Childcare options - opinons please

Ok so Ive been at work full time for coming up two months now (and Im loving it by the way) and the kids are doing really well at daycare, they are happy going there, no tears etc.. the teachers are all great and I have no issues there at all except that when I get there at 5pm there arent many kids left and I hate the fact my kids are amongst the last to leave, makes me feel bad plus of course daycare is expensive. Now my SIL is moving around the corner from us, she has two wee ones and she has asked if I want her to look after my kids for me instead of them going to daycare. I would put kobe into kindy which is right next to the school he will go to so the good thing with that is he will still socialise with other kids plus he will make friends that will be at the same school. The only down side is Addison wont really get the same social time plus while my SIL is really good with the kids I know they wont do the same sort of things they do at preschool like painting, singing songs etc... but on the plus side it would save us about $180 a week which would be handy but its not all about the money right. So what does everyone thing, is home based care or daycare better for full time care. Keeping in mind to its only for a year cos Im covering maternity leave plus Kobe will be at school next year anyway so its not a definate thing.

Edited by my2angels

wow thats a hard one.. do you think they will get a good standard of care with SIL? personally i would take Kobe out and put him into kindy and leave Addison there..is that an option? both have pluses.. if you can spare the money that's what i would do anyway..

Yeah I agree with that too. You could also look into your SIL becoming a offial homecare carer through a agency so that she would then have resources and support from them, and Addison would get the learning experiences more similar to at a daycare. Personaly I would put her in daycare half the time and have SIL look after her the rest of the time.

If she is going to have her full-time, make sure u work out some sort of agreement for hrs, payment etc at the beginning, to stop any tension happening. I have seen this with my bestfreind who looks after her neice full-time during the week. Her brother still doesnt give her any $$ towards food, outings etc for his daughter, and cos she has her full-time, if she wants to go for coffee with friends or whatever, she has to pay for her niece too,...so her husband is out working, and basically supporting their neice too, even tho her own parents are both working full-time. The hrs have increased and increased too, and they now provide her 3 meals a day as well, with no payment at all, but she does enjoy looking after her, and doesnt want to upset the family by asking for $.

Yeah thats what I was talking about!

She has done part of her study to be a preschool teacher before she stopped to have kids, plus she is a qualified speach therapist and also now doing the playcentre course thing so Im sure she can do the teaching side of it, im just not sure she will if you know what i mean. she doesnt have the most energy when it comes to playing with the kids and thats what worries me. I thought about doing the part time thing but by the time i paid her (would definately pay her thats not even a consideration) and then paid daycare it would still work out to be the same amount of money therefor I might aswell just leave them in daycare.....oh decisions decisions. I would only really be doing it purely to save money and Im just not sure its the best decision for the kids but in saying that i know they wouldnt suffer or anything if they were with there aunty. they are both just doing so well at daycare but there is such a stigma about full time daycare that makes me think Im making the wrong choice.

I also was going to suggest something similar to what becks said.

Id agree with some of the others and go with your SIL if you suggest to her that she take the children to playgroups and music etc like I do when I look after children at home
and it is good that Kobe would be able to go to the kindy that he would know children going to school with him