Another childcare rant - how do people do it?!

What do other parents do, OP? You can't be the only family needing wraparound care who don't have family support.

You have to plan ahead and pick a school and place to live that has options.

What did you plan?

Yeah this is what I mean, it’s interesting how different the school communities are. My SIL is struggling as they live rurally mostly farming families with a parent at home so no provision around them. One of the schools in our town is very different but has nothing, it’s in a very deprived area and trying to put it as delicately as possible not many of the parents are working traditional 9-5 hours.

My friend's village school doesn't (Wiltshire village). It is really small; under 50 children. The school community is high earning DHs and SAHMs or mums who do what my friend does and run their own small business in school hours. The ones who need childcare can afford a nanny.

As for us, I went part-time when DS was 1 working 9-2.30 4 days a week. I have recently changed jobs to 9-1 every weekday. DH does morning drops as he WFH.

It really is not easy; even with those hours we do still need breakfast and after school club as both DH and I are sometimes away with work and he leaves at 6am once a fortnight!

Regarding funding, all that's happened locally is that the per-hour funding isn't enough for nurseries so our old one has nearly doubled the prices of the hours people pay for, stopped providing food and added a supposedly voluntary surcharge.

I suppose this is the downside to choosing a small village school. I'm not really sure why you can't join the committee, if you're so dependent upon the club you need to make the time. Perhaps when on the committee, you could work towards a solution so that the committee isn't needed.

But what do you do when there is no provision available?

I became a SAHM and we were very broke. Second hand clothes and toys for the children. Holidays spent visiting grandparents. Then, when the mortgage rate on our 3 bed terrace went up to 15% and ate up 75% of husbands take home pay, leaving us about £200 per month for a family of four to live on, I became a child minder to bring in a little extra and prevent us losing the house. Selling the house wasn’t a viable financial option as we were in negative equity having bought when we moved back from abroad just before house prices tanked. Oh joy!

If your commitments are work and one DC, then a monthly meeting to allow the provision to continue is a no brainer. It’s crucial to you, so step up. You may be able to make things more sustainable by getting involved.
Some companies allow time to contribute to a charity, check if either of yours do.

Apart from that, what about buddying up with another family? It’s not ideal when you don’t know each other, but might work.

You pay for childcare 🤷🏼‍♀️

Childminders and Nannie’s both offer wrap around care

I changed jobs so DH and I could cover childcare between us instead. It was shit working evenings and weekends, but got us through. We didn't have family childcare options available, so knew we'd have to make changes.
Hopefully your club won't close now they have asked for more help.

There’s no magic answer here. If the provision you use needs support to run then you can either provide the support or lose the service. Or you could try asking them to raise their costs to cover whatever it is they need the parents to do? It’s very odd to require parents to volunteer but maybe they just try to keep costs really low?

I changed my job 2 years before we planned to have children so I would get full pay maternity leave, plus office hours and Flexi time to make childcare easier. We also moved to a town that had multiple nurseries and primary schools so the chances of good wrap around care would be possible.

Those saying kids need a longer school day so parents can work perhaps aren’t thinking of the impact on a child of a long day like that. The need to decompress- play- chill. It’s hard I get it but kids going to school is a shift and does need family alignment- it’s not the school day that is wrong it’s the need for two full time working parents. And that doesn’t mean the mum. Dads often work flexibly at our school and do many if not more pick ups and care

We’ve opted to go private for this very reason.

Paid childcare (childminder) or reducing your working hours (I had to do the latter as nobody wanted my disabled children in terms of wrap around).

If people are so against the government subsidising childcare but also so against immigration I don't know how else we're going to deal with the falling birth rate which is going to become a real issue in the future!

How often are the meetings? Monthly? It sucks but it is a nightmare trying to get volunteers so you might have to squeeze it in somehow - presumably it closing would be even more inconvenient? Could you get together with some other people who use the club and agree to be on the committee for a year each or something?

I’m always surprised when I hear of schools without any provision and wonder what their school community is like.

We could only pick schools with childcare, be that childminders or after school club, if that wasn’t available, we simply couldn’t have used that school. We had to move schools part way through and top of the list had to be wraparound care availability, we dismissed anything without it, and ended up with a fair drive to it as a result.

We changed jobs. It was wasn't sustainable. It still isn't and we have halved our income and downsized our house for a smaller mortgage. We have no regular help from anyone so one of us has to work from home with flexible hours. We have switched the role of who does that between me and DH over the years. This last two years it has been me, which means I am working two levels below my actual paygrade and really annoys me.
You can also get after school nannies, childminders and there is after school club, we have tried them all. But if they start doing a sport or hobby then you want to be able to take them to it too. Then ads another kid and it's just impossible unless someome is at home or you pay a fortune for a proper nanny with a car and who can do dinners and sports and bedtime. So unless you are far outearning a nannies wage then whats the point, and you will hardly be there for all their important stuff too.

We offer wraparound care at nursery for local primary schools. Some children left to go to the schools wraparound as it was cheaper then ended up coming back to us as the schools closed their provision! It is expensive for families though once funding has stopped although many still use UC or tax free childcare to help.

Yabu for having children. You should have realised the after school club would close. Your only choice now is to put them out on the street.

It is paid for. The volunteer roles are on the managing/organising committee, not the service itself.