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Moms with older kids
ASmallWonder
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in Working Moms
Aiden is still little and in daycare but as DH and I have started talking about a second I've been thinking about what happens when he starts pre-k or k in a few years. With daycare they open early and stay open late, which is how us working moms can drop them off, work and pick them up. What do you do when school is a half day? Do they ride a bus at that age? Do you have to hire a 1:1 nanny to do drop off/pick up? Do schools sometimes offer care after the "school" part is finished?
Formerly known as elmoali 
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Re: Moms with older kids
Same here. Our daycare provides bus transportation to/from local elementary schools for before or after care. My DD is in full time pre-K (well full time daycare day with preschool in the middle of the day) at the same place. The kids don't start the before/after until kindergarten. Some elementary schools have before/after care onsite as well.
K3 was a problem for us because it started at 9:00 and ended at 11:30 and obviously that's a problem when you're working. The school did not offer any before or after school care and we use an in-home babysitter so there was no daycare transportation. We worked out a system of DH, our babysitter and grandparents dropping off and picking up.
This year we switched schools and our son is in an all day K4 program which does have before and after school care.
Kelly, Mom to Christopher Shannon 9.27.06, Catherine Quinn 2.24.09, Trey Barton lost on 12.28.09, Therese Barton lost on 6.10.10, Joseph Sullivan 7.23.11, and our latest, Victoria Maren 11.15.12
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I would check with the school about before/after care - when my dd was in K, it was half day and they had am and pm. If your kid was in am, they could attend before care but they did not offer after care for that long - vice versa for the pm kids.
I realize my situation is not normal but I work for a large company and my boss is 2 states away. She allowed me to WFH so I could pick up my dd and take her to daycare (in-home). However, some daycare centers do provide pickup so there are options but I felt very alone when I was trying to figure everything out - if my boss didn't let me do this, I'm not sure what I would have done.
This isn't exactly true. Many schools do not offer before/after school care so definitely ask and check at places you're looking at rather than assuming. I had an in-home nanny so wasn't looking for a preschool with before or after school care but I know that most of the schools I looked at, did not offer that for students in their school (I did not look at any daycares that had a preschool component for older kids....just at true schools meaning they called themselves a pre-school and offered the before/after care for the preschool students only).
you should check w/ your local school and the county or town.
Our neighborhood elementary school has before adn after care - they open at 7 and close at 6, but school is 8:30-3 or so. You can pay separately for before or after care or for both.
We may decide to keep DS at his current daycare/school for pre-k and even kindergarden, b/c it'll work better logistically esp. if we have a second kid. Although, we'd have to compare costs of the before/after program and keeping him at daycare.
This is what our school has, but we have an au pair, since I still have other small children, and when it comes to summer time we really need someone to be home. I live in a high COL area so paying for before and after care for 1 kid is very close to what it costs to have the au pair for all of them. Our preschool has before care (you can drop off at 7:30) but it closes at 3:30. Each place is different, there aren't many all day preschools near me, a majority of the families here have at least one parent at home, so there just isn't a demand for it. We also have 1/2 day kindergarten, just LOVELY for working moms!
I've been through several scenarios on this with my oldest DS who is now in high school.
K4 - School was 8:30-12:30 - They offered before and after care at an hourly rate
K-2 - My work day started late enough so that I could drop him at school before work and there was a church next door that did afterschool, teacher workday, summer care so they came over and walked all of the students over - a few times I had to be at work early and a neighbor with kids at the same school took him for me - I just dropped him at their house on my way to work
3-5 - Went to Charter School on year round schedule - they offered onsite before and afterschool care plus care for the breaks - the school was kind of far from any daycares so you could not get them picked up.
Once he entered middle school I once again could drop him off before school and he rode the bus home. I did notice that there was a day care van that dropped off and picked up kids each day.
High School here starts at 8:55am and I leave for work at 7am to drop LO off at day care so I have to wake older DS up on my way out the door. I will not leave his room until he is standing up - two feet on the floor. So far so good this year. DH is home sometimes (he works a rotating schedule) to make sure he catches the bus.
It seems that before school care is the toughest to find. I would look for a neighbor with children in the same school who may be interested in making a little extra each week for making sure your child got to school (either on bus or riding with them).