Do you pay for FDC during Kindy/preschool hours?

[AnyDream]

For those families who have kidlets in family day who are at Kindy/Preschool, are you paying your family day carer for the hours your child is at kindy?

At the moment, my DD spends most of the day at FDC, but the carer drops her off and picks her up for 2.5 hours of kindy pre-entry. I pay for FDC during those hours. Fair enough. But next year, the kindy will be 2 x full days of kindy, plus an additional session once a fortnight. This means that DD will be at kindy for 32 hours each fortnight that the family day care lady will be charging us for (at $7.50 per hour = $240.00)



I have spoken to the FDC business centre and apparently the carer should only be charging us if "she has responsibility for the child during those hours" (eg, if child was sick, she would pick her up). So this puts me in the awkward position of having to try to negotiate to pay only for before or after care, when the carer is on a very sweet wicket to keep things as they are.

[Ginger]

that is a tricky situation, cos i guess she can't really do anything else during those hours itms?
.....but.....it seems silly that she's getting paid when she doesn't have the child in her care.

if you talk to her about it is there a chance she might not want to look after E anymore as she would rather have a child that is full-time iykwim? sorry but i just thought of that so thought i'd put it out there!

[AnyDream]

The problem is, I would still need her to pick E up on at least one of those afternoons. So I'd be asking her to swap a sweet deal of being paid for 7 hours of leisure for a day where she's getting paid for a couple of hours (after kindy care) and a vacancy for the remainder of the day that she can only fill if the other parent picks their kid up before 3pm.

[Floweryfields]

I would assume she should be providing a before and after school rate for the time she has your child before and after she takes her to kindy.
I can see where she might be coming from though with not being able to fill the spot for those hours - but has she/will she try? Or does she still fill the spot and charge you and the other parent as well?

As a LDC we do after school care, we are technically allowed 10 more children in the service after 3pm each day - we can't charge our parents for the day to hold the afterschool spot. Obviously the rules are different for LDC.

[Ginger]

yeah i totally see what you mean. its going to be hard for her to fill those hours, but like you say, she is on a sweet deal getting paid for hours where she's not really doing anything...so what is your plan?

[AnyDream]

I don't know what to do! She's such a good carer but there have been a few issues over $ in the past - for eg, I asked for shorter hours during the school hols - because I wasn't working and so we didn't need our usual early drop off. She refused. Fair enough, it's her business so gets to decide how she's going to run it, but the $$ decisions always seem to run in her favour. The fact that I've got a very easy kid who's her DD's little bestie and we're a nice family who pay on time and do the right thing doesn't seem to come into it.

If it comes to it I might have to pull E out of care altogether on those days and send her to OSHC instead - which I am loathe to do because the school is feral (sent DD1 to vac care there one time, never again) - but I don't have a lot of alternatives, unless i can scope out another kindy in the area that has a nicer OHSC associated with it.

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE SO FRICKKEN COMPLICATED (and EXPENSIVE)!!?!!

[Amity]

I had to pay for the full day when DS went to kindy. For two years. It sucks.

[Astrid]

Feel for you with this.

Last year I had a short stint working. I was using FDC for both girls, and DD1 also had kinder. Thankfully she did not charge me for the hours DD1 was at kinder and she could have technically charged me an extra fee per pickup/drop off. I assume she was fine with it as DD2 was in her care during that time. Technically she could have had another child during in her care during the kinder hours. I know there were a number of days where she was juggling a shift of kids during the day, then the after school care. She was a bit funny when I did cut back hours from 5:30 to 4:30.

I don't think it is fair for her to charge for the weekly sessions when your DD is at kinder, but it is probably fair for the session that is not every week. It would be rather hard for her to fill a day on alternating weeks.

Best of luck. I always hated discussing money with the FD carer, I find it much easier dealing with LDC.

[CeCe]

We've recently been looking into FDC and were told that we negotiated the contracted hours, so wouldn't that mean, next year you'd be able to drop the two days and therefore not pay? Or is that just the way our local one works?

[AnyDream]

CC, yeah if I wanted to pull her out altogether on those days that would be ok FDC wise but I still need someone to pick E up in the afternoons. We're hanging on the brink of financial disaster as it is so reducing my hours to somehow accommodate is not really an option.

[The[cookie]Doctor]

MD is looking at CC with incorporated pre-school an option instead? At $7.50 an hour a CC day would be not too dissimilar in cost.. (that said costs are due to rise)

[Astrid]

MD is looking at CC with incorporated pre-school an option instead? At $7.50 an hour a CC day would be not too dissimilar in cost.. (that said costs are due to rise)

I will be doing that next time around with DD2, rather than trying to juggle kinder and some form of childcare.

[AnyDream]

MD is looking at CC with incorporated pre-school an option instead? At $7.50 an hour a CC day would be not too dissimilar in cost.. (that said costs are due to rise)

I'm not convinced of the quality of the "education" delivered in long day child care. Plus our last attempt at CC was a total disaster.