How do people with office jobs make pick up time?

Flexible work from home and changing our work hours for us. Although in your situation I'd choose to live somewhere smaller and nearer than move out.

We both work full time and have no help and no family. The only way it works is that both of us WFH unless travelling for business which is usually once a month for both of us. Otherwise you need a nanny. You'd be mad to do a 1.5 hour commute with a small child in tow regularly. It would be actual hell if they weren't feeling well.

What about an Au Pair?

Our nursery was open until 6.30pm (commuter town in Essex). I had flexible working in my contract to only be in London two days a week, and my MIL did pick up if I couldn't make it home in time.

Nowadays we both mainly WFH and everyone works flexible hours when we are in the office, so most parents leave around 4pm and log on again later.

You need a back-up if the trains stop running - I wouldn't want both of us in London without knowing my MIL was around. Realistically, if Covid hadn't happened I suspect I would have left my London job and found something local, as it was clearly going to just be too difficult with both of us commuting.

ETA - good point about holiday clubs from a previous poster. Around here only the really expensive private ones (like Barracudas) have late pick-up til 6pm. School club is only until 5pm, and all the sports clubs are either half day or end at 4pm.

Post Covid - we juggle. Pre Covid and when they were little, I choose a nursery half way to work and it opened 0800 and shut at 1800. A fair few of us were there at 1755 for pick up. For a while I then had them at after school club which shut 1745 and I left work 15 minutes early for my hour commute. Not easy.

I had a 1.5 hr commute although often 2 hours back every day. I would drop off at 8am in the dot to get in before my 10am start, DH had a 30 minute drive to work and would work earlier and leave earlier to pick up but our nursery was 8 to 6. School has good wrap around care for us from 7:30 to 6 but in the holidays it’s been hard to find camps that finished after 5.

If moving you have consider when your child is at school and what happens in the holidays.

It can be done. I live in a city suburb with lots of professional parents. My wrap around childcare (run by my daughter's nursery, located in a church next to her very large primary school) covers 7am until 6.30pm, her nursery did the same hours. The actual school offers 7.30am until 5.50pm.

I don’t think the question is how do people with office jobs make it work, it’s how do people with full time jobs in London (or anywhere with a long commute make it work)

1.5 hour commute doesn’t sound realistic, or only so if drop offs and pick ups we’re split between 2 parents and office hours for each of you are flexible.

i work in an office, but it’s 10 minutes drive away and has free parking, so it isn’t an issue. I haven’t chosen jobs a long way away as I need to have flexibility and on the occasions school have called and they are sick I don’t want to be 1.5 hours away. I also want to be able to get to the school play, sports day etc without needing half a days leave. It’s not possible for everyone, and I know 10 minutes is unusually short but your new office location seems a bit to the other extreme

I did this with my third, one hour commute each way. I LOVED it, it was tiring in both of us but it also was our special time. We had our breakfast in the train, then we read a book, she might even colour. We had cold dinner and books on the way back too (and she had her hot meal in the nursery).

I would schedule enough time for us to walk without being too stressed (and we made a game of her mostly running from and to the station).

Now she is in school and I really really miss our commute together.

DH wfh two days a week, I wfh two different days a week and my mum picks them up on the one other day. It's a juggling act and I have to be really organised as DH doesn't always have the same two days wfh.

This. Before wfh was a thing I left at 7ish to get into office at 8am so I could leave early and pick up at 5.45ish. My dh did the drop off at nursery, got into office at 9 but then could work late.

It's really difficult. I gave up my London job (1.5hr commute) when I had DD.

It's worse when they start school. Many finish at 3pm and not all have useful wraparound provision. My DD wouldn't cope with being in wraparound full time anyway as it would just be too much being 'on' socially.

I think it's almost impossible to make a 1.5hr commute work for both parents when you have school age children unless you have willing grandparents around the corner or whatever.

Are all the people saying a 1.5h commute is unreasonable different to the people who tell everyone they can't possibly hope to be able to afford to live in London and should move hours away and commute in?

I picked a nursery near my office, but I didn’t have anywhere near that commute. I reduced to 4 days per week and DH condensed hours to 4 days so we only had three days to worry about. But it’s not the nursery years that are the hardest with FT work - it’s the school years. After school childcare, breakfast clubs, fitting in evening activities and clubs, getting home to pick up a sick child from school, the holidays, the bank holidays (if you work them). A flexible employer was key at that stage. And then there’s the first year or so of high school - no childcare, and they’re home alone until you get back from work, and to begin with, you worry about leaving them too long by themselves. Personally, I’d be wary of relying on wfh always being a possibility if my office was 1.5 hrs away unless I had a cast iron guarantee that was going to continue and my employer was pretty flexible.

I negotiated/told my boss that for the last hour of the day I'd be clearing my inbox/messages on the commute, so left an hour early (but it was clear I was still 'working' as I'd be pinging everyone replies!)

Without that I seriously doubt I would've been able to continue my career (single parent).

Aupairs

Around here (commuter belt) the nurseries are typically open until 6.30pm.

I worked out if have to leave the office at 3pm to guarantee that I'd be able to pick up by 5:30pm closure time. I have no Plan B other than DH with a similar commute. So ended up going note part time than I intended. 3 days - then used a wrap around childminder for 2 days and WFH with an arrangement to start working at 6am so I could finish at 4pm.

Those days are gone now but I was SO tired. Necessary to keep a foot on the career ladder though.

Mine used to love it! He was in the sling, so not under anyone’s feet/no risk of getting squashed.

Toronto though, so not as crowded.

DH and I are in outer London - my commute is 60mins, his is 75mins. We have organised our week so one of us is always WFH. His office days are Tues / Weds, mine are Mon / Thurs and then we decide on Fri depending on work schedule / meeting friends / other commitments. Then whoever is WFH is responsible for drop off and pick up. It felt relentless when we first started doing it but actually we very quickly got into a routine. Plus it took the pressure off if there were issues on the trains or whatever getting home.

We used to WFH and do pick up, but I found it too stressful to have a kid at home during my last hour of work so I quit. Now a SAHM doing some copywriting freelance and choosing my own hours. Regular jobs are not made for parents of young children.

I am office based and commute is 60 minutes min. 90 on a bad day.
dh wfh and deals with pickup and drop off 3 days a week and I have work life balance which means I work early and late on those 3 days. It gives me Monday and Friday where I only work 10-2 to allow me to do school run and pick up. If dh didn’t wfh I couldn’t do it.

In our case DH did the morning drop offs and I started work early, at 6:30am some days and did the afternoon pick ups.

Later on they went to a private school that did wrap around care, though pricey.

My children are adults now but for years I had this issue! My commute from home to my London office was 1.5 hours and I had various arrangements over the years.

I was lucky that I was able to work part time. Initially I left at the crack of dawn and DH did the drop off allowing me to leave early enough to pick up.

With two pre-school children I had a nanny (this was the best and easiest arrangement but the most expensive).

In the early school years I had a 'before and after' school nanny for some of the time, and this transitioned to another parent bringing my DS back and staying with him and her DS, until I returned. (I paid her). DD made her own way back.

From DS being in Year 3 I had no childcare - only school, and when DS was in Year 5, DH and I split up so it was totally up to me to drop off and pick up.

I spread my part time 3 days a week work over 4 or 5 days so I arrived late and left early.

This was all pre-working from home. It would have been far easier to navigate these days!

Train delays always produced a bit of stress but somehow things worked out in the end.

Ditto. Sometimes feels like it's not worth working (and we are both high earners) but I can't WFH at all, can't leave work before 6pm on a good day and no family nearby so there is literally no other option.