Advice needed on daycare schedule

NICU RN · January 2015

Background:

My son is 17 months old. I was on ML for 12 weeks. After that my mom and my in-laws split care full time until my son was about 8 months old. At that point we switched him to part time daycare and they dropped to watching him part time. Then our jobs switched so that we were both able to go to 4 day work weeks (DH off Friday, I am off Monday). This worked great until my mother in law started having some health problems.

Fortunately, she is doing well, but we can no longer ask her to keep our son on a regular basis (although she would like to). So we are looking at changing his daycare schedule again. The options they have would be full day Tuesday/Thursday or full day 5 days/week. The cost is $280 vs $560. If we just did the two days, my mom would keep him most Wednesdays.

The problems with the two day schedule: 1) my mom sometimes travels. So there may be 4-5 days a year she could not do. My mother in law would like to keep Luke on the days my mom can't, but we can't count on her being able to with her health. We could work out alternate care, but it may involve one of us having to take off. Problem 2) we would have no care available on our days off. Previously, he had mornings that we could drop him off if we had doctors appts, errands, etc. We would lose this.

We can afford the full time daycare, but we would wind up paying for a lot of time that he is not actually there. So it would really be more for back up in the event of the occasional appt or my mom's travel. Is the extra money worth the saved stress?

So what would you do? Part time or full time?

74dragonfly · January 2015

I would do part time since it is only a few days a year. I hate spending money on things I don't use

[Deleted User] · January 2015

Part time. Very few people have care on their days off (M-F) schedules. I understand it us nice but wouldn't be my driving force.

NICU RN · January 2015

Thanks everyone. Sadly they don't have drop in at the daycare due to numbers/staffing. Any suggestions on how to find an occasional sitter for those days we need one? Does anyone use a site to find sitters?

Katelobster · January 2015

NICU RN said:

Thanks everyone. Sadly they don't have drop in at the daycare due to numbers/staffing. Any suggestions on how to find an occasional sitter for those days we need one? Does anyone use a site to find sitters?

You could also try looking at nanny agencies. In my area, there is a nanny agency that also does back-up care nannies. We have it subsidized through DH's work so I'm not sure of the exact cost, but I think it's $200 a year to join and $14/hour for the care. Bonus: they also do nights and weekends if you ever can't find a sitter.

skibunny59 · January 2015

74dragonfly said:

I would do part time since it is only a few days a year. I hate spending money on things I don't use.

This. $280 vs $560 is a HUGE difference. No way in hell would I pay that if I didn't have to. I know you said you could afford it but damn. I would see that as money I could use to splurge on a romantic dinner with DH or go on a vacation or something.

I would just try to find back up care when your mom goes away on vacation. My mom watches DD fulltime and we were actually able to find an in home center (recommended by coworkers) that took her for the few days we needed when my mom went away last year. I think we needed 4 days. They took her 2 days, DH took off work one day and I took off the other day. It was inconvenient but we made it work. I also agree with PP who said very few people have care on their days off.

Mustardseed2007 · January 2015

I am team part time. That is a lot of care that you will not be needing! There is a very good nanny agency in our city (one of a few, I'm sure, but I only know of this one) that you pay $150 to register your family and then they have different types of care available that they will help you secure including as-needed, last-minute sick care or fill-in care. In the case of the one offs, you pay the nanny $10-$15 per hour, and pay the service $25 for the placement. It's pricey since you pay the agency too, but something like that will save you daycare costs and will get you qualified care that you only need once in a while without stress and scrambling.

ss265 · January 2015

Rather than day care, have you considered using a nanny? Since you only need care for a couple of days in the week, I wonder if a nanny would be cheaper than even the part time cost for day care (or comparable). That way you already have an established relationship with her and can use her on days your Mom isn't available or when you need care for errands etc.

KayteeGee · January 2015

Yeah, I'm with part time or find a nanny to cover the three days you need coverage.
There's no way I would pay an extra $280 a week to cover the "4 or 5 days" that your mom would be traveling. That's $14k a YEAR ... for 4 or 5 days coverage plus the occasional docs appt.
I mean, I'm all for spending for convenience (I do have one in daycare full time and a nanny at home with the other, so I get that this is a little bit "glass houses") but that would be too much for me.
We used care.com to find our nanny and it's been wonderful.

*sparky* · January 2015

Another vote for PT vs. FT.

And is there a reason your mom or MIL can't be your fill in sitter when you need it? Or are they only available on Wednesdays?

mommatotwo2 · January 2015

Id definitely go with part time too and as far as dr appointments, etc, sometimes daycares will let you add a day as needed if they have room, ours does. Or, you guys can take a couple of personal hours or maybe an extended lunch hour on working days to take care of that stuff, since it's usually not all that frequent. As far as your moms traveling days, I'd ask MIL to cover those days, and if she isn't well enough to care for him, you and DH will have to work out covering that day if you can't find backup care. Or, plan in advance to take time off if you think her health is going to be a major enough issue that she'd have to back out of watching him. We have fulltime childcare for DD2 and DD1 goes to school and aftercare and between the two of them we still have to find alternate care, or take days off a couple weeks a year. Like the week between Christmas and New Years for instance, both schools/childcares are closed.

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