Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think preschool is very important for K readiness. But I think you should be able to find a part time program for relatively cheap. If not a full time program, look at community classes that are like "preschool prep" and they are a drop off program for 2 hours.

I disagree that "library hour" is the same thing - not at all. You want your child to be in an unfamiliar setting and getting used to interacting with other kids and listening to other adults.

I think she will lag behind her peers if you don't send her to something!

To OP's earlier point, I think, there's no real denial that her daughter will be a bit behind at first, but the question is sort of "does that matter" and "behind for how long". Two questions I respect in this age of so many parents thinking their kid has to be at the top of everything. Sure, her DD may struggle a bit more with the adjustment to K than most of her peers, but is that alone reason for the family to stretch beyond their financial comfort zone. I don't think that lag is insurmountable, or even more of a couple of weeks transition -- akin to what many kids experience for the first time with preschool. Alone, the desire to prevent that short lag shouldn't compel a family to stretch beyond their comfort zone, in my opinion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are correct, OP, and I also WAH FT and DH works from home at least twice a week so we stretched for a nanny, too ( though never stopped retirement contributions!). And the kids started PT preschool at a co-op in a church basement at 3 and we kept the nanny. BUT, we stopped at 3 kids because we could not afford to do all this with 3 kids. I don’t understand how you seem to think kid #3 will not cost you anything.

I don't think they will cost nothing but adding #3 is not like starting from scratch. Especially with our nanny. We have all the stuff, I have clothing for boys and girls. There are long term costs like college but we are saving for that and they have very generous grandparents who have already significantly funded their 529s without taking into account our contributions. Diapers will be a net of zero as DD just stopped using them a few months ago. DS will be on his way out when baby comes. Biggest cost will be formula with is not insignificant but DD will be in K by then.

JFC - it is two more whole years of the nanny. Conservatively, it's an extra $50,000, and that's if you pay your nanny a ridiculously low amount.

The local community daycare program starts at age 3. When #3 turns 3 (theoretically) we would put them into the community preschool full day program for age 3 and 4 and some aftercare because agreed it would not make sense to pay for a nanny for a single child and most of the benefits of being at home with us all the time start to fade a bit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are correct, OP, and I also WAH FT and DH works from home at least twice a week so we stretched for a nanny, too ( though never stopped retirement contributions!). And the kids started PT preschool at a co-op in a church basement at 3 and we kept the nanny. BUT, we stopped at 3 kids because we could not afford to do all this with 3 kids. I don’t understand how you seem to think kid #3 will not cost you anything.

I don't think they will cost nothing but adding #3 is not like starting from scratch. Especially with our nanny. We have all the stuff, I have clothing for boys and girls. There are long term costs like college but we are saving for that and they have very generous grandparents who have already significantly funded their 529s without taking into account our contributions. Diapers will be a net of zero as DD just stopped using them a few months ago. DS will be on his way out when baby comes. Biggest cost will be formula with is not insignificant but DD will be in K by then.

JFC - it is two more whole years of the nanny. Conservatively, it's an extra $50,000, and that's if you pay your nanny a ridiculously low amount.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are correct, OP, and I also WAH FT and DH works from home at least twice a week so we stretched for a nanny, too ( though never stopped retirement contributions!). And the kids started PT preschool at a co-op in a church basement at 3 and we kept the nanny. BUT, we stopped at 3 kids because we could not afford to do all this with 3 kids. I don’t understand how you seem to think kid #3 will not cost you anything.

I don't think they will cost nothing but adding #3 is not like starting from scratch. Especially with our nanny. We have all the stuff, I have clothing for boys and girls. There are long term costs like college but we are saving for that and they have very generous grandparents who have already significantly funded their 529s without taking into account our contributions. Diapers will be a net of zero as DD just stopped using them a few months ago. DS will be on his way out when baby comes. Biggest cost will be formula with is not insignificant but DD will be in K by then.

Anonymous wrote:I think preschool is very important for K readiness. But I think you should be able to find a part time program for relatively cheap. If not a full time program, look at community classes that are like "preschool prep" and they are a drop off program for 2 hours.

