Keeping kid #1 in daycare for a few days a week while on mat leave with #2?

Now to preface this, I live in Canada where we get up to a year off. I count myself so fortunate for this every time I see the posts from mothers returning to work at 6 weeks. That being said, the EI payments we get are less than half of my regular pay so I still need to plan ahead and save. If this was just a matter of paying for daycare an extra couple months I probably wouldn't bother pulling himout for such a short time.As it stands now with our budget and cutting costs where we can, if I just kept my son home when on mat leave with kid #2, and lose his place there with the intention of finding someplace new for both of them when I return to work, we'd only need to save up 2200$ to supplement what I get with mat leave.If I keep him in for the minimum 8 days a month, plus pay a 200$/month holding fee for his new sibling to both go there we'd need 5700$ saved up. This would be the ideal situation because he really loves it there. He's excited to go and always looks so happy playing in the pictures she sends. It would also be great to get a few days a week break from having two kids at once, and it would give him some much needed stimulation during a time that I'd otherwise likely have a lot of cartoons on instead. Not to mention that we just feel really good about him being there. The home is kept super clean, there's another boy just a few months older than my son, the woman who runs it is so flexible, she doesn't mind or charge extra if there's traffic and we're a bit late picking him up, and he just is always excited to be there.The in between options would be just pay for the couple days a week, not the holding fee for baby #2, and if there isn't space by the time I go back to work (very likely) move them both someplace else. The other would be to just pay the holding fee for both of them for the year, keep him home, but have them both keep going there when I go back to work.I keep going back and forth over all these options and wonder how much I value him being there, if it's up to a 3500$ difference for the year. I'm wondering what everyone else would do via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2lWdI7O