Nursery not offering half days and only charging a full day rate - is this normal?

[Mollyscircus]

Hi everyone,

I’m 7 months pregnant and currently looking at nurseries for sep 2025. I’ve narrowed down to three. One of them seems at first the most structured and professional (it’s run by Bright Horizons), and has nice facilities compared to some of the less expensive options. The thing is they only charge a full day rate and do not offer half days, so it’s working out at 40% more expensive than my other two options (who offer hourly rates) and I’m just not sure if that’s a bit of a rip off? They also state that they take the full funded hours balance off you, no matter how long they attend that day (so with the 15 hours funding / 11 hours stretched, I would only get one day funded even if on that day they attended for say 6 or 7 hours, because the nursery is open for 11 hours they take 11 from your balance?!)

if I were to use the cheaper nurseries for 11 hours a day / 4 days a week, the costs actually aren’t far off the bright horizons, so it feels like we’re not paying for a better standard just paying for hours we aren’t using? I’m new to nursery costs and finding it a bit of a headache to be honest! Can anyone share their experiences?

I worked in a nursery and managed the spaces. It is a nightmare to fill afternoons so the nursery loses a lot of money by letting people book mornings. Similarly, it would be impossible to fill the hours you didn’t want each day so they charge/claim hours for them whether you use them or not.

Stay clear of bright horizon nurseries would be my advice

Well it's how they can afford their nice facilities. You get what you pay for and they clearly.have a good pricing structure to ensure they don't have wasted hours blocked by part timers.

I also only charge a daily, I can't afford to only have a child here for 6 hours, what do I do with the other 4? There are tight margins in childcare so it's necessary I'm afraid.

We go to a nursery that only offers full days.
So they charge you for the full day and obviously take the full day of hours off the funded hours balance. If you drop your child off late/pick them up early, that's your choice. They still have to staff the nursery on the basis that you could leave your child there for the whole day.
It's by far the best nursery in our area and I work full days anyway so it works well for us, though my husband does often pick her up early/drop off late on the days that works for him.
There is a different one locally that offers half days but because of that and the difficulty in filling the afternoon session, they only offer the funded hours on the afternoon sessions not the morning session. They've said its not financially viable for them to offer it for morning sessions, so people who use morning sessions have saved money rather than paying for a full day of nursery up to this point, but are getting less of a discount on the nursery fees now compared to the full day nursery as the funded hours cover less - if that makes sense?
Basically, its going to cost you, because there's a cost associated with running the nursery. If I was you, I'd balance the cost but a good nursery setting is definitely the priority.

Many will do 1/ days - but that is 8 - 1 or 1 - 6.
Obviously because it is feasible to sell the other half of a day to someone else, but if you wanted10 - 3, they aren't going to be able to sell the hours either side to anyone.
So yes, it is usual to have 'blocks' of time, but that one does seem less flexible than most.
However, if they manage to fill enough places, then it is a business model that works for them. Ultimately, all Nurseries need to pay their way and make enough profit it is worth the owners keeping it open.