What do you ft parents do in the 6 weeks holidays?

[Toughtips]

I started a ft job recently. Get 23 days holiday.

DH works ft too.

How do you work it?

We take some holiday but mostly use childcare.

We use holidays clubs,grandparents and take different leave off, haven't had a family holiday for a few years

Holiday club which is an extension of the wrap around during school time.

Ask at your school to see what is available. It may not be part of the school, but you’ll notice a lot of the working parents will all use the same one - we use afternoon club every day and book in full days for all school holidays where we aren’t doing something as a family. It’s £17 a day and you need to send a packed lunch.

Mine are teens now so oblivious if we are around so long as there is reliable WiFi and food!

When younger DH and I would stagger AL, grandparents, at friends for the day and holiday clubs.

Holiday club but make sure we schedule a family holiday during that period as well

All of our leave is saved to cover school holidays, and we pay for holiday club, take leave separately, and somehow it all works out

All of our leave is saved to cover school holidays, and we pay for holiday club, take leave separately, and somehow it all works out

This

I work from home now but when I was FT we just used the same childminder we’d had since the kids were babies. She did school pick-ups, inset days, holidays, all sorts. Very straightforward.

Yes, that's what we do, too.

I expect some parents use the (unpaid) entitlement to parental leave? I expect that is what DH and I will do when we leave nursery behind.

Same as above. Holiday club, grandparents and separate AL.
We did take a 2week family holiday last year and it's impacted all holiday cover since so we won't be doing that again anytime soon.

My dh works shifts so some days home with ds if he's working I'll take my annual leave so will dh , holiday club and grandparents help us out . It's a bit difficult at times but usually manage to sort out .

Normally:
I do one week
My sister used to do another (she’s now dead so I need to look into how to sort this)
Dh has the last 2 weeks off

The rest is childcare and flexi time etc which limits costs. I try to work from home one day a week (admin) as mine can be left to play in another room.

this year I am ‘buying’ an extra 2 weeks leave, as I’ve started a new job and gone from 30 days leave to 24 🤷‍♀️ I do get 12 flexi days a year, so am going to start using those as well.

I find it hard as dh holidays are set by his company, so he has a week off in May, 2 in August and 1 over Christmas he then has an extra 5 days which he can take so we end up using military precision to sort it all out.

Family holidays are a real nightmare - we haven’t had a proper one for years due to this. What normally happens is I take the kids camping dh comes down on a Friday after work till the Sunday when we all go home or vice verse.

I'm PT but I work 4 days a week and am a single parent.

My exh works shifts so he can do a few weekdays.

I take a week off in the summer. My lovely DM (who works full time) takes a different week off as well to help me out.

And for the rest of it I ask family members and friends. I have a couple of relatives and a friend who work in schools so will help me out with the odd days.

I haven't had to use a holiday club yet but I would if I needed to.

Annual leave
Holiday club- lovely sporty one open 8-6 every school holiday.
Parental leave (unpaid)
Swap with other families- they have my DC for the day and I have theirs another day but this is quite tricky to arrange and get the kids to as they have different friends!

We don't have any family willing or able to have the kids for whole days.

I only work 3 days a week but even PT workers need childcare in the school holidays because apart from term time working no ones gets enough annual leave to cover all the holidays. We use a childminder for wrap around childcare and holidays for DD (8) fortunately we’ve been lucky enough to be able to keep the same one from 14 months old to present date.

We have 2 weeks hols together and a childminder for the rest.

We've both been in our jobs a very long time, so both have a lot of leave, but DH is Retail so can't have leave at Christmas or Easter. I take 2 weeks A/L over Xmas. DH takes a week off for each of the Feb and Oct half terms. We both have a week in the May half term to go away. Easter I take a week off and pay for Holiday club for the other week.

In the summer we use 2 weeks local Holiday club, DH has a week off, a week off together for a holiday, a week at residential (PGL) holiday club and a week with grandma.

Holiday clubs / annual leave / I buy additional leave / pay for childminders.

About May I do a spreadsheet to make sure all weeks are covered. I've a child with LD and that makes it harder as he can't go to regular clubs.

My dds school have s holiday club at the school, which is amazing. If that isn’t on we use the next school to us as they have a company come in and who do clubs (just more expensive).
Mil and fil come in handy. They’re not together so we can spread it out.
Now I work in a school, I get all the holidays so don’t need the care in the summer anymore.

I try to take a week off at the beginning and end. The rest of the time they go to a childminder 3 days a week, dp has them one day a week, and one day a week we juggle with family help, swapping childcare with friends or paying for holiday clubs. There's normally at least a week when our childminder is on holiday, we normally book a stagecoach holiday club for that week.

Childminder, holiday club, grandmother, some working from home, time off.

I didn't have a spreadsheet, just a grid on a Word document with all days and weeks to make sure everything was covered.

I was a single parent but managed because I had a very accommodating boss. The business of the office was less in the summer. I had three weeks off, two of which DD and I went away, she went to her father for two weeks and the final week we filled in with holiday club.

Dh has every Friday off so 4 days to cover. As a family we will take 1- 2 weeks off for a holiday. The rest will be a mix of me working from home 1- 2 days per week, annual leave, friend swap, unpaid parental leave, grandparents help (they don't live near us but will travel) and 1-2 weeks of a holiday club. It takes a lot of organising but we manage.

Thankfully DH is a teacher.