MSE Newborn to 1 year (& beyond!) baby club 3

Saffagal

Evening ladies

A's nursery will be £47 a day, excluding nappies :eek::eek:
I have finally had my hours agreed, what I requested to reduce to - 22hrs a week worked over 2 and a half days.
(We're in the South East).

Re tantrums; well today A screamed for 5 min because I wouldn't let her chew my house keys whilst I was driving. Eventually I sang Wind the Bobbin Up to which she stopped screaming and starting clapping along. She learnt to clap over the weekend and now keeps doing it; it is so cute! She is also regularly taking 3 - 4 steps now. I'm proud of her, but she is growing so fast and getting big so quickly

Lazywife, glad that you had a good holiday
Nutella, the ducks sound really cute and a lovely way to start a spring day
Bangton, we have numerous tantrums every day...
MrsH, hope that you both get better soon and Happy Birthday to LO
Katie, glad that the playgroup went well and good luck for the speech group

Hope that everyone else is well
Saf x

lobey

I've just been looking at nurseries over the past few days and the one we'd go for, which is the cheapest, will work out at £10,140 for the year for three days a week in London!!! I can't really believe it... Doing some sums it looks like I will be making in the region of £100-200 per month and I have no idea of how I will decide if it's worth it or not. For those who are working with most pay going to child care what was your motivation for going back to work? I'm not sure I can justify it at the moment!

Crabapple

Our nursery is now £38 a day (was £40 before she turned 2). That's in SW England. That covers all her food & drink but we do have to provide nappies.

Going back to work wasn't an option for me. We could cope financially when I was getting maternity pay, but once that ended it was only a short time before I had to be back in work else we couldn't afford to pay all the bills.

I think though that it has been worthwhile - I haven't lost skills I will need in the future and it's nice to have adult conversations sometimes! I went back 3 days a week though and personally I would hate to be working fulltime as on work days there wasn't a lot of time to spend with my daughter.

toniq

Jessica has double ear infection, had the most hysterical baby yesterday, Rushed her to doctors and she screamed the place down, went to the chemist with her still screaming, in the car on way home still screaming,get in the door she spots her daddy and smiles and stops!

fran-o

Thanks for advice re co sleeping. Don't think it'll be a regular thing, but might be nice as an option for morning naps.
Re the crying babies, some light relief: http://www.reasonsmysoniscrying.com

fran-o

Re nursery fees/ costs and benefits of working, I'm a way off decision making yet but think I'll be going 3 days a week if they'll let me, with two days child care (nursery) and one day with my mum.

Benefits of working more than just salary: eg pension and ni contributions, possibly easier to make current job part time than look for new pt job in future, training and workplace experience - hard to get back into work after a gap. Having said that, I wouldn't be going back to work if we could afford for me to be a sahm, however we want to move from our flat to a house in coming years so need more than one income.

*Nutella*

In addition to all the reasons already mentioned, for me a major reason to go back to work was my sanity. I love my little girl to bits and she's the best thing ever, but I know I'm just not sahm material - after 8 months of maternity leave I was very ready to go back to work. I thrive in a busy office environment with people and lunches and deadlines, and also believe that going to nursery is genuinely good for LO (and she loves it there). I work full time hours compressed into four days, with one of those from home, so full time pay and three days' childcare costs, and I'm still at home with LO four days a week. For me, that's the best of both worlds, but I'm lucky in that I've got a supportive employer and a decent salary.

continualdiamond

Amazing how much nurseries differ in fees, though I guess depending where you live also depends on what salary you get.

I'm a teaching assistant so would assume each county would pay differently.

It wasn't an option for me to be a SAHM as ultimately couldn't afford to live off OH's wage due to it being minimum wage. Decided it was worth me going back part time as I am stuck at the top of my pay grade now so no chance of me earning more money but plenty of opportunity for OH to earn more as he's a driver.

Also I'd go crazy being a SAHM as I have no family here with me being from another country and I've worked too hard to get where I am in my career to give it up. I'd struggle to get back into it if I left and wanted to return later.

Nice to read the tantrum stories in terms of knowing what I've got ahead of me.

Hope everyone has a nice day. OH is working today (normally his day off) as 2 drivers just walked out last week, don't know how people can do that, but they just decided on Saturday they'd had enough so did the delivery (rental car company), went back to branch and just said they were leaving. Which of course now means they're very short staffed so OH only gets Sunday off this week.

Catch 22 as obviously nice he's got an extra day earning money but I had booked in a 30min massage at a new place that's opened in my village for when I got back from taking LO to baby yoga. Never had one before so was really looking forward to it as suffer from back ache a lot now, but of course I've had to cancel it.

Replaced it with a coffee catch up with a friend from work when she finishes work though so at least get some adult conversation time today.

turtlemoose

I live in Wolverhampton - our nursery is £33.50 a day (or £23.50 for a half day) - most places around here range from around £27 - £40 a day. That price includes all food and drink, and wipes - I have to provide nappies, which isn't too bad really as they don't get through so many when they're bigger.

For me, returning to work wasn't an option. I earn significantly more than OH. We could afford for HIM to stay at home, if we managed to find an extra £250 a month (not sure how we'd manage that as we've already cut back on everything), but he doesn't want to be a SAHD, and as much as I love him, I don't want him to be a SAHD either - I love the stimulation and opportunity to develop that nursery gives Reuben.


Ref the new help scheme....at the moment only I get vouchers as OH employer doesn't offer them. So we currently save £933 a year. Under the new scheme we can get 20% of our cost - £1675. We will be £742 a year better off. HOWEVER if OH got vouchers too then we would currently save £1866 so in that case we would be worse off on the new scheme.

HOWEVER Reu will be getting his 15 free hours by then, so I'm guessing we can only claim 20% of the amount we actually pay rather than the total amount. Sooooo...we might be better off staying with vouchers after all.... It depends how much the nursery fee is in Aug 2015.

We might have a new baby by then so if that was the case, Reu would be dropping down to 3 days a week (I'd still like him to go to nursery for the educational aspect, plus he will be approaching school age so I want to keep him going so that school isn't such a shock). So that makes it more complicated!!!! I'll have to do the sums nearer the time, as nursery fees will probably have increased by then anyway etc.

katiechoc_2

I don't envy you lot with all these nursery fees :eek: I work from home so have G with me all the time. Which is great, but I read Nutella's stories of hot cuppas with jealousy! Oh, and there he is awake - literally just finished some work and clicked on here for a catch up. Always the way