its such a difficult decision, but we have just thrown ourselves another spanner in the works by deciding to try for number 2 at the end of the year, so DD will probably stick to child care's kinder program now.

has anyone got 2 kids and work full time?

im thinking ill take 6 months off whenever i have number 2 so they will both go to child care but work is flexible.
ill get a return to work bonus of 3 months wages which i can choose to get in a lump sum to offset child care fees or i can choose to work say 3 or 4 days a week and still be paid full time.
im not sure what option to take!
In terms of the lump sum vs 3 or 4 days a week - you would have to do the calculations - but with the child care rebate cap you basically get rebate for 3 ish days the other two days you pay full fees - so your fees for 3 to 4 days will be far less than 5 days - so that accompanied by getting the day or two at home I would probably go for the part-time - depends on the figures really and how much you need the money. Of course they might up the rebate cap between now and you needing to decide or other childcare things could change due to election so calculations now might not be true about the future.

I don't work full-time officially but I have worked some full-time weeks on this contract (my mum is over from UK so fills in the two days where I don't have childcare) which is up in July, after that I may need to look at full time again. At the moment though financially I am not sure is beneficial working full time from a money perspective because of the full time childcare fees for two (41K) and also I really dislike not the fact they are at childcare everyday as such but the rushing around and so little home time because of it (e.g. we leave home at 7:15ish, we get home 18:00). Maybe if I can sort shorter hours 5 days a week and come up with some way of reducing amount spend on childcare then that would work better. Or if I could find a job with very short travel time.

Astrid - You see I earn same as DH even though I am part time to his full time - but I am contracting so doesn't directly equate anyway - also it has taken him a long time to get into the area he has and he always used to take the back seat to my job, so on the one hand I feel it is his turn to put his first but need to balance that against the need for money and contracting you are expected to put in your daily hours and then some in most roles. Also his role is only till end of Q1 2015. I hadn't even considered school holidays and what will do then. It makes my brain hurt trying to work out what will work best all round - July isn't that far away and I want to make sure I do the right thing.