Employer refusing flexibility after child’s surgery. What would you do?

Your daughter is going to have to think of someone who she will agree to accept help from. Unless you can afford not to work?

It sounds like you've exhausted your employer's goodwill now

What are your normal working hours?

2 full days a week or multiple days?

If it’s only 2 days a week, can DH not take AL and cover these 2 days?

If the husband is her dad then I disagree about personal care, if it's a matter of lifting, supporting etc her to and onto the toilet, she isn't a quadriplegic, she can. Take her own underwear down , do what she needs to and wipe surely? I'd also feel different if op worked full time but you're talking 2 days of a week and yet she's required a tremendous amount of leave in recent months. For 2 days in the week dad will have to do. If dad is her husband I guess that's different but parents who have to work have to go to work. She's not a 5 yr old with no understanding she's 13. She can have a plan in place and hold until mum gets home if needed.

I think you will struggle to have this agreed as you have requested working just morning so you are indicating your daughter is fine to be left for that time period eg 3/4 hours. So by your works view if she can be left that long in the morning why not the afternoon also?
If this is 2 days a week I think your daughter needs to suck up someone else helping if she needed help those 2 days. Or you request unpaid leave or resign if you don't see the situation being workable long term

Does what you’re asking for leave them short of the legal ratios? If so, have you come up with any suggestions to avoid that? Sounds like they’ve acted reasonably but it doesn’t sound short term anymore and is probably impacting your colleagues

OP has had time off since September for other reasons such as her own surgery but it's recent that her own daughter had surgery.

I think the majority of the comments on this thread are missing how complex knee surgery is, let alone BOTH knees at once. This will be a 13 year old girl in full knee casts / braces who is unable to weight bare / stand without a physical aide and may not be able to reach herself to wipe / clean properly if surgery was last week.

But at 13 can wait until lunchtime when her mum can help her to the toilet.

I had a back injury and at the same time a major house renovation. I couldn’t get out of bed at all without help and certainly not with a team of builders around.
Some days, if my husband was at work, I had to last all day before I could go to the toilet, on a good day it was lunchtime.
It isn’t ideal, but manageable.

Gently, your employer isn't responsible for caring about your daughter's 'dignity' or toilet schedule. They're there to run a business and it sounds like they've already extended a lot of flexibility. Moving to just mornings/or afternoons for an EY setting I'm assuming would mean cover would need to be found for the other hours?

Afraid she needs to stop calling the shots
She needs help moving around, not to actually wipe her bum, which others can do.

But in which case the hospital would likely have talked to the family at length about the arduous recovery from the surgery and the family needed to have a plan in place?
OP needed to book in advance to have some unpaid dependants leave for this, giving her work plenty of notice so that they could get an agency worker in or similar.
For double knee surgery you don't get the date 2 days before, this would have been planned.
OP what was your plan in terms of how the family was going to manage your daughter's recovery??

This is exactly it.

If OP is okay to do five mornings and leave her DD for three hours every day, why can't she do two days, and leave her for 2x 3 hours? It makes no sense.

You need to do the decent thing and resign. You have had 8+ months of other staff filling in for you.
Is your child's consultant aware that after 8 months your child can't get out of bed or walk?

The OP hasn’t said anything to suggest she would be willing to take the time off unpaid.

In a nursery setting depending on ratios half days often don’t work because they still need to cover the other half of the day! It would mean being over ratio on the extra mornings she did and under ratio the afternoons she would normally in unless someone else was changed to half days

Surely if she has only recently had the surgery she will be having physio? Usually they have people up and about straight away. Could the physio review her progress?

@Whettlettuce yes I agree OP’s child needs a lot more care than just a regular poorly kid and I think you did the right thing

If I were OP I might offer to resign with immediate effect then get another job when dc is doing better.

I’m still reeling at how many people on MN think this kid should be left to her own devices for hours at a time.

My dh arranged to work from home for an entire month and I’m an adult! On the few days he had to go out to the office he made his mum be my emergency contact and I was instructed not to move anywhere except the loo!

