Melbourne childcare centre to offer late-night opening hours to help busy parents

BUSY parents doing long hours in the office has sparked a Melbourne childcare centre to offer late-night opening hours to cope with demand to look after kids around the clock.

Verity Bender, Kathryn Cheesman (teacher) and Oscar Diep making banana bread. Picture: Josie Hayden

BUSY parents doing long hours in the office has sparked a Melbourne childcare centre to offer late-night opening hours to cope with demand to look after kids around the clock.

And now Genius Childcare in Melbourne’s CBD is considering rolling out 24-hour care to assist parents doing shiftwork and professionals required to work beyond the standard 9 to 5 work day.

The centre’s director Beth Stilo said children can be dropped off from 6.30am and be picked up as late as 8pm but this could just be the start of much longer childcare hours.

She said they have the opportunity to use a 24-hour licence to boost these hours even further and allow kids to sleepover.

“There are a lot of parents in different roles who send their kids here, like a personal trainer who wants longer childcare hours as he has a lot of clients in the evening,” she said.

“We have parents who are lawyers and work late, and some that own restaurants.

“It’s a common trait with work these days, especially if you are passionate about your job, that you will stay back, and parents want extended hours. Everything is taken care of, all they need to do is take their kids home to bed.”

She said they enrolled kids as young as six weeks to the age of six, and can put children down for a sleep if they show signs of tiredness.

“We take into consideration their routines and message parents through an app first to check if it’s OK,” she said.

“We have a direct link with parents throughout the day and send them pictures, updates, nappy changes ... they get about 10 posts a day.”

She said kids who stayed later were usually dropped off after 9am.

An Australian Institute of Family Studies report last year found working parents wanted childcare that was open on weekends and overnight and allowed them to buy care by the hour.

But the survey of more than 400 parents who worked non-standard hours showed high-quality, flexible childcare that operated when parents were ­actually working was still not a reality.

The Genius centre also runs a range of programs from sports including AFL, soccer, tennis, yoga, lacrosse and hockey, to food and nutrition, coding, robotics and Mandarin classes.

Father Ian Dickson said it was the only centre he could find with extended hours for his 12-month-old daughter Lilith.

“My partner and I both work in roles where you could get called in at awkward hours, or get delayed at work and have to stay back,” he said.

“At the moment we usually pick her up around 4.30/5 but in future we may need to keep in her care later.”