How did you manage childcare before age 3?

[SpiceJourney]

Hi everyone,

I’ll be moving to Edinburgh soon with my family and our little one (age 2).

I’m really curious about how other parents managed childcare before the funded hours at age 3.

• How did you arrange childcare before your child turned 3?
• What was the main reason you chose that option?
• What challenges did you face with it?

I’d love to hear your experiences — it would be a big help as we try to plan ahead.

Thanks so much!

Thank you for sharing. It’s helpful to know how little the funded hours actually cover, and good you could manage with flexible work at home.

Thank you for sharing. Sorry to hear about the childminders, but glad nursery turned out to be worth the extra cost.

Private nursery from when Ds was almost 1 year old, my maternity leave was incredibly generous. My salary covered it so we used Dh's salary to pay all bills, my salary to pay childcare and the every day stuff a baby/toddler needs. It was never separate money just for the purposes of paying money into savings etc but it was all paid into one pot.

We chose a nursery as our friend chose a childminder who when sick was unavailable whereas nursery can usually cover sick employees so we still had care. The nursery was open 49 weeks a year.

I then became a SAHM so didn't use any paid childcare for either child, Ds1 then went to preschool nursery mornings only at 3 on funded hours.

Thank you for sharing. It’s encouraging to hear how you’ve found peace with your choices and no regrets, even with the sacrifices.

Thank you for sharing. I really relate to what you said—I also used a nanny in another country and felt the same way.

I paid through the nose for private nursery. It ate up 80% of my wage. Basically a tax for keeping my job and having a child

Childcare before schoolage was a doddle.
Hand over vast sums every month, and nursery were open 7.30am to 6pm 52 weeks a year.

Once they start school, it is a whole nother ball game, and drove me to distraction, and eventually ead to me being a SAHM for several years.

Paid for private nursery. It was about £85 a day until age 3, when the bill began to reduce with the funded hours.

Yes, it was a lot of money, but it was an amazing experience and nursery provided us with the support we weren’t getting elsewhere (eg included a private Health Visitor, support for weaning and potty training) and as we had no family support at all it was invaluable having other adults in DD’s life.

I had my first 25 years ago back then maternity was 4 months long. Dh and I worked shifts so we mostly shared parenting but We also had grandparents to help out when we were both at work., I then trained as a childminder after having my second dc so looked after them both at home and worked too.
I put them both in pre school at two years old it was 2 hours long twice a week and cost £6 per child per day (roughly twenty years ago) They then went to school nursery.
When I had my third I was in employment, I took a year maternity, I hired a childminder when I went back to work part time who was £30 a day. We qualified for the 15 hours two year funding so moved dc to a nursery and then used the 30 hour funding at 3.

We never had to pay any supplements at nursery ( this was 5/6 years ago. ) and our nursery charged£37 per day for fee payers. I don’t understand how nurserys are so expensive nowadays with the funded hours on top.

If you are moving to Edinburgh “soon”, I am hoping you already know that the cost of a nursery place is near negligible compared to the availability of places. Once you start hearing the lead times on places, you won’t give the cost two thoughts.

One place I called in May 2025 didn’t have any availability until March 2027.

I worked from home. 'Mother's help' came to house to look after baby daughter until lunchtime plus occasional afternoon if I had a meeting. Then I had them all afternoon, picked up son from school, played with them, fed them etc. Went out to see clients in the evening when husband back from work. Worked well as only paying for 15-20 hours max care a week and no problems if they were ill and no pressure to get baby ready to go out of a morning. At worst I'd not work in the morning and catch up at weekend.

One year of maternity leave then both DH and I worked 4 days a week and DC were at nursery 3 days a week. Then reduced nursery hours when I was on maternity with the next one (DH went back to FT when I was on maternity).

We have no family close by so we needed the reliability of nursery and our nursery was excellent. Kids stayed there for after school club as well and over the 12 years our kids were there there was very low turnover of staff which was great for the kids when they didn't have an extended family nearby.

I spent over £40,000 on private nurseries for DS just so I didn’t damage my career too much. It felt like a harsh tax.

Those with GP support are very fortunate. We’ve never had a single hour of unpaid childcare.