I was indeed asking because "everyone" seems to opt for Community Kinder...when it works for them and to be honest, I was feeling guilty that we weren't going down that path because we both work.

After reading these posts, I took a hard look at the hours offered in the Community Kinder program and they are too all over the place (as per Astrid's comment) to make it work. I've run some numbers and total care cost for our 2 children if I had to work around the Community Kinder hours...and this is taking into account the 1 day they actually have after hours care until 4...and the fact that my little one will need all day care (right now we do a combo of daycare days and nanny days for both) by hiring a babysitter as well as having a sitter/nanny during school holidays would be just about the same as having my toddler attend a private ELC for 4 year old kinder while my little one had a combo of nanny/daycare - and on nanny days, the 4 year old would not need after school care. The after hours care fees at the ELC are reasonable, and cover the same extended hours as daycare...plus they have a school holiday care program also at a reasonable fee (perhaps the private schools assume both parents work whereas the community kinders still assume there is a parent at home). I could not believe this, but I double checked my numbers and it is so. If we just had 1 child, it would work out completely differently as we would only need after kinder hours care on 2 days and then daycare or sitter on another 2 days.

So I guess I'll do what is suggested - pay close attention to what 3 year old kinder is like at the daycare and maybe ask to speak to a 4 year old kinder parent next year. Daycare kinder will be so much easier for us as we can keep what we know - 3 days daycare/2 days nanny and both children will be at the same daycare on the same days. DS1 will not have the sense of "change" to start school, but on the plus side, he's very happy there and we are happy with the center too.

As for what we will do when DS1 is ready for school...his first year will be when DS2 starts 3 year old kinder so we will need to figure it out...we both plan on remaining employed to the extent it's up to us, so we will patch together nanny care/after hours care along with daycare/nanny/kinder combo for the little one. And we hope to each have 1 day/week where we can leave work by 3ish.

Clearly, the people in charge do not understand how hard it is to juggle these programs with workplace hours and both my husband and I have about an hour of flexibility around start/end times...but even this doesn't free us up to deal with the community kinder hours.