Can you mix preschool and day nursery?

[Shoegazer]

DD (2.2) goes to nursery 2 morning a week and she loves it. I need the longer sessions on these days that a day nursery provides as I work a night shift beforehand and need to sleep. However, as she gets nearer to reception age I would like to start increasing her time so that going to school isn't going from 2 mornings a week to reception each day. However, I don't need her to go for full nursery morning sessions so this is where the 2.5 hour preschool sessions would suit. So is it possible to combine 2 mornings at nursery with 2-3 preschool sessions and is it worth it? The other altrenative is to increase her to 3 mornings a week at nursery when she is 3-3.5 and leave it like that until reception. What would you do?

When I stopped work to go on maternity leave, ds1 was at nursery so we cut him down to just 2 mornings. He then became eligible for the pre-school sessions and at first I didn't take it up as I thought it would be too much but we soon realised that actually he might need it....and me!! He now does 3 mornings at pre-school and then 2 mornings at nursery and he loves it. He clearly knows the difference between the 2 and it hasn't confused him or upset him in fact every morning he gets up asking is it a pre-school or nursery day!!

totally possible. DD goes to preschool mon-thurs and then a full day to nursery whilst I work on a friday.

Once you dd is 3 and can claim the free sessions all you do is split the free time between the 2 providers

We did this with our DD. She did 3pms at nursery and 5ams at preschool. The allowance the government give you for the preschool sessions meant we had to still pay for our nursery. Have to say our DD did struggle a bit with understanding the difference between the two places. At nursery children come at different times, days etc and there is obviously a less formal structure than preschool. The only other thing to be aware of is the differing teaching styles each place will have and try and make sure they don't go against each other.

Thanks for all your replies, will look into local preschools to get a better idea of what is available.