No grandparents for childcare!

I don't think so. The original message was not so badly written as to give the impression that they OP has never heard of nurseries/babysitters/childminders. I know lots of people who don't have help. It just depends on the circles you move in. If you have moved a lot, you often make friends with people who have moved a lot.

What we did is my wife worked from home up until both kids were 4 and 6 then
worked part-time ie I left for work around 5-30am took the car, return home just before 5p, picked up my wife and kids, dropped my wife off at work for a 5-30 start, picked her up at 11 and went to bed around midnight Mon to Friday for several years until kids were older

I'm sorry if you or your kids don't have a great relationship with GP, but what are you basing this on? I can see that if there is a parental expectation that GP will help out and they won't or can't perhaps the parents will be resentful and pass that on to the kids. But I think this sort of help helps the parents, but good GP are so much more than help. The relationship you build with your GP or your children's GP isn't necessarily transactional. I know not everybody is that lucky:

What a bonkers question!
If you can’t work it out for yourself, are really bright enough be having children? 🤣

I mean, nothing? There is no such thing as free childcare if you don't have family willing to do it.

Neither of our sets of parents do any childcare, never babysat etc. so the only 'childcare' we've had for free in the three years of parenting so far has been four evenings where my best friend has sat in the house while kiddo sleeps so we can go out for a couple hours. That was incredibly kind of them and I'm super grateful. Other than that we pay for nursery and other than nursery we just have to care for the kid we chose to produce lol.

I suspect OP probably meant “how the hell do I afford full time childcare costs with no family helping to bring the total down?”. I am racking my brain and don’t think I know one person who doesn’t have family help in some manner. And I’m talking low wage people from where I grew up, medium income friends who I’m close to now, higher earner from university. (But this isn’t just grandparents, other family members and friends helping too.) She’s probably seen the majority of her peers have help.

You often see threads with posters saying “I’m on maternity leave and I’m due to go back to work, how the hell do I afford this?” and the general consensus is they should have thought about that before having kids. This poor girl is thinking about it and not exactly got much in the way of helpful responses.

Someone who doesn’t have kids probably doesn’t know:

1. the government pay 20% of the bill for most people
2. children are eligible for 30 hours/22 hours free childcare when they hit three
3. her and her partner are legally allowed to submit a flexible working request which might shift their hours to lessen the need for childcare
4. nurseries are generally the most expensive option

I think it also makes a difference if GPs live nearby, are retired, in pretty good health and also had a lot of help with childcare when their own dcs were young. I can see how that would grate if I was the child of parents like that (I'm not) who opted out of helping out at all when I needed it.

This is in response to @strawberriesarenot btw in case it looks a bit of a tangent!

That's not having grandparents refusing to help when it's needed though.

We don't get any help either, but there is no damage to the relationship as we never had them nearby and never expected or asked for help. Quite different I think 🤔

@LuckySantangelo35 ... just got ground down by the endless things to do, fed up of running here there and everywhere trying to please everyone, hold down a job and carve out time for me too. Something had to give, easiest option was quit work. Life was happier, bit of regret, mainly around money, but generally turned out well.

We don't live near family and if we did we wouldn't get them to do childcare.

It's not fair on parents, they have their own lives. They have raised children and now get the time back.

Mine still work as well.

It's nice when they offer to look after my child at the weekend but it's not expected of them but it's nice for a break once in a while.

It's true though. If you refuse to help with gcs you won't build a relationship with them and are less likely to see them when they're older and their GPs are practically strangers. Harsh, but true.

Absolute nonsense. My dcs were in paid childcare, gps never did a single day. They have an excellent relationship with their grandparents, valued by both sides.

You should factor in childcare costs before trying to have a child. Seems obvious.

Even if they lived next door there’s no obligation for free childcare.

I don’t think it’s a serious question anyway.

You pay for it?

I think this is a joke. I don't really understand though, because it's a question that might be asked by somebody really young and naive and yet that person wouldn't have the expectation because they would still have working parents. Odd question.

Paid for nursery, then breakfast & after school clubs and now I have a part time nanny for wrap around care.

We pay for a baby sitter

My parents come down for several nights at a time. We try to take advantage of these moments for date nights.

There are babysitting clubs in some towns where you all 'donate' hours but I have never got involved

Don’t see how anyone could expect you to I really don’t

This must be a windup! Op's not been back .

Nursery and Childminder.

I'm in my 60s, still working, won't retire before 67, absolutely no intention of going straight from 45 years work into any sort of baby care.

DH and had our first night away without DC when youngest was 11 and on a school residential and eldest was 16 and could be left home alone.

Until that point I could count the number of times we’d been out without the children on the fingers of one hand.

We coped we just had to spend time together at home with the children in bed 🤷‍♀️

Similar situation here, we use nursery and pay for it.

Good luck, that's when you realise it'd be nice to have your parents not too far 😉!
We've struggled and are still struggling (5 meals out together in 7 years, that's all we managed to do on our own as a couple).
We've used one childminder and the nursery for childcare. That's it. It cost us a bomb and meant I've had to take a massive step back financially speaking. I'm broke!

I never went back to work. We never expected either set of grandparents to child mind our kids other than in emergencies or ad hoc night out/weekend away stuff and that was rarely.

There is no free childcare if you don't live near parents/grandparents. We were in that postition too and have paid a fortune over the years in childminder and nursery fees.

We had two babies incredibly close together and lived in the south east so I ended up being a SAHM as we couldn’t afford the childcare, it would have eaten an entire wage plus some!