Another childcare rant - how do people do it?!

This is London prices.

And - it’s available for quite long hours, as I think most of the parents need some degree of flexibility on that.

So you end up paying for more than you use.

Local nurseries all over £100 a day..!

They’ve replied saying £10 in the morning and £25 in the afternoon!

I WFH during school hours 4 days a week. It's only 22 hours but isn't term time only so still have to cover school holidays. It has however totally shafted my career prospects. Going full time with wrap around care, commuting costs etc would actually make me worse off than what I bring home now.

DH does a job where last minute he could work over or be told to catch a flight the next day. As he is the breadwinner in an unpredictable job it has had to be my career on the line unfortunately.

Because not everyone who works is in your situation

This summarizes the potential solutions the OP is asking for. Of course none of them are easy, but that’s the situation. In the OPs shoes I’d go for 1)3)4)5)2) in order of possible actions.

the OP says she’s sick of ‘the country’ not helping working parents but I’m not sure what exactly she expects ‘the country’ to do! We’ve already explained that in terms of number of nurseries, wraparound school clubs, subsidised childcare, right to request flexible working, legislation around parental leave, and length of maternity leave, successive governments have actually done a hell of a lot over the last few decades. Try going back 30 years when I had my kids, or 30 years before that when my mum had me and things were even worse- she literally had no option but to give up work when she had me and my sister.

it’s simply not true that there is no support. The reality though is that there are still tough decisions and expenses to being working parents. If the OP just wants to sound off, that’s one thing but she does seem to dismiss any suggestions people have made

Yes, childcare in this country is very, very tricky and expensive. I remember my shock when I came here and the working hours were 9-17:30. I reached home at 7pm. Back at home (Central Europe) it's normal to work 7:30-3.30, latest 4pm. 5pm is very late and it's usually only in big Western corporations. It's so hard if both parents have to work these hours. I've seen many set-ups when only a husband works like that and a wife is a teacher working 8am-2pm or in local administration 7am-3pm with many benefits and perks on top of that. This is much more family-friendly. All nurseries close at 5pm and schools are only 4-6 hours a day and times vary, so it's tricky. It's other family members who usually step up, because it's kind of expected of them culturally. But in UK it's horrendously hard without that help and also extremely expensive, plus, kids are probably miserable having to stay at school till evening.

But the ASC isn’t under threat of closure because it’s not viable/is underused/is in a village. It’s because there are no parents stepping up to volunteer for the committee

@MidnightPatrol Wow £35/day. Looks like I will be doing pickup for my DGC when they start school

Not for profit afterschool with a Parents Committee should be fairly reliable. The Parents on the Committee NEED it to work.

We were in exactly the same position, including the negative equity and the 15% mortgage. It was a rubbish time and car boot sales every weekend for the children's clothes were my friend and charity shops for DH and my clothes. We had both been made redundant, I got another full time job after ML for 5 months and my husband worked at 3 jobs. Times was hard. However - it did all work out and those times are just a memory now, so hold tight, OP, there will be a way through.

I think it's more that it is a small village primary school, with no alternatives. Lots of small village schools are barely viable, let alone their wrap around provisions. You really don't need a crystal ball to realise there might be bumps ahead.

Again, I'm really not so convinced that it is that easy to be sure you are picking 'really reliable childcare', especially in a new place and without being psychic. I am guessing that if OP had asked both the school and current parents there they would have told her there was wraparound care run on a not-for-profit basis, which sounds great and solid. Now she's being told it might close.

Exactly this

Again, I'm really not so convinced that it is that easy to be sure you are picking 'really reliable childcare', especially in a new place and without being psychic. I am guessing that if OP had asked both the school and current parents there they would have told her there was wraparound care run on a not-for-profit basis, which sounds great and solid. Now she's being told it might close.

I have a friend whose child's nursery closed with 6 weeks' notice. It had been open 23 years before that, and none of the parents expected it at all. She hadn't in any way knowingly chosen unreliable childcare but she still found herself up a creek, competing to find a space with all the other parents who suddenly needed it.

People keep recommending childminders, but that's the most vulnerable kind of childcare of all in terms of being reliant on an individual.

This is far from a compassionate post.

I think this quote might go someway towards my worry about people finding it increasingly difficult to hear the truth. My children are older now, but I will remember those days of trying desperately to juggle children and work and everything else besides. I was simply saying that in our life the choices we make and their ramifications are our responsibility and our responsibility alone. I am terribly sorry if you think that is a harsh thing to be saying.
I shouldn’t comment again because as he quite rightly say that wasn’t the point of the thread. The point of the thread is to find ideas for childcare support and I hope that you’re all able to offer help.

I am a very compassionate person. I did give suggestions which are coming from personal experience. However, I am extremely concerned about the inability of many people to juggle their commitments without somebody else stepping in to help them. It is making us unproductive as a nation and I’m afraid I genuinely believe that it is actually in someway linked to declining mental health.

