What do you do if you don't have childcare?

[MishMashMosher]

DH and I both work. Him full time, me part time. We live rurally with very little childcare options. I don't have any family locally. DH has elderly grandparents and a mum who doesn't have much to do with our children. Her choice, the dc don't even know that she is their granny. So my question is, what do you do when you're kids are ill? One of my dc has health issues and does get ill quite a bit. Nothing serious but does need to be off school. He is having an op next week which should help with this. The school rang me last week and asked me to pick my dd up as she had banged her head. I've also had to take time off to attend hospital appointments for ds too. DH and I also take separate holidays every year to try ans cover the school holidays. How do people manage? I feel so streesed out and I'm so worried about my job. I genuinely don't have anyone to look after my dc when they are too ill for school.

I know i'll be asked this.... Dh does try to do his fair share but he sometimes works quite far away and I work a 2 minute walk away from the school so if we get called to collect one of the dc, it's easier for me to go. Also because of the job DH does, he can't just stop in the middle of doing something. It also means that the people he works with are very limited with what they can do without him. Plus he earns a lot more than me.

I took a more flexible role before having dc to allow me to work at home or take flexi in that situation. It was a hit financially but it was the only way it was going to work.
Like you we have to use our leave for school holiday cover.

Unfortunately neither of us have the option for flexi time. We both have set hours.

I do try and say yes to extra shifts, staying late ect to try and make up for when I can't come in.

We struggle. I have a little more help than you as my parents will have ds for a little in school holidays but they live an hours drive away and are out of the country quite a bit.so not that practical for illness/short notice pick ups.
Like you I have a dh who can't just up and leave and sometimes get stuck at work so for emergencies and making sure someone can get back on time for pick up its always me!
I work 3 days a week (was hoping to go up to 4 when ds started school but can't see how it would work at the mo). I work one long day from home to make up for the other two days when I'm off early racing to get ds from after school club. I have flexi time so any hours lost are made up later out of normal work hours We take some leave separately and use out of school clubs for some of the holidays ensuring a few days are kept for emergencies (but I'm down to one spare day till end of August which will be gone if there's a general election!)

I think you need to find some childcare. Even though it'll tighten your budget.

You need someone who can be a babysitter/mothers help/nanny who hopefully lives local and has a bit of flexibility.

Whether some of that is a local home-Ed teen who can be counted on to hang at yours and play board games, make lunch, call you if things are outside their comfort zone while another person could be an adult who is studying via correspondence or working very part time from home and can pick up a few shifts on short notice sometimes. (Another parent at the school?)
You need a third or fourth cog.

Probably not helpful but I think you'll find that either you have to give up more work than you already have to meet their needs or find help.

An idea that worked for one person I know is that she and another mother who also worked part time agreed to be on call for each other when they could. I don't think they ever really became friends and (I only know one of them) they may not have stayed in contact after their kids were done with primary. But ...

The only way we made it work is to work opposite shifts otherwise it would have been impossible. I also have one DC who is frequently ill and stays home a lot. He's on a priority list for an op which should resolve some of the issues. I also reduced my hours at work and I know I could be earning more somewhere else but my employers are quite good so it's worth sticking around when my kids are still small.

Having paid childcare wouldn’t work for you
as they wouldn’t take your child when they were ill.

We are fairly similar, no family or friends who can help with childcare. We just have to take days off work. Nothing else we can do. It’s not ideal but DS comes first and if he is ill then we take it in turns to stay home with him.

Because of where we live there is only one source of childcare which is an before school and after school club at a different school. As I only work school hours, this doesn't really help me. Its only term time too.

There is a teenager I can ask occasionally but she can normally only do a day or two per school holiday.

We could survive without my wages but it would mean not being able to save any money and I would hate not working.

My boss was very angry with me this morning and although I feel so guilty, there is nothing I can do. I'm so worried I'll lose my job soon.

I'm not in the UK and this was me last year. I was constantly off work as we didn't have any childcare. Maids are common here so I've bit the bullet and now have a lovely lady that comes and cleans for me during the day and then picks the kids up from school and brings them home. She comes and looks after them if they're sick and babysits for me on an evening if we want to go out. It works really well for us.

My point is (🙄) that you will need to get some help at some point down the line for your own sanity more than anything else

We've spent seven years working opposite shifts so one of us was always there if needed. DS2 has an ongoing health condition that means he's off a lot, so it was really important. It has meant that we've had next to no time as a family though, and DS1 (under assessment for ASD) was really starting to struggle with that, so I've just taken a job as a dinner lady at the school. It means a massive pay cut, but the school have been great about any issues.

