Reducing hours temporarily

[jellymum1704]

DS 23 months goes to daycare full time,loves it and is progressing very well. My mom will be visiting me from abroad and plans to stay with us for approximately 6 months. I checked with the nursery informally about reducing his hours temporarily while my mom is here as I want DS to spend time with her as well. Nursery said I'll need to give up his time seat with no guarantees of increasing it later. does anyone have any experience of this or any advice on how to manage this situation? I'm worried they might not have a full time slot in sept/oct when my mom goes back.

If you want them to keep his slot you need to pay for it. It doesn't make any sense for them to keep it reserved for you, they can't settle in a new child and then kick them out after 6 months and equally they would lose money if they don't fill those hours.

So if you want them to keep your hours available, you need to pay for them. The chances are they'll have space so you could just take the risk if you don't want to pay for the hours.

What RNBrie said. They do everything based on the number of places they have. It's about making money, but they also need to ensure they have the right number of staff. If they hours change around too much, that would just be causing unnecessary work for them.

You have 2 options
Reduce his hours and hope they have space when you need a full time space again
Keep your full time space and just send him part time

The nursery is running a business and it makes no sense for them to keep a place for you for free when they could sell it to someone else

As others have said - you have to pay to keep the space. But do you happen to know which days are the busy ones e.g. Could you keep a Tues morning and Wed morning only if you know they are the busiest days and mornings are busier than afternoons? Still of course not guaranteed but should reduce the risk.

You can't expect them to hold your place for free, that would be silly

I think my dd nursery will hold a place open with 50% fee payment.

Obviously it is not certain if you aren't paying to keep your hours but usually September is the time with the most spaces as children go up to school.

If you choose not to pay to keep the hours I would arrange for an early September not an October return to full hours to give you the best chance of things going smoothly - especially if they are going to start accepting the 30hour funding as that will reduce available spaces.

How long is the notice period? How long would they normally hold a place with a booking fee? See if they will negotiate a reduction.

That's pretty standard.

Hi, thanks for your replies. I don't expect them to hold on to a seat, just wondering what alternatives I have should a full time vacancy not come up in sept/oct. I can potentially look to send him to a childminder in the interim for the remaining days to cover but think it might be too much for a 2 year old .

If you can afford it, I would keep the space and then you can just use it whichever days you like.

The trouble with looking for a backup plan is that they are unlikely to offer you a space 'just in case'.

Fridays are usually quiet so you could give up that day, I can't imagine you won't get a Friday back when you need it.