London mums working long hours - how do you manage childcare?

The thing is about nursery places is that with subsequent children people book up much sooner because you might as well - I filled in
the reg form for DS3 the day of my 12 week scan when I picked up DS1 and 2 😂

Me and dp both work full time, so I don't mean to sound judgemental - I just can't fathom choosing to work such long hours with babies at the same time. My kids (5 and 2) are both asleep by 7.30pm - if I were working your hours, I just wouldn't see them during the week!

I won't bother sharing what works for us as we have very different jobs and we've loads of flexibility. But are you sure this is how you want to do it, particularly when they're all tiny and squishy? That time goes so fast. I think it's important to reflect on what's going to matter to you both in 10, 20, 30 years time, etc. Just food for thought.

And the sickness others mentioned - you'll be screwed if you use nursery working how you work. Definitely nanny, I understand they take them with more illnesses as they don't have to consider passing things to other kids?

If your considering nurseries and need full time you will need to make some decisions quickly I think. In my area (south east commuter town) you had no hope of getting a full time place from 1 year if you waited much past 6m pregnant to get on the list, let alone from 9m.

How dense. WTF means you save the commute time so can do more childcare / nursery runs

Totally agree with this from @StuckInTheUpsideDown: "
Whether you go for nanny or nursery my advice to you, as to women I work with going off on mat leave - is do not let it be split that he will do all morning drop offs/handover and you do all evenings. You will massively shaft yourself at home and at work - insist on splitting the evenings fairly."

I was shafted in exactly this way by my ex (who subsequently had an affair and left me). I've lost count of the number of work events I've had to miss because of this (and ex's total lack of flexibility). Compromises do have to be made when kids come along and those compromises should be shared equally.

Yes we do too, I found that setting boundaries early on was key.

WFH means you are supposed to be working, not doing childcare and juggling a bit of time for work.

I know realistically I may need to reconsider working patterns in the long run, it’s just depressing that these corporate jobs are still so difficult for working women in 2024

I do know a couple of women who’ve managed in my job but I know it has been very, very difficult for them (and I know they also are the main breadwinners so the husbands picked up the slack- but my husband doesn’t want to compromise his job either..)

You’ve missed the point here slightly I think. They’re not difficult for working women, they’re difficult for working people. And choices have to be made. The thing is that one of you WILL have to compromise.

Now, there’s a bigger feminist argument about why that might be predominantly women (but also biology: you might find you don’t want to do this when you’ve had the baby) but your bigger issue now is that you are pregnant and need to come to a conclusion.

which one of you has the most flexibility?

Btw we just block out our respective drop offs and pick ups in our diaries so that no early or late meetings are scheduled for then.

Both lawyers. Both in City law firms, with DH a partner whilst I’m on track for partnership.

I work a four day week so we only need nursery for four days. Then from those four days, we each work from home on two of them. The person going to the office does drop off whilst the person working from home does pick up. But we adjust as needed if one of us has a meeting, a deadline, etc.

It can be difficult when we’re both busy but we juggle nursery pick up, dinner and bed time as needed and often need to log back on after bedtime.

You may not want comments about changing your work schedule or jobs but honestly it’s your best option that one of you has more flexibility.

Pick up at 630 and then quick feed, bath and bed sounds tough for a baby - every night.

Also what happens during sickness and sleep regressions - it’s the middle of the night here and my daughter has been awake for 2 hours - currently blowing bubbles in bed but not sleeping!!

Don’t get me wrong I went back to work at 9 months - it saved my sanity but for 2 days a week … Long long hours for both parents and a baby don’t work

“it’s just depressing that these corporate jobs are still so difficult for working women in 2024”

No, difficult for working people. Your husband is equally liable for parenting. Ideally you’ll both make career compromises of more or less equal value so that you can raise your child.

Really You need a nanny. Can cover longer hours than nursery and will care for most illnesses that nursery will exclude for. There is no way we could both have progressed our careers without using a nanny.

If you have the space a live in nanny works out quite a bit cheaper and slightly longer hours as standard. Or a nanny share but that can bring its own issues. If you speak to a few nanny agencies they will give you an idea for your areas of cost and whether people often do shares.

Even with a nanny though you’ll need together to be much more disciplined as someone will need to get home to release her in a way you don’t have to now. And of course you’ll have got someone at home you’ll want to see!

Whether you go for nanny or nursery my advice to you, as to women I work with going off on mat leave - is do not let it be split that he will do all morning drop offs/handover and you do all evenings. You will massively shaft yourself at home and at work - insist on splitting the evenings fairly.

But you can't have it all, don't believe anyone who says you can!

I don’t even have a high earning corporate career, but I want to highlight this from @Elektra1 and say that I agree with it wholeheartedly.

Nanny. It’s your only choice really if you want to continue with the same hours.

We've had ours for six years. A big factor was that the first time we met her she explained that she knew that people in our part of town (outer London) couldn’t generally afford the sort of central London nanny costs. So for us it was never quite as expensive as some of the prices you’ve been quoted. Also I went down to four days a week.

In general though I do think there’s a big element of sucking it up. This period of huge childcare costs can be temporary (although has to be said in their world you’re talking about it is tricky to bring them to an end!!) and enables you to continue your career trajectory unhindered, which obviously will pay in the long-term.

I'm a lawyer and work in London, commuting from commuterville. Ex is also a lawyer. When we had DD it was not possible for both of us to keep the office hours we had before. She went to nursery (which even in our commuter town, I had to sign up for at 4 months pregnant to guarantee the place). Nursery pick up was 6pm latest and it was me who did this every day. I then did bedtime and caught up on work after, which meant dinner together was rare and I'd work 8-11pm often. Ex just stayed in office and came home after bedtime usually.

If you genuinely want to both keep doing the long hours, I'd imagine you'd need 2 nannies: a daytime one and one to cover bedtime and until you get home. Or nursery plus a nanny who picks up at 5pm, does tea and bedtime and stays till you get back.

You may find that when you have your baby, the idea of only spending an hour a day with him or her while childcare does the rest is not what you want after all. It is possible to scale back the face time in the office - more than ever, now. It's also ok to want to go full steam ahead with your career. But you can't have it all, don't believe anyone who says you can!

I don’t know a single couple in your position (and, via uni I know more than a few!) who both carried on working in the same way post children. It wasn’t always the women who changed but they all did change.

If you do want to both carry on as you are you will need your nanny to work longer hours than you - ie your hours + your commute. And that will cost A LOT.

what hours do you need a nanny for? If you make no changes?

Honestly ... you need to realise that you need a nanny, possibly 2 for that kind of coverage but you really may find you can't both work at that intensity with children. Your child will need their parents.

If you can both reliably wfh 1 day per week, using a local nursery for those days would make it possible to have a nanny work 3 long days 7.30-7.30 perhaps with an understanding they are available to stay late 1 day per week taking it to 40 hours?

We have this, we take it in turns to work from home and do slightly shorter days then log back on once they’re in bed.

once a week my parents come over so we can both do a longer day in the office then. Our childcare bill for 2 children at nursery is over £3k a month

it’s really tough, pre covid when WTF wasn’t “a thing” I don’t know how 2 working parent families managed it

We nanny-shared. But our nanny finished at 1830.

We staggered our working hours so that I started early and finished early and DH handled dropoff and finished later. But it is likely that you are going to find that with a baby, both of you working very long FT hours is not very sustainable.