What days should I do?

[TeamMeerkat]

I have a 14mo DD. Technically I'm currently unemployed, but I have a full time Monday-Friday 9-5 job lined up for January. In the meantime, I have just been offered a weekend job to see us through which should start in August.

I want to get DD into Nursery in September with the 30 funded hours, partly to introduce her to nursery settings on a part time basis so its not a shock when she goes in full time, and also I can use that time for myself/get stuff done (food shopping, cleaning, cooking etc).

I'm in a great position of not needing specific days to accommodate work, so choose what days I put her in.

With the 30 hours I can do 2x full days, or 4x half days. Or maybe 2x half days and 1x full day??

Mondays are out of the question because of bank holidays. So do I do tuesday-friday half days? Tuesday/Friday full days?

What would you do?

Will you definitely get 30 hrs funded a week from sept if you are only working weekends until Jan?

I would put her immediately for whatever you want her to do in Jan, as the other sessions may fill up with new children otherwise.

Thanks for your response,

The criteria says that both parents (unless you're a single parent) need to earn a minimum of £195 each per week, the equivalent of 16 hours at minimum wage. It doesn't say anything about what days in the week you're working or specify that childcare is only available when you're on shift, so to my understanding yes I should be entitled to it.

The nursery spaces is redundant because we'll be relocating when I start the job in January so if their other days fill up in the meantime it won't matter.

Gotcha!

You mentioned Mondays and bank holidays but there aren’t any Monday ones between sept and Xmas.

I would put DD in for the full days tbh as that gives you good time to get things done

Omg duh!! That's an excellent point. I have never in my life worked a job where I got bank holidays off so I've basically got in the habit of ignoring them and forgot!

I think two full days is better, then you still have full days where you can do things together. Plus she's getting used to a full day. Tuesday and Friday doing good to me. Better to break them up so nursery becomes a regular part of her routine. If you choose two days together it's a long time between visits for settling in.

Half days and a full day gives you that balance of having the full day to yourself to get stuff done and half days to ease in as tend to be easier on them in the beginning

Thanks for your input 😊

Thanks for your comment. That is in line with what I was thinking.

My concern with the half days is with naps - we're in a bit of a transition phase at the moment from 2 naps to one, if I put her in for half days (8am-1pm), would she end up sleeping through lunch and needing to be woken up to come home?

Honestly i would just pick up earlier at 12.30 and quickly let them nap at home if it is 1 nap. If it is 2 naps then it will be fine.