Daycare schedules and working part time

[Deleted]

If you work part time, and your kid is in daycare while you work, what is your schedule like? How many hours/ week do you work? How do you schedule things to make it work best for everyone involved, especially the child? How do you not fuck up their nap routine?

I may have an option to go part time after July 1. It will probably be somewhere between 50-75%, with an occasional night meeting. 

@libgirl (who I know just went to part time)

[dcn]

I'm starting a part time job tomorrow. I'm working 25 hours a week, mon - thurs, 8:30- 3:15 or so. I will pick ds up pretty much right after nap and snack.

We wont have to rush in the morning really, and will be home by 4 so wont have to rush around in the evenings, plus i will have fridays to spend with him. I feel like this is going to be a good balance for us, once we all adjust.

[marshmallowhands]

I work 3 days a week, 9a-5p. It works great and I don't think it messes with their schedules.

[dbsk8dance]

I work M & W from 8-7.

DD is in an in home m & w. I drop off at 7 and DH picks up at 5.

DS is at a pre school m, w, f. I drop him off after dd and DH picks him up after dd.

I do my own thing on my days. She generally naps in the morning and afternoon. We get up at the same time whether it is a work day or not.

[Deleted]

Feb 17, 2014 23:14:58 GMT -5 dcn said:

I'm starting a part time job tomorrow. I'm working 25 hours a week, mon - thurs, 8:30- 3:15 or so. I will pick ds up pretty much right after nap and snack.

We wont have to rush in the morning really, and will be home by 4 so wont have to rush around in the evenings, plus i will have fridays to spend with him. I feel like this is going to be a good balance for us, once we all adjust.

I think this may be my ideal. Except that if DH dropped DD off at daycare I could be to work by 7:45am and work until 3:15pm. 

I need to check with daycare. I seem to remember that they wanted part time kids to be picked up by noon every day. My boss has previously expressed disinterest in having staff work from home, so I don't think I could pick DD up at noon, put her down for a nap and work from home during nap time. It's always worth asking though. 

[h]

I bill about 20-25 hours a week, all from home on my own schedule. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

DS1 is in kindergarten from 8:15-2:55 five days a week.
DS2 (almost 4) goes to MDO from 9-2:30 on M and F and to preschool at the same school DS1 attends from 12:15-2:55 on T/W/Th.
DS3 (9 months) goes to MDO (same one as DS2) from 9-2:30 on M/W/F. We have a part-time nanny/babysitter who watches DS3 on T/Th from 9 until I have to leave to pick up the older kids at school.

I end up with all the kids taken care of from 9-2:30 on M/T/Th/F. On Wednesdays I just have a couple hours in the afternoon because I take DS2 to speech in the morning then drop him off at preschool. That adds up to around 25 hours total of childcare. I inevitably use some of that time to run errands, meet a friend for lunch, etc., so I wind up doing a few hours of work at night here and there to play catch up.

[jena]

I've been working pt for several years. M/W/F is my preference because then I get to have my kids more in the mornings and frankly they are more pleasant to be around in the mornings. Some semesters I've worked 9-3 5 days a week. It's easier for the kids because they do the same thing every day. But despite taking a nap at daycare (noon-2 naptime), afternoons are just their worst time of day.

[dcn]

Feb 17, 2014 23:27:39 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

Feb 17, 2014 23:14:58 GMT -5 dcn said:

I'm starting a part time job tomorrow. I'm working 25 hours a week, mon - thurs, 8:30- 3:15 or so. I will pick ds up pretty much right after nap and snack.

We wont have to rush in the morning really, and will be home by 4 so wont have to rush around in the evenings, plus i will have fridays to spend with him. I feel like this is going to be a good balance for us, once we all adjust.

I think this may be my ideal. Except that if DH dropped DD off at daycare I could be to work by 7:45am and work until 3:15pm. 

I need to check with daycare. I seem to remember that they wanted part time kids to be picked up by noon every day. My boss has previously expressed disinterest in having staff work from home, so I don't think I could pick DD up at noon, put her down for a nap and work from home during nap time. It's always worth asking though. 

Yeah we are paying for full time care which kind of stinks.  But, we have the option to drop him off fridays and earlier/later if we need to.  Part time hours are very part time we found, and paying an hourly rate for the extra we needed or a daily rate didn't save any money.  He will basically be there from 8/8:15 to 3:30 or 3:45.  

