OcUK Dadsnet thread

ci_newman said:
Sure, but the person I was responding to was asking for opinions on the flu vaccine. Unless there are legitimate worries or concerns, it's not a big deal
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Oh I agree it's not a big deal whichever choice he makes. :)


Back on topic I'm very proud of both of mine.. they came and swam.with me in the Atlantic ocean. First time they've been in the ocean. Lots of seas in the past but this was more tricky owing to the waves and it was a little cool. They lasted 30mins! :cool:
 
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Hello fellow Dads. I come in search of car seat recommendations. My eldest is moving on past her Maxi Cosi Axiss (youngest is just ready to go in to it, result!) and I'm therefore looking for her final seat up to 12/whatever kg it is. Pls help me, car seats are irritating to research.
 
That looks good tbf. We opted for a rotating chair so it was a little easier to deal with the shoulder straps, I didn't know there was a way to just skip them entirely! How does your smol deal with the big cushion, just a non-issue?
 
Hah, that's quite a fun car seat.

I went to Smyth's toys - ended up with an exdisplay maxi Cosi. Works great - we are now onto actual seat belt vs. straps. Should last her a while.

Inb4 rear facing till theyre 15.
 
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Zefan said:
Hello fellow Dads. I come in search of car seat recommendations. My eldest is moving on past her Maxi Cosi Axiss (youngest is just ready to go in to it, result!) and I'm therefore looking for her final seat up to 12/whatever kg it is. Pls help me, car seats are irritating to research.
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We went for the Axkid Minikid 2, that will last them until they are old enough to safely forward face.
 
dlockers said:
Hah, that's quite a fun car seat.

I went to Smyth's toys - ended up with an exdisplay maxi Cosi. Works great - we are now onto actual seat belt vs. straps. Should last her a while.

Inb4 rear facing till theyre 15.
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:cry:. Backed boosters save so much more space compared to those harnesses ones. Much cheaper too.
 
Zefan said:
Hello fellow Dads. I come in search of car seat recommendations. My eldest is moving on past her Maxi Cosi Axiss (youngest is just ready to go in to it, result!) and I'm therefore looking for her final seat up to 12/whatever kg it is. Pls help me, car seats are irritating to research.
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Ours went through three.
The baby one from the travel system. Then once big enough a joie spin 360.
Then once outgrown that, this one :

Joie Baby I-Irvana Car Seat, Shale

Buy Joie Baby I-Irvana Car Seat, Shale from our Car Seats range at John Lewis & Partners. Free Delivery on orders over £50.
www.johnlewis.com www.johnlewis.com
We have at least one of these, Think we paid half this for a similar model that uses isofix hooks for the others, (hard to remember exactly we have 4, two in each car!)

The only thing about looking at up to 12 seats I would mention is a lot drop the isofix. Meaning depending on the car / model they can shift about it if not restrapped in when the kids aren't sat in them.
 
dlockers said:
Hah, that's quite a fun car seat.

I went to Smyth's toys - ended up with an exdisplay maxi Cosi. Works great - we are now onto actual seat belt vs. straps. Should last her a while.

Inb4 rear facing till theyre 15.
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I drive rear facing. Don't know what you mean.... :D

We use Joie seats here but even my youngest is almost at seatbelt only. We weren't bothered about removing the car seat many times, just something that was easy to get them in and out of.

We never bought into the spinning ones or the highly complex ones.

@Zefan what are your priorities? Easy removal of seat? One and done? From what I understand you want to get one that your youngest can move into when your eldest is on a booster or seatbelt only?
 
We need to start the whole potty training for our son (He's 2.5yrs ) something new for the whole family.

He tells us when he has soiled his nappy and when it's wet; so I believe he is "ready" - we've bought him his own potty to sit on.

Any tips / tricks?
 
Priapus said:
We need to start the whole potty training for our son (He's 2.5yrs ) something new for the whole family.

He tells us when he has soiled his nappy and when it's wet; so I believe he is "ready" - we've bought him his own potty to sit on.

Any tips / tricks?
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We stuck at home for a few days all day and had them running about in pants with potties around and asked frequently for them to try and that seemed to work as both got it within days.
 
Does anyone know how the 30 hours free childcare from 9 months will work? I haven't used the scheme for a while. I remember it being a top-up of £5.63 * 30 hrs * 38 weeks. I can't seem to find the £5.63 figure anywhere though.

