That two parents working doesn’t work

A cleaner every day! Lol 😂

You're so lucky to have a cleaner and a playroom!

One thing I would definitely do in your position is have a cleaner in every day. I would want her to tidy as well and do the beds etc and maybe start to prepare the dinner. If you could fix so that the only thing you have to worry about in the evenings, is the children than that would make your life a lot easier.

Of course it's in their best interests. A roof over their head, food in their tummies, if the alternative is a miserable parent at home because work is good for their mental health etc.

Again, I did not say full time. Most are not. We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m
a nursery teacher with 4 years in uni, and I worked as a nanny in England going to endless playgroups. Nothing wrong with either of them, but it’s quite silly even to compare. You underestimate toddlers.

They don't need to be in nursery full time for years to be ready for school. A few hours playgroup a few days a week from maybe age 3 is fine, plus you socialise and prepare them for school yourself. These are babies / toddlers.

Not everone has to be there all day every day. Most are not. You have funny views not based on reality. You might find that your child won’t cope as well when school comes. Then you will likely blame the teachers..
Common sense and all that.

I doubt doubt the professionalism of staff, but this is not really the point. Under 2 year-olds don't need to learn to 'socialise' - they are still playing side by side at that age and, even if they are developing some basic social skills, they don't need to be learning this all day! A few play dates at home, or mum / dad taking them to the play park or whatever is more natural. A parent can read to them and play. They also need down time and space (and I don't mean scheduled naps with all the other kids - it's not the same). 8-5 or similar is a long m, intense day for an adult - let alone a baby / toddler. A half day several days a week from the age of 2.5 or 3 years is more than enough - but not 5 full days a week. It's too much and too rigid to be in the same environment with the same kids for years at that very young age. It's institutionalising. Plenty of time for all that when school comes, and it does soon enough. Its not in children's interests - its parent's convenience. Fair enough, but let's not pretend otherwise because it's common sense.

Being homeless and hungry doesn't work either

(sorry for spelling mistakes, no editing button!)

And I did live in England for a few years, working in s nursery. It’s not to compare, and I can safely say I would not swap. There is a reason nurseries an universities educating nursery teachers (3,5 years) in Scandinavia are frequently visited by Btitish teachers.

Time has told, again and again though? Among the happiest people on earth. Happy with what we have, don’t need more. Just fresh air. Don’t need to convince anyone either tbh, it’s certainly a good life for adults and children especially.

Yeah, nursery teacher in Scandinavia here. I can assure you it’s pretty great and many kids rarely even want to go home when they are picked up. Not even me sometimes. Lovely job, very outdoorsy. Yes it is obviously dark day and night during winter as the sun doesn’t really rise. The snow makes it quite light and we even eat our lunch outside some days.. These kids have such an advantage in many ways.

I wonder if we'll think similarly about full-time childcare in years to come? I don't know?

current parents of young children in Scandinavia have all grown up in full time childcare themselves. They seem to be quite fine and not that traumatised.

Boarding school and full time childcare are nothing alike. Why would it be thought about similarly?

It's not great in Scandinavia countries. It's actually shite. One year olds are dropped very early in nurseries and picked up very late. In winter, it's obviously dark when they're dropped off and dark when they are picked up. This is not societal 'progress' in my view - kids practically growing up in institutions. In Norway, there are only 5 million people so they need mothers working, but who are the losers in the push for increasing GDP? Time will tell. We now know about 'boarding school syndrome' for those packed off at age 7 in past generations. I wonder if we'll think similarly about full-time childcare in years to come? I don't know?

10 weeks of annual leave... Wow!!! What does your partner do? I think I might need to change career!! That would make balancing it all so much easier!
I got totally screwed over with annual leave since going part time as bank holiday allowance gets pro rata'd but I work Mondays and we have 100000 Monday bank holidays this year so been forced to use 1/3 of my annual leave allowance to take pointless random Mondays off!

I also want to add that those who are fortunate to have family childcare it massively tips the balance of what seems manageable. I was at a class the other day and saw two grannies looking after the babies, I got chatting to them and it turns out they are doing all the childcare while their daughters work. Where I live in London the financial difference this would make is thousands of pounds and I’m sure similar for other areas of the country.

There is no magic solution and of course millions of parents ‘just get on with it’ but it is hard.

Well on mumsnet you are a loser if you don’t earn 100k a year plus each. So I’m wearing the loser 🧢

Honestly all this "I couldn't have possibly worked full time with kids" nonsense. You realise people up and down the country don't have a choice?? And just get on with it.

(Not a dig at the OP. I knows it's not always easy! But for most people the answer isn't simply to quit your job)

But OP’s third child is one year old, and her question is “how are people managing the balance, does she have to quit work or are there life hacks to help”. Not “help me build a Time Machine and unmake this human being in my house”.

It doesn’t really matter what she thought before adding a third child, her theories of how it would work, the threads she read on here saying everything after the first child is easy, new ones just slot in, whatever, because none of that changes the reality of it actually now.

It's neither rude nor demeaning. It's a genuine question. Having experienced raising a single child in a household where both parents work FT and have to juggle everything with no family support, I've found it hard work but very much doable. I can equally imagine that if I had 3x as many children, it would be infinitely less so. When planning the size of your family, it's something you really need to consider.

How is this conducive or helpful?
How rude and demeaning!

How is this conducive or helpful?
So rude!

Please stop saying using childcare is “farming out” or “palming off”. Most people don’t have the option to work as few hours as you and your husband – you have adult children, I’m going to assume you bought your home prior to the current house price shitshow and you’re clearly less affected by the cost of living crisis.

This. Do people seriously lack the intelligence to realise that millions of people use childcare and that most of them have to use childcare?

The lack of real world experience and sheer offensiveness on this thread is just breathtaking. Post after post on here of people insulting mothers for taking the only option available to them to support their children or balancing the very real need to make money with the impetus to make this work around your family life and suggesting that wanting to work makes you a flawed human being.

Leaving aside the questions of whether it benefits children or not to have working mothers (and I happen to believe firmly that it does but that's a point for another post), this thread is astonishing in its sheer snobbery and lack of self-awareness. It's as if people consider themselves morally superior because they don't have to work to support your children. Do you people who look down on working mothers also consider all people on benefits beneath you? Do you think people who can't afford private school are beneath you? Or is it just women who have to work which bothers you? And if so do believe yourselves to be intrinsically superior because you have a husband who earns enough to support all of you?

Those of you who are lucky enough never to have faced the difficult choices about balancing work with life (and believe me you are in a minority) should have the decency at minimum to not insult those of us who don't have this luxury. It's so grotesquely rude: it's the MN equivalent of rich people walking through a poor area of town and holding their noses in disgust.

I'm pretty hardened to these debates, I've been on dozens of these threads and I've seen working mums give as good as they get on some threads (and sometimes they can be unpleasant about SAHMs) but some of the posts on here about "farming out" and so forth are genuinely disgusting.