Nursery choice dilemma

[IDontLikeMondays88]

My daughter is one and due to start nursery in the next month.

She is due to start a nursery which is maybe 10 mins in the car or a 20/25 minute walk from us 3 days a week. The nursery is highly regarded, operates 8am till 6pm. My husband doesn’t drive so the walking distance is relevant.

Separately we have just been offered a place at a local authority run early years centre 2.5 days a week. Also well regarded. We need 3 days childcare so this would involve my parents having her a half day a week. In addition their hours are 8am - 4pm for some reason so my inlaws would need to pick her up at 4pm 2 days a week. My parents and inlaws have agreed to help but are all in their 70’s. My parents live an hour away so in the winter might need to stay over after looking after her as they don’t like driving in the dark. On the plus side the early years centre is literally right behind our house so a few minutes walk away. It is attached to the primary school she will eventually go to and is half the price of the private nursery (although we can afford the private nursery fine). Also the early years centre place won’t start till September and I’m back at work in July. So she would need to go to the private nursery for at least a couple of months.

I can quite decide what to do. I think the early years centre would be ideal location wise but the odd hours being offered kind of make it seem like a hassle. It involves relying on grandparents who are in their 70’s. Once she gets to 3 they say they will be able to offer 3 whole days although they may still close at 4pm which seems quite awkward. My job is such that I will be lucky to get away from the office at 5pm sharp never mind 4pm.

Any thoughts, I’m going round in circles.

We were thinking about trying again for a sibling quite soon so although we can afford the private nursery fees I guess the fact that the early years centre is a lot cheaper would make it a lot easier having two children in nursery (but conversely is it fair to ask my parents/inlaws to help look after two wee ones when they are on their 70’s)

Well done for reading this long ramble!

The local authority nursery runs 50 weeks of the year ie all year apart from two weeks at Christmas. I did check that before applying!

However generally I think I agree it doesn’t otherwise meet our needs.

Private.

MIL, 60 at the time (and FIL by extension, 50 at the time) offered to do two days when DD started nursery. MIL is fab, no issues at all with food/routine/etc that you often see on here

Issue one: holidays. They (obviously) want to take term time only holidays. Luckily we've usually been able to get extra days at nursery, but it's a ball ache.

Issue two: as young, fit, and healthy as they are, 2 days was too much. We dropped to one with them after 3 months.

Issue three: unforeseen health issues. FIL got cancer, can't be near children during chemo because of his immune system being compromised. Luckily, our nursery had availability.

All these were ok in the end because we were with a private nursery that is open 7:30-6:00 and will take her full time. If we'd also been relying on them for pick ups it would have been an absolute nightmare.