two daughters returning to work

[smallgreenwellies]

I have two pregnant daughters: I am able to offer a weekly half-day childcare to one, but not the other because she lives too far away.
In the interests of equality, how much would this be worth - just a rough figure. We're Hampshire/Devon.
Also, is the local daughter likely to find that her childminder/nursery/whatever, still charges her for a full week even if baby is not there for a half day?

Our nursery (East/South East so possibly more expensive than Devon?) charges £28.75 for a 1/2 day session for under 3s.

A nursery would usually only charge for the sessions that a child is booked to attend so your local DD would, in your example, only pay for 4.5 days p/w but there is often not much difference overall as many nurseries discount a full (5 day) week slightly anyway. Hopefully a childminder can answer re their rates but I would suspect that a childminder might want to charge a full week rate as they are unlikely to be able to fill one half day space.

HTH. Your daughters are lucky to have you

PS Even though you may find that your local daugher doesn't save much money with your help due to the issues above, I'd still look at the other advantages for both of you.

Your "local" GC will possibly have a much closer relationship with you due to this regular 1-2-1 time making him/her much more likely to settle with you at other times. My DD goes to my MIL one day a week and IMO their relationship is much stronger because of it. I'm happy to leave her there, DD loves it, GM loves it. All round win

Thank you for that - I'm really looking forward to being involved, so the financial saving isn't too much of an issue. More a question of being fair to the other daughter, and given our total lack of experience, being able to re-assure the local one, that no discount for a shorter week is normal. It may turn out that I am more use for 'out of hours' care but the principal is the same.

I am on the other end of a similar situation in that my parents are 200 miles away, but my sister is 5 miles from them so gets lots of free childcare regularly.
First I would advise that you can never be 100% fair and to try to do so will tie you in knots.
Whilst my sister gets lots of regular free babysitting, picking up from school overnight care, my DD now she is at school gets 1 whole we with Granny and Pa to herself each summer. In addition about once a year my parents come and stay a whole weekend to allow us to do a variety of things we have gone to a child free wedding scotland, moved house, been to a nearly all night party etc.
In addition my Dad has driven the 200miles and provided emergency child care when DD was sick and all other options failed. Having this kind of emergency back up is priceless.
I would not want my parents to make any kind of financial contribution, but the help I get is invaluable.

Glad to see you're at least thinking about trying to be as fair as possible. My parents are abroad so they are out of the equation and my PIL are 2.5-3hrs away, however my SIL lives close to my PIL and gets lots of childcare.

Although obviously we chose to live so far away it does rankle a tad that PIL don't offer occasionally to perhaps babysit for the evening when they are up visiting us so DH and I can go out or whatever. Not a big deal at all, I don't expect any help, but it's just a teeny niggle.

But if you're already thinking along those lines and offer occasionally to help over a weekend, I'm sure your other daughter will be absolutely fine about it.

Thanks for your advice - now thinking that maybe the financial element isn't so important unless their situation becomes critical, but has certainly made me re-think going to visit the furthest-away daughter: will offer/plan to babysit whilst there. It reminded me of how much I missed being able to spend time without children when mine were small! And yes, Lizcat, thanks for the emergency childcare idea: I know my daughter wouldn't ask, but in fact it is perfectly possible.

Yes I wouldn't worry about the financial aspect. I would be horrified if my MIL tried to give me some money or something to compensate for the amount of money she's saving my SIL. It's just the thought that counts really, rather than actual monetary 'fairness'.

My parents are 300 miles away and my PIL 5 minutes down the road.

My sister lives round the corner from our parents and they do 3 days of childcare a week on top of weekend babysitting and stay overs so my sister and her partner can go out.

My PIL does very occassional weekend baby sitting and currently has DD one afternoon a week so I can have a bit of time for myself (am currently on maternity leave). However my FIL is ill and quite frail so I don't feel it's appropriate for them to do any more childcare, although I know MIL desperately wants to, especially when I return to work next month.

We are in London so nursery is very expensive at £55 a day and £35 per 1/2 day for under 3s - you book by the sessions you need but it's loads cheaper to buy a full time place.

As others have said, I wouldn't want to be given any money from my parents to make it fair. Instead it's just good to know that both sets of parents can help us out if needs be in an emergency or give us an evening out by babysitting.

What rankles me is when my parents can't do stuff they want to do, like go on holiday or come to visit us for a weekend due to my sister's childcare/babysitting expectations and her inflexibility or willingness to take days off work/pay for nursery on what she considers to be non nursery days, but that's a whole other thread...

You sound like a wonderful mum to be trying to be so fair to your 2 daughters, but really all that matters is that they know you are there for them to help out when they need it and that you want to be involved with your grandchildren.