Moms who work - best part-time schedule for work and daycare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As far as childcare expenses go, there really is no such thing as PT care. I pay for FT childcare, it is marginally more expensive than a PT plan and offers me tons of flexibility. Unfortunatly, one has to have a pretty generous PT comp plan to support FT chilcare.

OP here - this is my big concern. I think the best plan for me would still be to work 4 days a week, 5 hours a day, but would probably need to line up full time care in case I had to stay late or come in for a while on the 5th day to catch up or whatever. I'm not sure that once I subtract full-time care from a part-time job it's financially worth doing. That said, my motivation is only partly financial but is mostly career-related - I haven't been working for a few years now and want to get back into the game before it gets even harder. So maybe then it wouldn't really matter as long as we were bringing in a little money or at least breaking even....

[Anonymous]

I worked 20 hours a week, three days, each about 6.5 hours. this was ideal for me. I had two days completely home with my dd and on the other days was home before traffic got too crazy and was able to take a walk, go to the playground, do something with my dd before dinner.

In thinking about child care, a nanny share might give you flexibility and not have you pay for too many hours you don't use.

Finally, you are right to be thinking about the benefits to working in addition to your take home pay... retirement contributions and healthcare benefits make my part time position worthwhile for our family, even though the pay check barely covers the child care.

Good luck!