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Just the ticket for the 24-hour economy: All-night childcare

LONDON — It is 6.30pm on Friday. As millions down their proverbial tools, don their glad rags or slump in front of the television, in a Victorian house in Catford, south-east London, some are gearing up to work. Here, amid brightly coloured building blocks and finger paints, Ms Maria Quiroga, the manager of Baytree House nursery, is shepherding a trio of three-year-olds into the bathroom to brush their teeth. Upstairs, toddler-sized beds are made and storybooks chosen.

Standard childcare hours tend to be 7am to 7pm or, more typically, 8am to 6pm. But a 2011 report by the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, described atypical working hours 

as the norm. Photo: Thinkstock

Standard childcare hours tend to be 7am to 7pm or, more typically, 8am to 6pm. But a 2011 report by the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, described atypical working hours

as the norm. Photo: Thinkstock

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LONDON — It is 6.30pm on Friday. As millions down their proverbial tools, don their glad rags or slump in front of the television, in a Victorian house in Catford, south-east London, some are gearing up to work. Here, amid brightly coloured building blocks and finger paints, Ms Maria Quiroga, the manager of Baytree House nursery, is shepherding a trio of three-year-olds into the bathroom to brush their teeth. Upstairs, toddler-sized beds are made and storybooks chosen.

These children have been dropped off by their parents, who work at night. The nursery offers 24-hour childcare seven days a week, in response to shifting working patterns. While standard childcare hours tend to be 7am to 7pm or, more typically, 8am to 6pm, this nursery wants to accommodate parents’ hours by taking children at 6am and allowing pickups as late as midnight. In a few cases, as with the children being cajoled into bed tonight, they sleep overnight on the premises.

Crop-haired, wearing metallic green eyeshadow and a high-visibility jacket, Ms Jolanta Gut-Nidecka, from Poland, has dropped off her son Wojciech. Blond-haired and bilingual, he is busy stencilling an octopus. When he tells his peers he does not like Peppa Pig, they scrunch their faces up with disgust.

Without the nursery’s flexibility, Ms Gut-Nidecka says she would have found working for Go Ahead, the train and bus operator, next to impossible. Previously a bus driver, the 33-year-old now works in the garage, overseeing stock. “Sometimes I’m working 4pm to 11pm or 1am; sometimes earlier. If I want to bring my boy in at 4am, no problem.”

While her son chiefly attends nursery during conventional hours, when she and her carpenter husband are both working the late shift, Wojciech stays at the nursery. “He’s my baby. Obviously I miss him. (But) I know he’s safe. Sometimes he doesn’t want to go back home. He loves this place.”

EXTREME CHILDCARE A NEW CONCEPT IN EUROPE

Ms Dai’za De’Chanel is picking up her daughter, Canadiana. She values the weekend opening and the fact that she can book her daughter in for long days at short notice. The 37-year-old mother of four (the other children are 19, 14 and eight) is a beautician who does manicures, facials and massages at her clients’ homes.

“I’m self-employed,” she says. “I have to work when I get a booking. (My daughter is) happy, her best friend’s here. I love the flexibility.” Canadiana will return on Saturday morning so that Ms De’Chanel can work. “I know it’s long hours, but they have so much activity.” If a client pays £50 (S$103) an hour, it makes the £6-an-hour nursery fees affordable.

A 2011 report by the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank , described atypical working hours as the norm. At least one partner in 75 per cent of families on low-to-middle incomes and in 91 per cent of families on higher incomes “works outside the hours of 8am to 6pm, once thought of as the normal working day”, it found. Others work shifts that change from week to week and cannot easily be accommodated by childcare providers that require pre-booking.

High-earning lawyers or bankers who work into the night may have the funds to pay a nanny or to enable a partner to stay at home. Yet, for many shift workers driving the 24-hour economy and the self-employed who are grabbing work where they can, there are few options for flexible childcare at an affordable price.

Dubbed “extreme childcare” by some commentators in the United States, such facilities are a new concept in Europe. Baytree House nursery opened through the night in 2012, after Ms Quiroga became convinced that modern working patterns required longer and more flexible childcare hours. The 53-year-old, who worked as a teacher in her home country, Bolivia, says she would have appreciated this kind of service herself when her children were younger. After her husband died nine years ago, she had to juggle work and their five children (now aged between 11 and 31).

Among the first to sign up three years ago was a north London family. Unable to find such flexible, local childcare, the parents — a nightclub worker and security company owner — crossed London to the nursery before going to work in the City. The girl, used to her parents’ night-owl lifestyle, never slept at night, meaning that the nursery worker was on the go until the early hours: Dancing, singing, playing.

Another regular then was a blind six-month-old baby who could not easily distinguish night from day and would be up through the night. His working parents booked him in twice a week in order to recuperate.

Yet, nighttime take-up has not been as high as anticipated, so the indefatigable and entrepreneurial Ms Quiroga has scaled back her ambitions for the time being. Now, only children who come in the day can stay over occasionally. One child, for example, stayed two nights and two days in a row while his parents travelled for work. The weekends, however, are bustling: The 22 places are filled, with many waiting for spaces to open up. One regular customer is a father who works nights all week and sleeps on Saturdays.

Babies can only attend the nursery at three months, but Ms Quiroga says many self-employed parents ask if they can bring their infants younger.

Ms Quiroga — who comes to the nursery seven days a week, sometimes with her children — believes the low demand for overnight stays is due to guilt. “People aren’t used to the idea. It’s something new.” She recalls a mum whose friend asked how she could bear to leave her child overnight. “It really affected her.”

For this reason, Ms Janet Hogman, Baytree House’s proprietor, who owns two other nurseries, would love others to offer nocturnal childcare in order to change attitudes. She worries about the impact on children’s health of being picked up at 11pm after their parents’ shift has finished, rather than being allowed to stay over at the nursery. “They need to sleep. Maybe I’m more traditional?”

The problem is with the parents, rather than the children, for whom the nursery is a second home, says Ms Quiroga.

“We really love them,” she says. “We see the first steps. We prepare them to go for big school. When they are leaving (for school), I cry. I have to run away from the parents as I don’t want them to see me cry — it’s not professional.” THE FINANCIAL TIMES

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