I disagree that "library hour" is the same thing - not at all. You want your child to be in an unfamiliar setting and getting used to interacting with other kids and listening to other adults.

I think she will lag behind her peers if you don't send her to something!

Anonymous wrote:You are correct, OP, and I also WAH FT and DH works from home at least twice a week so we stretched for a nanny, too ( though never stopped retirement contributions!). And the kids started PT preschool at a co-op in a church basement at 3 and we kept the nanny. BUT, we stopped at 3 kids because we could not afford to do all this with 3 kids. I don’t understand how you seem to think kid #3 will not cost you anything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bigger concern is that you're spending "every spare dollar" on your nanny, yet you're planning to have a third child. Unless you're expecting salary increases soon, how are you going to afford #3 if you can't even shell out an extra $300/mo to help your already born child prepare for K?

I feel like people are very cavalier about money on this board. We are not struggling, and I guess it is exaggerating to say every spare dollar goes to nanny. But currently our fixed monthly expenses are about 65% of our income. And that doesn't include food or household expenses or repairs.

I don't want to say that we cannot afford another $300 a month payment. I'm just not sure it is responsible to. It is not that we can't afford a third child. We just can't afford to have a third child and pay for them all to have a preschool experience. Or we could, but the family might struggle a bit. I think keeping the family fiscally comfortable ALSO provides a significant benefit to my daughter, although one much less solid.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. When PP put the math out there like that, I see what she's saying. In my mind adding another $300 a month is very stressful, but not really that much when you add it up for just one year. It has definitely put it in perspective and given me something to think about.

No offense, OP, but you have stopped your husband's retirement contributions in order to pay for this childcare situation. It's not that other arrangements wouldn't provide excellent childcare (and also much of the socialization you seem to wan now), it's that you really wanted a nanny, so you stopped making the retirement contributions that will do the most good in the long run. Now, you're talking about limiting *your* retirement contributions, as well - you blew by "responsible" a while ago, and you're headed towards lunacy.

You can't afford preschool. You can't really afford the nanny either. And you probably can't afford a third (although this is where a nanny does come in handy, at least initially, because there's only a limited cost to add a third - but you're talking about another 2 years of the nanny, and presumably no DH retirement contributions).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to disagree with most of the other posters.

I agree that the nanny can teach all of the academics that would be covered in preschool but your DD would be missing the critical social and classroom time that is necessary before starting K. Learning how to sit through circle time, line up to go outside, listen to a variety of adults, share toys and materials with classmates, etc etc. I was a K teacher for 10 years and parents really underestimate the social prep kids need. I can teach reading and math to any kid that’s behind but for kids that don’t know the structure of a classroom it’s very obvious and they often struggle.

Genuine question. They will have the same struggle whenever they start though right? It would be an adjustment its just whether that happens at age 4 or age 5? I assume the kids are basically ok by first grade.

But wouldn’t you want them to learn this in a 3 hour morning preschool versus all day K.

Also, for those whose kids go to daycare I wouldn’t worry about not doing “preschool”. Most daycares are doing the same thing as the so called preschools for 3-4 year olds.

I mean ideally yes but I guess my question is is sparing her a difficult first two month of kindergarten worth stretching our family very thin?

OP, if you can’t spare a couple hundred dollars a month for part time church preschool, why on earth are you having a third kid? And your husband isn’t contributing to retirement to pay for nanny? Stop at 2. It’s all you can (barely!) afford!!!

No, as I explained earlier kind of, it is what we can afford responsibly. What we can afford while maintaining an emergency fund and contributing to retirement and not stretching the family thin. This would make me worried and cause us to move stuff around but it wouldn't be impossible or result in us being homeless or anything.

And this extraordinary cost will be gone in 5 years.

Anonymous wrote:How people do it is that they don't pay for both a full-time nanny and preschool--they put the children in a good play-based daycare program that has preschool components/programming for part of the day from ages 3+.

That doesn't sound like something you'd want to do--it sounds like you like and want to keep the nanny--but this is what most of the people I know do.