The problem is that OP has been asking for flexibility since September. Sounds like she’s worn out the goodwill.

I had double knee surgery recently and they did not discharge me until I was able to walk with crutches. They have you up and walking as soon as possible after the surgery.

I imagine the work are not seeing that op is ok to leave her 3 hours in the morning or afternoon, but not 3 hours, go home to help with toilet/personal care and then return to work for 3 hours.

I feel like, in their eyes, she can either be left for 3 hours, broken by lunch break, then 3 hours then home time, or not at all.

Thats kind of how I see it. The flexible working request doesn't really make sense. She is either ok to be left for 3 hours, or shes not.

@Woodfiresareamazing2 that is good! My hospital offered me NOTHING aside from a zimmer frame.

The physio who assessed me as “ok to go home” did check I would have an adult with me at all times

I understand op. I had to give up my job as an LSA in worked 10 hours a week. My daughter, 14 at the time had to have spinal fusion surgery for scoliosis . The recovery they said would be a 2 months max, so the surgery was done in the summer holidays. The recovery was much tougher than they said and it took nearly 6 months for her to be able to lmove around .She required manual lifting and moving etc in the first month. Imo should never have been discharged like it. I wouldn't be able to leave my daughter either if I was you. Its not just about physical recovery its the mental toll and embarrassment of someone else helping her. I don't know what to suggest could you be signed off sick through stress at all? And use the time to look for something else?

@TornIn2WorkThenChild so if getting to the loo is the main issue she could wear a dress or a skirt down to her knees so that if she needs the loo, she can take her knickers off, call her dad and he can help her to the loo and she can just pull her skirt up or wriggle it up whilst he looks away so her privacy is protected. She can be parked somewhere near a loo ie lounge next to downstairs bathroom or your room if you have an en suite. He can step out whilst she does her business. She can dress with you before work. He can deal with meals etc. You need to think practically as opposed to expecting flexibility from your work that they aren’t necessarily obliged to give you.

Cannot believe the responses on this thread! Her 13yr old child has had DOUBLE knee surgery. Then someone tells her to "bum shuffle", christ almighty. I can understand her not wanting her dad to take her to the toilet at that age, puberty hitting, she might even have her period, it's completely understandable that she only wants her mum to help with toileting.

I think your work are being unreasonable, and it's a hill I'd die on.

So yeah, if they won't let you have any unpaid parental leave, I'd quit over it, and start looking for a new job once your daughter has recovered. But obviously speak with your Union first. Wishing her well.

Could you pay for carers to come in to support her. I get she doesn't want Dad but maybe a female carer would work.

Sorry, I assumed the Dad. And I wasn't suggesting he did the intimate care - I read it as that he would be there to care for her re company, food, pain management but her mum would come home after 3 hours to take her to the loo

The OP has very specifically said husband* so im guessing, not the father of her child and in whoch case i wouldnt want him having to provide intimate care to a 13 year old.

I think the majority of the comments on this thread are missing how complex knee surgery is, let alone BOTH knees at once. This will be a 13 year old girl in full knee casts / braces who is unable to weight bare / stand without a physical aide and may not be able to reach herself to wipe / clean properly if surgery was last week.

If the surgery is very recent she will be feeling awful. I was on morphine for the first three days and then paracetamol at full dose for several weeks.

I don’t think people really understand on here what having double knee surgery is like. You can’t sit - your legs have to be straight all the time unless you are doing the tiny movements allowed for physio. I physically couldn’t lower myself onto a sofa, much less get up again. A chair was impossible at first - it was four months before I could sit in a chair for more than 90minutes without experiencing unbearable pain.

So you are literally stuck in bed. I cried a lot, just pain and hopelessness and more pain. I woke up due to pain every night for months; sleeping more than a few hours at a time was not possible.

In bed you are stuck in one position really - you can’t lie on your side at first because of the leg braces and the pain. The braces rub on the wound dressing if you aren’t careful.

So yes her dad could care for the OP’s daughter but I totally understand why the kid needs her mum. She needs her mum, I think her mum should be there.