Help!
Me & my partner currently work in the same place on the same shift doing the same hours. 60 hours one week, 24 the next. (Although overtime is currently needed so it's more like 70/34) We work 6-6 days & nights, the shift pattern operates 364 days a year.
We net around £4200.
We have a 3 bedroom house but do not have a room free for an Au Pair nor the parking room & don't think it would suit us.
Does anybody know how we could overcome our upcoming childcare issue?
Daughter is 8 & pretty much takes care of herself. Currently she stays with grandparents (who we pay). When working day shift I then come out of work to pick her up & take her to school as we couldn't find anybody to pick her up from one area of the town and take her to school in another. She then is collected by a childminder on the days we work untill 6pm & then taken back to grandparents.
On a weekend she is solely with grandparents which costs me around £90 for the weekend, however grandparents have their own stuff to do & child isn't really being entertained or engaged in much bar YouTube on the computer.
On a night shift daughter does to grandparents at 5.30 after running round like a lunatic doing showers after swimming, tea & homework. Daughter then sleeps at grandparents & is collected by me in the morning for school. The struggle to stay awake & then drive is horrendous each shift.
Come June grandparents have said they no longer want to look after daughter & we are faced with zero childcare.
Could anybody suggest any ideas?
We are able to go on opposite shifts so that one persons days off is the others in, however this just would not work we would never see each other atall. We are also able to go on opposite in the sense that when one is on nights the other is on days, but can't really see how this would make things much different either.
Very worried that I will have to leave!
Any intel majorly appreciated!