Help with daycare costs

Help if you want to, but make sure first that neither your DD or her partner can buy childcare vouchers through their employer as this is done as a salary sacrifice scheme so the equivalent of the tax man putting in a contribution too! It doesn't work for everyone but it's worth investigating. Perhaps you can then buy 'extras' like shoes, coats, etc. which are possibly not quite such a regular financial commitment.

I have helped out with an occasional contribution rather an committing to a regular payment. Sometimes it has been for childcare sometimes for other things. I think it s very natural to want to help your family whether it is practical "minding" or financial. Our instinct as parents!

It is hard when reading of nursery costs to equate it to the very poor pay which nursery workers get. They have to do considerable continuing study but the rewards ,apart from satisfaction ,are dire.

My 3 year old grand-daughter goes to nursery for 2 half-days each week. My son & DiL both work very long and antisocial hours in poorly paid retail jobs and the nursery charges total one full day of my son's salary each week so I offered to pay half of this. Even as an OAP I have enough pension income to afford this and I have the pleasure of knowing that I'm relieving a little of the financial pressure, as well as the pleasure of spending lots of time outside nursery hours with a gorgeous, giggling, chattering little girl. This is a bittersweet pleasure as my husband and I used to share her care but his recent death means I do so alone now but have huge fun doing Pepper Pig jigsaws and reading The Gruffalo for the 105th time...

Ds/dil are paying in the region of £1300 pm for childcare for the two small dgs. It's a mixture of nursery and childminder. We are 100 miles away so can only help out when one of them is unwell and we go up for a few days. Ds/dil aren't working for cars/holidays but to buy a decent house for their family. It will ease a little this Autumn when dgs 1 is 3 and gets his free nursery place for 15 hours pw. I would help out with these costs if I could. I have done in the past when dil was pregnant and I paid for a cleaner for 6 months, but that was a small amount for a short term.

I was lucky when my children were small I worked 20hrs mainly nights and oh sister looked after them I sometimes didn't get much sleep but it was worth it it meant I kept my job and still had time with children oh did overtime when he could we weren't loaded but better off than a lot of people we now look after gdaughter one day a week so only needs to go to nursery 2dayd ds lives away but we help them when needed wouldn't want to do child care full time it's our time now .

We’re looking after our 4 year old granddaughter one to two days a week on average as our daughter has gone back to work full-time. It’s fascinating to have this time together, to see her grow, and to influence her development.

I’m also a director for ChildsSide, a company with new programmes for grandparents providing any care for their grandchildren. Our Older Yet Wiser Project workshops in Leeds are helping grandparents to invest in their grandchildren’s lives - in those critical days of life. Taking care of ourselves is one of the topics in our six week free course, following feedback on these very issues.

We’re seeing more and more grans helping out in a variety of ways, hopefully with what is right for their ability and finances. We have so much to offer at this stage in their lives and balancing this with what we can actually offer is what matters most.

I'm beginning to feel that if you can't look after your own children, don't have them. Those years before school are so precious- wait until you are in a position to enjoy them. I do look after my grandchildren one day a week and I don't mind but I do wish that their parents were able to enjoy those years instead of the constant rush/pressure of ferrying them to and from caters.

Thank you all for your suggestions and good advice.

My daughter works 3 days a week and I feel guilty that because I live far away from her I am unable to offer any care. I know his care per day ( he's 2 ) is £55.00 per day.

It surely depends on everyone's circumstances. My daughter has a 4 year old and is currently on maternity leave with her second child. When she returns to work it will be full time and nursery costs will take most of her salary. Yes she has a partner who also works full time but he earns less than my daughter. As her parents we are in a position financially to assist with nursery fees so will do so. However not everyone can do this and grandparents should not be expected to pay if it will put a burden on their own finances

In France too my son was paying 90 euros per month + a little extra for delicious 3 course lunches per little one till main school kicked in. I think it started at 8:30am and children could have their tea and then be picked up by parents after work. I really do think that our young mothers have it really hard. My daughter and her friends work really hard and only just manage to cover expenses. And I do think we pay enough tax to cover these early years . . . the main issue is what that hard-earned money/tax is spent on. The amount of useless spending continues to be and always has been atrocious!

When my children were little my parents in law sent us money every month towards childcare costs as we were very hard up. I kept a record and some years later we were able to 'gift' them back the money they'd given. They didn't want or expect it, but were about to get a bridging loan at the time as they were buying a new house and it came in very handy.

Victoria08 if you can afford it and want to do it then do so. Maybe you could make your offer a 'limited time only' deal if you fear your circumstances may change and you can't afford to continue in the future.

