Shared childcare with another family can work beautifully both for children and for parents.
Children get to do normal family things, like shopping or going to the beach. Parents can find it fits in well with their work/home balance. It can also be a helpful solution when you can’t get a place at any early childhood service, or you work flexible hours.
How a shared childcare arrangement can work
Shared childcare involves connecting with another family and discussing hours and day and when you are free to care for their child, and when they are free to care for your child.
So, for example, you may provide childcare on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other family may provide it on Thursdays or Fridays or you may provide childcare for one or several mornings a week and the other family provides afternoon childcare.
No money changes hands. It is childcare but for children it does not seem like childcare because it is more like going on a play date with a friend at their friend’s house and children are included fully as a member of the family. Ideally, the children will be of similar age.
The following video by early childhood expert and mother, Dr Sarah Alexander explains more about how sharing childcare with another family can work.
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