Can I choose nursery days week by week?

[MinimalistMe]

probably a silly question as I haven't properly looked into this yet. I am about to start work 1-2 days per week, these days will be different week by week (one week may be Tues, next week may be Mon/Thurs)

I would like my child (3 year old) to go into nursery on the days that I work, but would he be able to do different days each week? I could give the nursery a month's notice as to which days I'll be working.

Just wondered if this was something that happens and is allowed.

No it has to be fixed because they need to plan the daily ratio

Where I'm from there are nurseries that do this, you tell them generally how many days a week you need them in and then at beginning of week say what days and hours you need for and it's paid hourly

We had a nursery near us that offered this. It was a flexible package and cost more per day than set days. They wanted one months notice of the choice of days. They've actually stopped doing it though so perhaps they were struggling to make ratios work.

We're really lucky as our nursery is completely flexible with days and you only need to book a week in advance, but most book monthly.

Our nursery does as we have a lot of shift workers. We ask for shifts a month ahead. The only time we may restrict too much changing about is if it means we would have too many children for the room capacity at which point children who usually attend that particular day would have priority for spaces.

Look for a nursery that accommodates shift workers.

We did exactly this, providing one month's notice and booking different days each week. We didn't pay extra for this as they had a specific number of spaces for children of shift workers.

You realise that if you book 5 days a week, you pay for 5 days week??? It’ll cost you £££!!!£! You can’t book 5 days then just pay for the 2 you use.

There are some nurseries out there that offer flexible days but it isn’t the standard so I would start looking ASAP. Nurseries attached to or near hospitals are a good place to start. We used to have our son in the hospital nursery as I was a shift worker. We paid a slight premium for the flexibility but it saved us money overall rather than paying for days we didn’t need.

A small number of nurseries and childminders may do this.
I'd start by asking if the place you are interested in accomadate shift patterns with a months notice.

I’m wondering about your shift pattern. Is it fairly predictable? I’m just thinking if you’re only doing 1-2 days your 15 hours will cover it, so if for example you are likely to work Mondays more often than not you could book Mon - Tue as a fixed arrangement on your free hours and top up with the days you need extra.
It seems crazy to pay for 5 days nursery on one day pay.

You will have to pay for the full 5 days, and you won't be able to claim funding when you're only using a couple of days a week.

Do you realise how expensive this would be??

on a more positive note, our school wraparound would be fine with this, they just needs dates for the following month by the end of the previous month

At the nursery my son went to, it was possible to book different days each week. The days needed to be booked by Tuesday of the previous week (and weren't guaranteed until confirmed as booked, but we never had any refused)

Thank you for all your responses, seems I have a lot of looking around to do and lots of enquiries. I've taken on board all your suggestions and hopefully something will work out 🤞

We could but had to let them know a month's in advance.
It's an area where nurseries don't fill up so I guess they were desperate for the cash.

Following this. I have no idea how we’ll find one that accommodates shift workers. We don’t want to pay for a full time place as it would cost a staggering amount when we won’t need it

I worked in a nursery that let you do this, and they still do as far as I know, but I know it was very much the exception.

Yes, my DD’s nursery let us do this. We knew the days well in advance and it was due to DH’s shift work and availability to do the pick ups/drop offs