It's not ideal but I would take the view that being on the committee and trying to find time for a few meetings is infinitely better than having no childcare at all and so I'd just suck it up and volunteer, and encourage other parents in the same situation to do the same.

I appreciate it's hard both working full time. I work about 80 hours a week. But if you can't volunteer a bit, you're certainly not going to be able to sort wrap around childcare every day.

In terms of how we make it work, we moved somewhere near a school that had really reliable after-school provision even though it's ridiculously expensive. It was the primary consideration when picking a school, and the area we were going to live in. It is excessive, but is moving an option if you say the main issue is the village location?

The issue won't be solved by chipping in a few quid. The parents will be paying for it.

The issue is it will be a not-for-profit organisation with paid staff. But if they don't have a Committee they lose their not-for-profit status and then can't operate.

Parents need to step up and take over from the parents who no longer need it!

My experience is that availability of childminder provision is more localised than just town vs rural. There is something about demographics - in general, a supply of childminders relies on a supply of people who have homes big enough to be viable to use as a childcare setting but who also want to/are able to do it for the money you can make - a lot of areas have a shortage of one or the other. But across the country, the number of childminders has reduced sharply - there were 48000 registered childminders in 2015, in 2025 there were 25,000: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0490erp13o

I think this sounds like a few different problems.

1. the school childcare closing - inconvenient but unlikely to change unless volunteers come forward and as you say everyone is busy so unlikely.
2. no childminders as it sounds like you live maybe rurally so not as many options.
3. no grandparents available to help.
4. inflexible jobs/working hours.

Id say your options therefore are

1. speak to the school club and school and see if there is a way for parents to chip in at a reasonable amount to keep it going.
2. move area/school to somewhere with more options (probably not a popular choice)
3. ask other parents or maybe on local community Facebook page etc if anyone else has any ideas there must be other parents who rely on this after school club too.
4. babysitter or nanny to do it who is around to do the wrap around care, likely to be expensive to find a reliable nanny.
5. change jobs or ask work for some flexibility given the circumstances until you can resolve it.

I agree, and said in my post, that somebody has to do it. But it’s not just ‘a few meetings, just join the committee’.

I'm a team join the committee and I joined for my own kids.

Somebody has to do it, or there won't be an after school provision.

@SMLSMLi don’t think anyone has said it’s easy.

And it’s quite understandable to feel frustrated at times. I felt exactly the same 30 years ago when I had to return to work with a breastfed 12 week old (end of paid mat leave back then) and then pay full fees (no subsidies back then) until the month he turned 5 (September baby!) and started school. And then as I explained in an earlier post, we barely saved any money for the primary school years because we ended up having to use a nanny type arrangement (very few schools did wraparound care back then.)

I think what’s coming across now though is that you just want to moan and expect someone to suggest a magic solution. There isn’t one. Our only way was to throw as much money at wraparound care during primary years as we’d thrown at nursery. Which is frustrating because your children are in reality getting between about 9-3:15 every day ‘free.’ But it is what it is. You have to manage things within the parameters of your life. So if you live rurally and use a small village school, your options are likely more limited than if you lived in a city with a range of primary schools nearby. But presumably there are benefits to you of living where you do.

i don’t think people are being unsympathetic (well maybe just a couple of random posters but ignore them!) We’re just trying to say yes it’s tough when you become a parent but managing childcare is part of the parenting deal and it’s best to try to find solutions even if they’re expensive ones.

Numbers of children decreased during covid. Supply also decreased.
Numbers of children has sinced increased but supply hasn't caught up with demand.

Also few people with childcare qualifications really want to work 5 days for 3 hours (3pm until 6pm). It suited some people under the old Income Support work up to 16hrs rules without affecting benefitdls. But not under the Universal Credit rules.

There are huge demands for full-time staff in pre-schools, with the increased goverment hours.

All those saying ‘just join the committee, it’s only a few hours a month’ really need to appreciate what they are asking OP to do. If the preschool manager, or any of the staff, resigns, OP and the rest of the committee will be responsible /accountable (depending on whether it’s the manager or not) for hiring their replacement. If they can’t, the preschool and wraparound will close, and OP will be jointly responsible for that. In this scenario, she will be responsible for making the remaining staff redundant, and paying their redundancy. For properly closing the provision, and dealing with any remaining moneys. If the preschool does not make sufficient money, she will be responsible for finding funding options, or again, making staff redundant. She will be accountable when OFSTED comes in. Will need to ensure safeguarding. Payroll. The committee will be responsible for liaising with the landlords of the premises. If annual accounts are not filed in time, OP will be jointly accountable. And so on, and so forth. I’m not saying it’s not important for volunteers to step up, and yes, if they don’t, then the provision will close. And it’s great experience and looks fab on a CV. But it’s not just ‘join the committee, go to a few meetings’ and it’s unhelpful to encourage people to get involved without knowing what it is they are getting involved with.