Experiences of being made redundant/losing job with nursery age children?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

I just found out I might be made redundant half way through maternity leave (with 2nd child) due to lack of funding for my position. My job is quite specialised and I prefer to work part time (4 days at the moment) so I'm worried it could take awhile to find a new job. What would happen if I couldn't find a job by the end of maternity leave? I wouldn't be able to afford to put the baby (then 12 months) in nursery unless I have a job but if I lose my nursery place the nursery (and all the others around here) have waiting lists of 1 year+ which would make it impossible to start a new job. First child will be in reception so its only the 2nd one we would need to worry about assuming after school childcare can be booked with less notice. Has anyone been in a similar position and if so what happened?

I’ve not directly been in your position, but I have worried about this and decided that we’d have to lose the nursery place. There are always childminders available (even if not preferred and not as convenient) or a nanny (although more expensive) until you can get them back into nursery.

Yes, have been there - was made redundant at end of mat leave with 2nd. I knew it was a possibility at the start of leave as they told me I was at risk but they did the right legal thing and kept me 'employed' untol mat leave ended and no alternative role appeared.

I was actually quite relieved as two lots of ft childcare would have been 150 per cent of my salary so it was better for me to get redundancy - as I'd been there 8 years - than to go back to work before oldest started primary school. So it helped a lot that I had a decent sized redundancy. Have you been working in your job long @wishIwasonholiday10

By the end of mat leave there was only one month left before oldest started school, so the childcare thing wasn't too much of an issue. It did take me a long while to get a new job and my redundancy money just about lasted but I think I was just at an odd stage in my career where there weren't many jobs on my level, I've never had that much difficulty since, 3 jobs later. I just accepted I'd likely have to take a ft job and I did, but they were very flexible with wfh and so on at least.

Thanks both for the advice and sharing your experiences!

I have been working at my current employer for 14 years so I should qualify for a reasonable redundancy but I don't think they pay more than statutory redundancy pay (it is a major university).

I would consider some time off work as I often find it stressful balancing everything (and my older one has quite a few medical appointments) but I think we would struggle to pay the mortgage without me bringing something in. I don't think we could manage a temporary nanny as my salary might not cover it and we can't afford for me to be worse off by working. A childminder could be an option but I suspect the good ones are oversubscribed too.

I could look at ft positions too, I'm just worried my first child will really struggle in after school childcare every day during reception year (she will be young in her year and her medical condition makes her more tired than other children). My preference would in fact be 3 days work but I have to balance being able to contribute to the mortgage too.

We went through something similar and I do feel for you as it was a nightmare. We balanced the income and hours worked to get the free childcare days then cut back to those so our child kept the nursery place but at a lower cost. We then had to up hours again and couldn't them straight away so had to juggle childcare with family and babysitters for months. Is there something you can do to get the free hours, even if it's tutoring or similar, just so you can keep the place while you look?

Definitely earmark the redundancy payout to pay you a wage for a few months and cut back, hard, now to build up your buffer.

You can also ask to stretch the term of the mortgage to bring down monthly payments. You need to minimise fixed costs in the short term to give you options now, then you can overpay when you're back in a job.

I'm in the same situation, it's an absolute nightmare. My DD is due to start nursery in January, she's been on the waiting list since before she was born. If I don't have a job by Christmas I'm hoping I can push her nursery start date back to April to buy me a bit more time, but imagine I can't do that indefinitely.

DH was made redundant when i was on mat leave. We kept the DC's nursery place for all the reasons above. Fortunately DH had a new job before I went back to work.