could probably get family to help on the weekends especially sundays.

I will have to get in contactwithsomeone

I'd be amazed if any nursery would let you do that without paying for a full time place, sorry.

I manage a nursery and you would have to book and pay for a a fulltime place because I couldn't guarantee I would have the space or the staff to accommodate your working pattern

Nurseries tend to be less flexible on times and dates and if you are changing each week, they will probably want you to pay for a full-time place.

Childminders can potentially be more flexible. Our days and hours change every week and we have found two childminders over the years who have been happy to work with this. Not all childminders will do this but I get the impression CMs are more used to dealing with shiftworking parents and slightly less standard set ups (both of the ones we have used have had parents who work in the emergency services, for example). We do pay a set fee regardless of what hours we use, though, kind of like you would with a nursery, only it works out a little less.

The nursery I'm going to start using caters for shifts. It's worth asking.

You may be entitled to Maternity Allowance if you're not entitled to SMP.