And it'll be first happening in 2025 that 9 months are eligible for 30. Is this all still correct?
 
In terms of the £5.63 you're mentioning, I think that's the meal and activity top up amount. Using ours as a reference, the free hours are for the setting only. We have to pay £13.80 per day for food and activities.

Every nursery implements it slightly differently. In our case, the nursery day is 10.5 hours, but they only allocate a maximum of 9 hours of funded care per day.

After that, everything is done on an hourly basis, and they'll likely send you a LOOOOOOONG invoice detailing everything.

One thing to keep track of - we have our boy in for 2 days a week. Due to the way they work it out, because we only have the second day partially funded, the pro rata rate actually makes the second day cost more when part funded, rather than just paying it out right ourselves. Saved us £60 a month having realised that. Definitely run the numbers if you can to make sure you're only being bent over and ****** as much as you need to be :D
 
dav3evans said:
In terms of the £5.63 you're mentioning, I think that's the meal and activity top up amount. Using ours as a reference, the free hours are for the setting only. We have to pay £13.80 per day for food and activities.

Every nursery implements it slightly differently. In our case, the nursery day is 10.5 hours, but they only allocate a maximum of 9 hours of funded care per day.

After that, everything is done on an hourly basis, and they'll likely send you a LOOOOOOONG invoice detailing everything.

One thing to keep track of - we have our boy in for 2 days a week. Due to the way they work it out, because we only have the second day partially funded, the pro rata rate actually makes the second day cost more when part funded, rather than just paying it out right ourselves. Saved us £60 a month having realised that. Definitely run the numbers if you can to make sure you're only being bent over and ****** as much as you need to be :D
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Yeah I had my girl in childcare till August this year; I just can't remember how much the government top-up accounted for. Are you saying it is hidden on your invoice?

Edit: just remembered whilst the invoice doesn't say, I was sent the "calculation" spreadsheet ages ago. Government hours were paid at £5.47/hour, so I topped up £2.53 to get to £8/hour.

They now charge a full day vs. hourly, so I'd be paying £10/hour roughly. Oof
 
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Not so much hidden, just hard to read based on how the nursery choose to work it out, as each setting has the freedom to decide on how they want the funding to be allocated.

As a very simple example, if your nursery day was 10 hours, but they only allowed you to use 9 hours of funding per day, you'd have to pay for an additional hour to make up the short fall each day, plus the food and activity fees.

I think it's a **** way of doing it, because people who are really struggling to cover costs still have to pay something for each day their kid is at nursery. 15 hours could theoretically be 1.5 "free" days per week, but it doesn't work out that way.
 
dav3evans said:
Not so much hidden, just hard to read based on how the nursery choose to work it out, as each setting has the freedom to decide on how they want the funding to be allocated.

As a very simple example, if your nursery day was 10 hours, but they only allowed you to use 9 hours of funding per day, you'd have to pay for an additional hour to make up the short fall each day, plus the food and activity fees.

I think it's a **** way of doing it, because people who are really struggling to cover costs still have to pay something for each day their kid is at nursery. 15 hours could theoretically be 1.5 "free" days per week, but it doesn't work out that way.
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Maybe I am not being clear - whether they allocate it to one day, or across many, I don't care - I want to know much 30 hours multiplied by 38 multiplied by £x is. I need to pay it regardless, so that's just a cashflow issue.
 
Ah right. As the govt doesn’t put a value on the hour as all nurseries charge different amounts, I didn’t look at it from that perspective.

Based on what you’ve said above though, if you ask your nursery for their hourly rate when calculating funded hours, they can tell you and that’ll go into the formula above, and give you a number for what the hours are worth. There isn’t a specific answer to your question.
 
dlockers said:
Maybe I am not being clear - whether they allocate it to one day, or across many, I don't care - I want to know much 30 hours multiplied by 38 multiplied by £x is. I need to pay it regardless, so that's just a cashflow issue.
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Our nursery just has a fee table with a rate by age and then a reduced rate for the same age but for the universal funding which from memory was about £400 less a month - yours must have something similar?

I just accepted getting any discount of the colossal cost of our nursery bill was good. It was clearly not ‘free childcare’ and I think government would be better to just say it’s subsidising it slightly than all this nonsense of signing extra agreements for stuff. Especially given some people unfortunately assume it’s actually free childcare and are bitterly disappointed.
 
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