I think if you have a DC who needs a lot of time off school you will need to get something in place. You are allowed time off for family emergencies but not sorting any childcare at all ever is not a family emergency

We dealt with the 1-2 day duration stuff by massive juggling and decent bosses.
When child 1 came down with chicken pox, we begged my Mum to come a stay for the week. When child 2 came down with it 3 weeks later, she came back.

Some holiday clubs in the holidays they do run in to give you a few days extra annual leave (for illness, and school plays etc).

I quit work when the youngest started school. Without the nursery he was at taking his big brother for holidays, it was too much to juggle.

When the kids are sick, DH and I tried to do half a day each, rather than one of us being off all day. It meant we were able to deal with the urgent stuff at work. It was a pain and only worked because we both worked fairly local, but my boss appreciated it as it was clear that both DH and I were sharing childcare between us rather than me doing it all.

Advertise for a babysitter, available during school hours too. There could be a sahp or local grandparent who might want ad hoc hours.

We are not in the UK and childcare is very expensive here. Lots of people use au pairs but we don't have a spare bedroom so this isn't an option for us. I completely changed my career and became a teaching assistant. If the kids were sick, I didn't get paid, but I accepted that. However, I did get school holidays. After a while I quit though as the kids needs were too demanding and now I am a SAHM. We have no money, but it's just for a short while.

I was a sahm for this reason, I guess if you work you have to take time off or find someone who can/ will take ill children.
You could move somewhere where there is childcare.
Did you not think of this before having dc? We knew it was a sahp or move as we had the same problem.

Do you have a class WhatsApp group? Could you explain the situation and appeal on there? I’m off one or two days every week and would happily pick up another child from my son’s class and keep them for a few hours or if off sick but not hideously infectious let them lie on my sofa watching tv for the day while I pottered about. Even if I didn’t know them/ their parents that well. I wouldn’t be impressed if it was every week but if you got two or three parents willing to cover occasionally it might tide you over a bit better in between times when you absolutely had to be off.

It's very hard. One of my DC has a health condition meaning he's often ill and off school (10 days in Oct and Nov but since then only 2 luckily).

I'm "lucky" in that my company offers paid sick days for DC (3 days per child per year and you can save them for the next year if not used). However I used one day last Autumn and my manager was very very unimpressed. From then on, I worked from home to look after poorly DC and still work. I also got told off for working too much from home but WTF does she expect me to do when I'm not allowed to take the sick days?

Anyway, there aren't a million solutions.

Either have a job that can work around DC being ill, find someone to look after them or stop working.

It's shit.

work from home these days, both of us can do this. But basically, I channel my mother and unless DD is actually at death's door she goes to school!

I don't think you can ask another parent to look after yours if they are ill, unfortunately - fine if the school is unexpectedly closed but not for illness.

take unpaid leave, I suppose. And look for a job where you can work from home easily! (unhelpful, I know!)

Au pair?

I think you realise that either you change something about your (plural) job situation or it's going to cost you money, so there's no way around it really.

I could have written your post OP, except our kids only suffer from the usual knocks and bugs. Rural life, one car, no family childcare, if a child is sick it's me that takes the time off my work (DH is the bigger warmer working full time, I only work part time and bring in a third of his salary)
It's tough! We work alternate days ie I work his days off, so he has five shifts, I have two. We're like ships in the night, but we're just soldiering on for a couple more years til then youngest goes to school and we can re-evaluate our options

When I worked, DH and I covered childcare by working opposite shifts. We had one day off together every 4 weeks. It was shit and we did it for 9 years. We have no family help either, and due to the nature of our working hours (emergency services) traditional childcare was no good. Very hard situation for you though OP.

We are in the same situation so we work opposite shifts, like pp have said.

There is NO childcare for an ad hoc basis, it just doesn’t exist. All the local childcarers have full books, you can only book them for set days, and they wouldn’t look after an ill child. Everyone works full time, or is looking after preschoolers and tied to school pick-up times for older children and even if they would take my ill child (not too sure why any parent would jump at the chance of looking after someone else’s ill child though tbh) then the ill child would have to tag along for nursery drop off/pick up and school pick up. Older friends are either working full time, retired through ill health, childminding their own grandchildren or caring for elderly relatives.

I’ve actually lost a job due to having to take time off for the children’s illnesses. I was a single parent though, Also living rurally with limited childcare options (not that it would have helped seeing as they wouldn’t take a sick child)
It came to a head when the three of us caught gastroenteritis one after the other, so had to take 3 weeks off in a row. Couldn’t have annual leave as had used it up the month before when they’d had chicken pox a week apart from each other so had another 3 weeks off then. Had to just accept it, as although I had no other choice, neither did my employer. It sucks but what can you do?