Hiya, I’m Becka from www.lovebeckax.co.uk, thank you so much to Alex for letting me guest post here today.
As I’m about to go back to work (eek) I thought I’d do a little post on choosing the childcare. Something which we’ve struggled with over the past few weeks! There’s so many options to consider and their implications on your family, finances and ultimately on the little one themselves. I’ve felt quite lonely in the process of choosing and sorting childcare for Sophie.
I don’t know about most men, but in our household it’s almost felt as though James left returned to work a few weeks after Sophie was born, and the rest has been left up to me.
Can I cope with staying at home and relying on James for money? (Nope!)
Can I afford to return to work part time and if so, how many hours and on what wage?
Or is it best for my family if I bite the bullet and return back full time? I’m unfortunately not lucky enough to earn any money from my own blog yet so I certainly can’t stay home as much as I would love to.
I’m hoping to find a part time position somewhere in the new year, so the race is really on now to sort out our childcare options and what is best for our family. I feel as though we essentially have three options, nursery, childminder or Grandparents.
Relying on Grandparents would by far be the cheapest option, but the price it comes at may be much higher. Would we then be beholden to them because they’re doing us such a massive favour?
James’ Dad is retired and my Mum only works part time. Understandably neither want all of their free time taken up by Sophie. My Mum’s hours aren’t set, so that alongside James’ erratic shifts, is making it seem like more of a headache than it’s worth to arrange her looking after Sophie long term.
That leaves us with James’ Dad, who’s happy to have her one day a week but no more. Fantastic, but one day a week isn’t really enough for me to pay the bills so it leaves us a little stuck!
I’m also worried about the implications on our relationship with them. I really don’t want to feel as though we owe anyone a favour in return. If I offer to do something for you, it’s never so that I can receive something myself. I’m sure it’s not something which we’d have to worry about with James’ parents, but I’ve spoken to a few other Mum’s who aren’t so lucky. Family helping out with childcare can be a huge financial relief, but if you’re going to have to put up with snide remarks or an unhappy relationship with the in-laws because of it, then is it really worth it?
Childminders are again supposedly a cheaper option and one which James was personally brought up with. I can remember seeing my friends go to their childminder every day after school and actually feeling jealous. It was like an extra playtime whereas I had to go home and do my homework. They’re usually more flexible also, meaning that they could potentially work around James’ shift pattern however just how personable they are is actually a huge bone of contention for me.
To me, having one person take care of Sophie day-in, day-out isn’t something that I want. My friends little boy genuinely wanted to go to his Childminder’s house on his birthday, even though his Mum had taken it off work specially. That would break my heart. Many people have said to me that it’s almost like someone else is bringing up your child. Compared with the more school-esque setting of a nursery, and that’s not something I’m particularly comfortable with.
That leaves us with nursery. We’re so lucky that there’s one right at the end of our road however they’re completely inflexible with James’ shifts. You might have thought given his job as a Police Officer they may have been slightly lenient (I’ve heard that many nurseries and pre-schools are). I feel as though it’s important for Sophie to go to nursery.
I’m currently volunteering in a Primary School. In the first few days you could really tell the difference in the children who had and hadn’t interacted with other children. Although I now have a small group of mummy friends (all two of them!), I want Sophie to be used to socialising with groups of other children and adults. I’ve also heard that educationally it benefits them too. I’m not the most “hands on” of mummies. We’ve only had one messy play session so far in her whole life. So I’m not overly confident in my ability to prepare her for school.
I’m really hoping if I can secure a part time job then we’ll have enough money left over for Sophie to have one or two mornings in nursery a week so that she has some form of consistency. This will hopefully prepare her for the future in a way that I can’t.
I’d love to know how people decided on their childcare and how they feel it influenced their little ones. I honestly think it’s the most stressful decision I’ve had to make so far!
Thank you so much again to Alex for having me. I hope you all enjoyed having me as much as I’ve enjoyed being here!
Love, Becka x
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