For those that don’t use daycare

Holy cr*p! That is really expensive........

We pay $145 a week for 5 days 9am - 4pm.

this will sound funny:) but I'm a preschool teacher and i dont want to send him to daycare:) so if the need arises for care it will be home based for much the same reasons as Mum2Ella

I definitely think daycare has its place and lots of kids thrive there:) just for our personal needs home based care will be the best option:)

We dont (and wont) use daycare strictly for the reason we want her to have the upbringing we did (with a stay at home parent), although Issy has a Dad at home and not a Mum but close enough

When she gets to the appropriate age she will go to kindergarten to socialise etc.

I guess not being in a situation where I have to put Alyssa into daycare is the main reason why she's not. My mum looks after her for 4 hours a day while I work part time - she has been doing this since my 1 year maternity leave ended. And now that baby #2 is on the way, I intend on taking at least 3 years off work so I can be home and make the most of these years. Again it's mostly because I can as well as because I definitely want to.

Ultimately I know how lucky I am that my mum can help this much and that financially I don't have to return to work straight away. My preference is for her not to be in daycare, but if things were different and I had to, I'm not opposed to it.

Teresa - I take mine to Playgroup and Sienna got a belt over the head there with me standing two feet away, so unfortunately they're not immune to bullying.

I don't use daycare for the gremlins coz with two (and one on the way) it's cheaper to have a nanny, plus it fits in well with me working from home, I can still be involved with the girls care to a certain degree when I'm around and the nanny and I do things like take them swimming that I can't do on my own and that they'd miss out on if they were in daycare.

Not that I have anything against daycare, Maya was a daycare baby and thrived there.

I guess I'm a bit of an anomaly in that I've never *wanted* to be a SAHM. My mum was a SAHM and it was brilliant growing up, but I would go stark raving mad stuck at home all day with kids, I'm just too selfish.

We would love to have a parent staying at home but finances mean it just isn't possible.  We choose home based for the same reasons above.  I just couldn't see how they can cater for the under 2's.  The daycare centres in my town have all the kids together.  On the days I visited there were no kids crawling around.  Home based has always been our preference - 1 to 4 ratio and gets to doo the same types of the things we do at home. 

Your daycare costs sound very expensive - we will paying (as of August) $6.50 an hour which sounds high but includes food.  For the 37.5 hours in care it works out to be $243. 

I always wanted to be a SAHM (although I didn't realise how hard it would be sometimes) and we are lucky enough that we can afford for me to be at home. I am also lucky in that my old manager is basically letting me do what I want work-wise. Until yesterday I worked from home on a part time basis when Jack slept. I have decided that that restricts me too much so she has said to let her know when I can/want to do some work and she will find something. So if we need any extra cash I should be able to work from home.

In saying that, if I only had one child, it would be worth me working and putting him in care financially, but I still don't think I would (I LOVE being at home!!!! )

Its definitely a luxury to be able to stay home though I think.

And I do love my 'adult' days at work when I actually get to sit down and have lunch

well I am a SAHM Mum but have opted for a pre school/ daycare for alan this is purely for his education he was going to kindy, but that was jsut not enough hour's for him he is a social butterfly so we opted to use all our 20 hour's we do have a 20 dollar fee for the week, but so worth it. They provide his morning tea and afternoon tea which is really good food not jsut boring stuff.    We are alos going to send Mikey for one day a week cause he id ready for the social side of it again for the educational side of things Mike y will cost us a wee bit, but I think it is worth it if you can find a really good place not all daycare/pre school are good.

We do Tag Team Parenting (need a little copyright symbol here for the new term I made up)

I work from 7:30am - 3:30pm. DH has been working from 4:30pm - 9:30pm and we swap over roles at about 3:45pm. Taking into account her sleep times we basically both get to spend the same amount of awake time with Michaela.

DH just increased his hours to 2:00pm - 9:30pm and (as of yesterday) MIL cares for Michaela between when Ian leaves for work and when I get home (about 3hrs).

So strictly speaking we don't actually need to use daycare. Having said that we do want Michaela to have more social interaction with other children her age. I get home around 4pm and can't really visit other families at this time as it's generally when they're getting dinner sorted and doing everything else that needs to be done leading up to jungle hour, DH prefers to spend time with just him and Michaela during the mornings and the early afternoon is busy with lunch, naptime & getting ready for work. Playgroup looked like a good alternative (pricewise certainly) but neither of us can put in the effort required from playgroup parents.

Although we don't need to use care we're looking into it as I do think it has advantages i.e. social interaction, change of scene for Michaela, different toys and opportunities for messy play (where I don't need to clean up) and to give DH a morning off.

I'm pleased other people see this place we're currently looking at as expensive, I thought so too and it's a pain that we can't just send her for one or 2 mornings per week - they have a minimum time (does anyone know why?)


Edited by MrsMojo