[SJ]

Feb 17, 2014 23:27:39 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

I need to check with daycare. I seem to remember that they wanted part time kids to be picked up by noon every day.

This is really surprising to me.

I don't work part-time but I am in the thick of researching daycares right now.

Most of the in-homes and centers I have found will do 2/3/5 day options for part-time care. 

In every case, they claim you can drop-off and pick-up whenever you want. So if you are paying for 2 days, you get 2 full days. If you are paying for 5 days, you get 5 full days no matter what time you drop off or pick up. I haven't found any places for babies that will let you stay a half day for half rate. It seems to be that you pay by days not hours around here. So at every place we have seen you wouldn't be able to pay a "part-time" rate to send her from 7:30-3:30 but if you have Fridays off and never need to send her you might be able to pay 4/5 of full rate. (well, it's never directly proportional, but you know what I mean)


Good luck negotiating a new schedule!

[t]

I work T-W-R 8-4. My daycare allows part-time, either 5 hours daily for 5 days or 3 full days for the same cost. Since I am hourly, it's more cost-effective for me to work 3 days at 22.5 hours vs 5 days since I would only be able to work 4 hours daily to allow for travel to and from daycare.

[runner09]

I work part-time but my hours are funky.

The kids go to daycare 3 days/week.

7-12p
7-5p
7-3p

My center allows a blended schedule - so 1/2, 3/4, full day. In our previous center they only allowed 1/2 and full days, which allowed me a little extra time to run errands if needed.

I have worked M, W, F and M-W. I prefer M-W.

[runner09]

Feb 18, 2014 7:12:46 GMT -5 runner09 said:

I work part-time but my hours are funky.

The kids go to daycare 3 days/week.

7-12p
7-5p
7-3p

My center allows a blended schedule - so 1/2, 3/4, full day. In our previous center they only allowed 1/2 and full days, which allowed me a little extra time to run errands if needed.

I have worked M, W, F and M-W. I prefer M-W.

I should add I work 20 hours. And their full day from 7-5 I typically don't drop off until 8:45 and then go into work early (or run errands). I start work at 11. But I drop off early so my 3 yr old gets in another "preschool" teaching day.

I am not stringent on nap times so I just made naps work.

[Deleted]

No advice, but how is work going?

[ginkgoleaf]

I work 4 days a week, 7:30-4:30, with the occasional day of 11:30-8pm.  DS goes to daycare 3 of those days and is with MIL the other day.  I drop him off around 7 and pick him up anwhere from 5-6.  A lot of the time I will run an errand or go home to let the dog out and prep dinner before picking him up by 6.  I figure he's having more fun there than running errands with me, plus I like the hour to myself.

He naps at daycare just fine, usually better than he does at home (he doesn't fight it). 

On my day off and the weekend, he naps later than at daycare, but otherwise is up about the same time, lunch around the same time, and goes to bed at the same time.

[vanillacourage]

You really should find out what daycare will make possible and go from there.  The daycares we've used don't do part-time at all for kids under 2 due to the demands presented by ratios for kids that little.

I worked PT for a couple years, but I always made it be full days on the days I worked.  None of this going in for the AM and having to pick up by noon.  That's the worst of both worlds, because you're always going to get pressure from work to stay "a little late" for just this one meeting about to start, or finish up just another 10 minutes of work, and at the same time you don't have total freedom of your day to say "ok, today we're going to the zoo, and then X, and then Y".  No thank you.

[mmmomof2]

I'm working PT, and since my commute is longish and DD1 is in preschool MWF, I've opted to work two longer days on T&R (versus everyday for less hours). Nap wise it's fine. Once DD1 is in school everyday I'll have to switch it up (unless I can find afterschool care?). The only problem is if someone is sick I lose out on half a week of pay versus just a few hours. I'm paid hourly.

[badgergrl]

I work pt ( 3 days one week, 2 days the next). One thing i have found helpful is to work days in a row then be home days in a row. I think it helps with consistency. My daycare works with pt schedules.

[Yankees21]

I'm going to be working 30 hours a week- LO will be in daycare 9-5 M-W, Thursday I will be off the whole day, and Friday I will work a half day and my stepmom is watching him in the mornings. I didn't run into any centers that wanted part timers picked up by noon, but some didn't accept part time at all, and the one we ended up choosing has rates for full time and then 2,3, and 4 days a week.