Thank you very much for all the advice, very useful indeed!

Unless you have twins or kids close in age, first borns are "onlies" during their formative years. That said, 3 is a good age to start pre-school for socialization and you can get a college student for the afternoon. I found it slightly more expensive than just nanny or daycare all day. We pay about the same we did as preschool is much cheaper than full-time nanny.

It sounds like you are concerned about socialization because she's an only, but it sounds like you're still regretting that she doesn't have a sibling. Please know that she will be totally fine!

She is already in a nanny share, which is as close as it gets to having a sibling without actually having one at least for socialization purposes. If your nanny is able to get then out regularly, especially to things like classes or story time or meetups where they will see the same kids week to week, that is really all you need.

I don't think you need to worry about this. My DD who is also an only, stayed home with me until kindergarten. No nanny, no daycare, no preschool.

She was fine in kindergarten.

We went to a playground almost every day.

Anonymous wrote:We have our 2.5-year old daughter in a nanny share, which is going well, but would like to increase her opportunities to socialize with other kids, since she's an only (and most likely will be due to reasons out of control). However, we'd like to avoid having her in a daycare for 10 hours a day and are wondering if anyone has figured out a part-time daycare and part-time nanny setup that doesn't essentially double the cost of only going with one of the two options. Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

You can send your daughter to part-time preschool. I don't know about your area, but where I live (outside of DMV), there are a few preschool programs run by churches that cost less than half of regular preschool and per hour, comes out about the same as a nanny's pay rate. Since they're preschool, they have half and 3/4 day options. You could drop off your kid in the morning and have a PT nanny handle pick up and childcare until you are home. Total cost = same as FT nanny. Even though they are run by churches, the programs are secular in nature. In comparison, the daycares I looked into cost almost the same for half and full day care. Sounds insane, but they have enough demand for full day care that they don't need to make their half day program attractive.

We have our 2.5-year old daughter in a nanny share, which is going well, but would like to increase her opportunities to socialize with other kids, since she's an only (and most likely will be due to reasons out of control). However, we'd like to avoid having her in a daycare for 10 hours a day and are wondering if anyone has figured out a part-time daycare and part-time nanny setup that doesn't essentially double the cost of only going with one of the two options. Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.