I think I must have lived in a different world to some posters as my mum looked after my children while I worked and this was a common practice in our family network, so I don't see this as a new phenomenon or as particularly unreasonable. We still give as much of time and money as we can afford and choose to do, and it works for us. It never occurred to me that we wouldn't look after our grandchildren if we were needed and if we were well enough, which thankfully we have been so far. That said, I think grown up children have to recognise that our health may be declining and our incomes may be reducing at this stage of our lives and while we like to give, we are perhaps not as well off as they think we are.

Childcare is more expensive here because we pay too little tax to fund most public services properly, in my opinion. This doesn't mean grandparents should foot the bill directly though.

If you have to choose to follow a career or stay at home with children there are always going to be sacrifices. If someone is paying half their wages in childcare it does at least mean that they take half home, unlike my friend years ago who had childcare costs which left her a few pence in defecit at the end of the working week! She thought it was worth it though to 'keep her hand in' and was lucky to survive for two years with just her husband's meagre income.

I don't think I would suggest paying childcare. If money is tight, do what my parents did for us - pay for some decent shoes now and again, cover fuel/travel costs if visiting from a distance etc. These little bonuses mean that families on low incomes have lovely 'breathers' in the hard work of day to day living. These practical 'treats' we're really great - gifts of love and recognition, it felt, of the efforts we were making to bring up our little family on a very modest income.

Regarding the original post, I feel its enough to provide childcare if you can for grandchildren, but nursery costs are high and increase regularly and if grandparents begin by paying half it would be awkward to stop and and could cause resentment. We grandparents already do much more than ours did for us, and there were no expectation that they should. Would also say that looking after a young baby is much easier on the back than when they start running around, speaking for myself i find it much harder now our grandson is 3 and very active, and he can and does, run very fast.

The free (or rather l5 free hours per week) assistance given when children reach 3 is not as straightforward as it seems.. in this area it is divided by 5 (days a week) so my grandchildren who attend(ed) nursery twice a week only got 6 hours, term time only. It is open 364 days a year and if the children dont attend for any reason they still have to pay pay the full amount which i believe is nearly £70 per day. It is very expensive , much more so than the rest of europe where its been a given for years and not just for parents who go to work but for children to be able to socialise. in europe children usually start school at 7.

I had set money aside in anticipation of my children going to university/travelling etc but so far neither of them have dipped in. My daughter at 27 is now looking to go back into education - she dropped out after AS levels and had a few years of messing about before having her daughter turned her around. I've got no qualms about funding her to do this including childcare costs given I still work full time as does her dad. Who knows, when I retire I might be good for a bit of holiday cover/school pick up as long as it doesn't get in the way of my tennis.

Or rather, 'It's a thought'.

I am a 'distant' granny, so childcare has never been an issue, apart from the odd day during the holidays when I've been able to stay with them. I have put my head in the noose by agreeing to stay for a week looking after two rascals, 8 and, by that time 11, in August. I'm a bit wary because I am finding walking a bit difficult and won't have my car with me. I wish they could come and stay with me instead.It's a thought...

harrigran - good post. I agree with you. We've always told our children that we cannot take on regular childcare but are always here to help out in an emergency. School holidays seem to be 'emergencies' so we usually help out then. Neither of them have ever asked us for cash to pay for nurseries, nor would we expect them to.

Childcare is such a nightmare. DD has what most people would consider a good job, but a nursery 5 days a week would have taken almost all her salary. Yet if she didn't go back to work that would be her career gone and when she eventually started working again her income would be much lower. Sighs of relief all round when I said I would look after him.

Now her two are older I don't have them for so long, but we are paying preschool fees for DS's little boy because his partner suffers from depression, they are very short of money and they both need a break.

Mmmm....childcare is so good in Scandinavia because the taxpayer stumps up for it.

I think childcare costs are quite reasonable, really. Childminders earn a pittance considering the responsibility. And nurseries are a business, with business costs.

I agree that there should be no automatic expectation on gps to look after kids. Particularly for free.

I agree with Iam64 that nursery costs are so high in Britain compared with Scandinavia - for example full time nursery in Sweden including all food and snacks only costs just over £100 per month for children aged 1-6 - plus parents get paid time off to be home with sick children.

However I don't think parents should expect GPs to cover costs. Perhaps if you feel up to it you could offer to act as DGC's "emmergency cover" as there are bound to be days when the little one has sniffles and colds and cannot be at nursery

It was unheard of when we had our children, I would never have expected my parents to cover childcare. I gave up my job and looked after the children myself, it meant DH had to do two jobs just for us to survive but we would not have had it any other way. I do think the younger generation should think about whether they can afford childcare before having children and not just expect the grans to cope.