Nursery minimum 3 days a week

[SuperFly123]

We are moving house and I am looking up the local nurseries; the nearest one to our new address looks lovely but has a minimum 3 days a week policy - I haven’t encountered this before, is this common? We have only budgeted for two days (our daughter will be around 18 months once we move and hasn’t been to nursery before). I really like the look of it but this policy (and the associated costs obviously) is putting me off. Any thoughts? Thank you

Ours has a minimum 3 session (a session is a half day) policy. I expect it is quite common. If you had dozens of children only in for a single day it probably makes things much harder to manage. But speak to them as they might be able to accommodate you anyway.

Thanks, yes if it was three sessions that would be fine, but it’s three full days as the absolute minimum (this is really emphasised on the website) and this seems a bit inflexible. Makes me wonder what they are like in other respects, although it looks lovely. I have registered and will ask them about it.

Lots of nurseries have minimums, mine is 5 days no part time at all.

I think from a practical point of view 3 is better than 2 for the child other wise week to week they aren’t really getting used to it and settling in properly.

It doesn’t say anything bad about the nursery for them to have a minimum set day. If it doesn’t work for you then pick a different nursery.

Ours has a 3 day rule and those 3 days have to include either a Mon or Fri. It's partly because it's easier for a child to settle in if they go more but also for logistical reasons otherwise it's a nightmare to try and juggle all the different sessions and availability.

Yes it's quite common IME for a nursery to set a minimum attendance, especially non-chain ones

It helps them plan their staffing for ratios

It's quite common, good nurseries set their own terms.

It sounds normal because most people who work part time is three days a week.

Also, if they have mostly working parents, then half day sessions don't work for them. No one will take up the other half day. Stay at home parents can choose preschools and many of them only do school terms only too.

Thanks all, makes sense.

This is common, there are a couple round me that are minimum 5 full days per week. I also only needed 2 days and there was only one local nursery that would offer me this, fortunately we liked it. Keep looking, but you might find you don't have a lot of choice.

Ours is four days a week minimum. It’s a bit of a pain as I’m now on maternity leave with my second and would rather take my first out of nursery for some of the time. However, I think that there are good reasons for doing it.

For the nursery, it means that they have the same kids in every day rather than having to try to match up kids that want different days so that they fill their capacity rather than having unpopular times (I’m guessing that would be Fridays and Mondays) be half empty which wouldn’t be economic.

For the kids, it means they see the same friends every day and that they are very settled which presumably leads to a more stable environment.

Ours doesn't have a minimum session requirement but I think it's the only private nursery locally that doesn't. It's a very popular nursery and always has a waiting list so it clearly doesn't cause them issues financially. Most are minimum 2 sessions but that could be 2 half days.