Advice please - Childcare!

[ZingyLemonViewer]

Hi all, I would really love some advice please on what to do! I currently work an hour away from where I live. When I return from maternity leave, it has been agreed that I can work PT (3 days a week), however I really hate where I work and would love to find a job closer to home. By the time I look for another job though, which will be a few months before my maternity leave ends, it will be too late to find a childcare space. Do I reserve a childcare space closer to where I work now, or closer to home and gamble finding a PT job closer to home?

What time do you start work?
Most nurseries open 7.30-6 so if you do 9-5 then you may be able to use a local nursery and still get to work ok if you end up going back to your old place.
Yes it’s long days for the baby, but hopefully only short term until you find another job closer to home.

Is the babies father not going to do drop offs and pick ups too?
It’s not that common for people to use a nursery near their work, it makes it difficult to share the burden, difficult to use if you work from home and difficult to use if you aren’t going to be in the office all day.

Should have mentioned, my partner also works close to where I work and I don't work from home.

In that case, you should get a childcare space closer to where you work now, because that way if you change jobs your partner can still do drop offs and pick ups while you look for different childcare. There's no point trying to find childcare closer to home now, as you won't necessarily get the same hours/days if you find a new part-time job anyway, so you can't know what you'll need.

I would find a nursery close to home. As a PP said, they open early so you should be able to drop them and get to your job on time. Also if you want to take AL to do something like get your hair done and you want to leave your child into nursery, if it’s closer to your job that would be trickier

This is what I was thinking too. If my partner does pick ups and drop offs if I have a new job closer to where I live, the 3 days a week will have to match as I'll have to care for her the other 2 days

We chose close to home because a longer journey can mean your child falls asleep in the car which can be disastrous. Ours was a 2 minute drive away. Close to home means both of you should be able to organise drop offs and pick ups. Dh and I worked this between us and even a job change wouldn't affect the nursery location. It also meant a couple of times I finished work early, went home, blitzed the house and then went to collect Ds.

I think closer to home makes more sense as if you move jobs you still have a convenient nursery space and also an hour journey each way for the baby isn't ideal.

Naps on the drive home from childcare are a real challenge.

Nurserys tend to charge by the day rather than the hours theyre there.

I’d go for childcare nearer home if you’re expecting to change jobs.

How do you commute?
We chose a nursery 1 town over about a 10 minute drive away from our house but 2 minutes from the train station I would commute from and on my partners drive home from work.
I chose to commute from this station as it gave me a better working day. Both train station options were 1 train an hour. local train was 45 minutes and the other train was 35 minutes plus the 10 minutes drive so similar commute but my working day with the other option was 15 minutes longer because of different trains times.