Returning to Work After Mat Leave in BC: The Childcare Decision

The hard part of going back to work is rarely the work. It is that the childcare arrangement has to be settled months before the return date, at the point in your life when you have the least capacity to research anything.

**A note on what this post does not cover.** Entitlements, benefit amounts and leave durations are federal and provincial policy and they change. This post deliberately quotes none of them. For benefits, that is Service Canada; for job-protected leave, the BC Employment Standards Branch. Both will give you a current answer, which a blog post cannot.

What follows is the childcare half of the decision.

The realistic options

**Licensed daycare or a childcare centre.** Usually the lowest cost per hour and the most structured. The constraint is availability — in much of the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, waitlists are the deciding factor rather than preference. If this is your first choice, get on lists early, and on more than one.

**A nanny, placed through an agency or hired directly.** One caregiver, in your home, on your schedule. More expensive per hour than a centre and dramatically more flexible — no drop-off, no exclusion policy when your child is mildly unwell, no closing time. Puffin's placement is a one-time fee of $500 for under three months or $1,000 for three months or longer.

**A nanny share.** Two families, one nanny, split cost. Genuinely cheaper, and it works well when both families want the same hours and get along. It fails on the mismatch, so agree in writing what happens if one family's needs change.

**Hourly care, as the bridge.** Not a permanent answer but often the right one for the gap — the weeks between your return date and a daycare spot opening, or a phased return. Standard childcare is $32/hr for children 12 months and over, $38/hr if a child under 12 months is present, three-hour minimum.

**Family.** Frequently the actual plan, rarely written down. If a grandparent is doing three days a week, it is worth being as explicit about expectations as you would be with someone you paid.

When each needs deciding

Work backwards from the return date:

**Six months out** — get on daycare waitlists if that is your preference. This is the single most time-sensitive item and the one most often left late.

**Two to three months out** — start a nanny search if that is the route. Placement runs on a 7–10 business day matching timeline once your profile is in, but you want interviews, a decision, and notice periods inside the window, not on top of it.

**One month out** — book the transition. See below.

**Two weeks out** — settle the logistics nobody thinks about: who does pickup if you are in a meeting, what happens on a sick day, and who the backup is.

The transition weeks families underestimate

Two things reliably go wrong, and both are foreseeable.

**Your child needs a run-in.** Starting a new caregiver on the same morning you start back at work asks a lot of everyone. A few short overlapping sessions beforehand — with you in the house, then out of it — costs a handful of hours and makes the first real day ordinary rather than traumatic.

**The first illness arrives fast.** New settings mean new bugs, usually within the first month. Daycare exclusion policies commonly keep a child home for more than a day, and that will collide with your return. Decide now who covers it.

The employment question, if you hire a nanny

Worth understanding before you choose, not after: if you employ a nanny directly, you are generally the employer — payroll, remittances, employment standards, and the workers' compensation question. If you book hourly care through Puffin, the caregiver is Puffin's employee and none of that is yours.