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.

Use annual leave for hospital appointments as notice of when they are. I get carers leave if sickness happens. This is normally for the first 24hrs only. After that would be unpaid or take annual leave to look after ds. He goes to a breakfast and after school club the 3 days I work and school Holiday time he goes to a holiday club which is 8am until 6pm if needed, me and dh have annual leave and my parents will have him for a few days if needed

Its hard isn't it. We have no backup. No family closer than 3.5 hours away. Friends might help out in an emergency childcare situation, but all of my friends work, and I would never ask them to care for a sick child that isn't theirs.

I am very lucky in that they are extremely reasonable where I work. I'm part time anyway, but if there is a childcare emergency, they let me make up the time where I can. Any chances of a 'career' went down the swannee a long time ago, but I am sticking with this job because I will never find anywhere as flexible.

‘Did you not think of this before having dc?’ I don’t think many of us plan for the possibility of what we’d do if are yet to be conceived child has a health condition. And, many of us are blissfully ignorant to the constraints of childminders/childcare. For example, I didn’t know that I had to find a childminder nearly a year before I needed them when we had our first child. We started looking when he was three months old and discovered we should have booked them in advance when he was a month old. Thankfully, one childminder finally agreed to take him, but she then said she wanted set days too, and that’s when DH and I both reduced our hours and started working opposite shifts.

Dh Workshop Office hours and I work shifts. In return for willingness to do unpopular shifts like noon on Friday until Saturday morning I have a lot of control over which shifts I do, but only in advance. I work alone 50% of the time and clients cannot be unsupervised, so I couldn't leave until I found a colleague willing to come in and take over.

If a child is ill at school while I was working DH would have to go (he could usually) or I have two neighbors who would. As I do a lot of weekends and nights I'm often not at work in the day though. I go to college two long days per week and would leave college and pick up a sick child if it was a college day for me.

My neighbor picks my youngest up from after school club on my routine college days and I'd an emergency contact whom school would release dc3 to if she or I couldn't. Her mum is only 60 and is also an emergency contact in the same way. My own parents live hundreds of miles away and DH's mum is dead and his dad would help in theory but lives an hour away and is away a lot - we've never asked a relative to help.

Touch wood though it occurs to me that it's been 3 years since we last got a call to pick up a sick child from school

If my kids were ill but not contagious (recovering from an operation or something) I could take them to work with me - there's a living room with a TV and a Wii ... one colleague brings her grandson occasionally ...

‘Did you not think of this before having dc?
I hate self righteous comments like this. Because peoples circumstances change in the real world!
Our life was all planned out, until exH met someone else on line and buggered off to America to live with her, leaving me to raise 2 heartbroken children.

I've hired an emergency nanny before.

I am self employed and only work during school hours

DD off sick today. Splitting the day with DH, I might manage to get a couple of hours of work in at home. Then I'll go into office later. If I can I'll make up the balance of hours over the weekend or use up AL or TOIL.

Am lucky to have a flexible basis for work.

Sympathies from me. I had this for bloody years, except we both worked full-time and DH often went away for a week at a time with work or was away out at 6am, returning at 9pm. No parents within 300 miles and rural.

I used annual leave days usually. Kids club for holidays - which mean I was in negative salary in August - earned about £200 less than I paid out.

Found a lovely lady to do school runs for me by putting a card in the local post office. Paid her cash in hand. She picked up from school and kept them at her house until 5.15 when I arrived from work.

How old are your DC?

Reciprocal arrangements with neighbors are invaluable. For holiday cover if you're not going away you have the kids' friends when you're off and the friends' parents have your DC the same number of days in return.

Or one or both of you change jobs for something more flexible. DH and I have both prioritised flexible or family friendly jobs over higher pay etc. You do have to both (not just you) set priorities. We've never seen the point in work dominating life, it's only one element of life. Unemployment is fairly low, most people have more options than they realise and don't need to stay in a job incompatible with family life.

If your child is ill and you have no family or friends who can look after them, then yes - the only option is to take time off work. This is the reality of having kids, and something which a lot of the less flexible/family-friendly/enlightened employers have a problem with.

Emergency nannies and ad-hoc babysitters/childminders are not something I've come across before, and I suspect are pretty expensive and hard to come by. And as PP said, surely they wouldn't take a child if they are ill?

I became a childminder as it was the best way I could combine working and looking after my own children.

I've been doing it nearly 8 years now and it's worked out really well. I have a successful business and can still do school pick ups, watch school plays, sports day etc. It's still a juggle at times but could it be an option for you? If you have limited childcare options where you live you may find lots of parents wanting to use a new local childminder.

I think unless there are two parents with very flexible jobs there is often going to be one parent who has no choice but to be inconvenient. I've seen this with plenty of colleagues and I'm sure it will be me in a few years time.

My children are older now but I still wouldn’t want to leave DS2 all day if he was off school poorly.

Luckily I’m part time and my work is very flexible so that mixed with annual leave means that it’s not often that we have to stress about what to do when one of the kids is ill. This is offset by working in the public sector and not being fantastically paid but for us, bringing home less money is definitely worth the flexibility I have at work.

DH works shifts and is in a job where he can’t just up and leave easily so it’s generally down to me to leave work in an emergency which I’m fine with. Shift work is rubbish but does make childcare during school holidays so much easier to sort even if I don’t see as much of DH as I’d like.

That's why I asked about kids ages - ours are fine alone when not off ill, but we don't leave them all day. Not leaving them all day isn't really so much due to safety but because it's rubbish for them to be stuck indoors. For this reason one parent working shifts and one office hours is good, because I do an early or a late so the kids aren't alone all day

Like others, DH and I both work opposite shifts from each other. As we work 12 hour shifts, nights and weekends, the usual childcare wouldn't work for us.
I work the minimum hours I can. Some weeks we don't have any days off together. Doing shift work boosts the pay slightly.

At least there is always one of us here, if Im really struggling, my mother will help out but don't ask her very often.

For those asking why I didn't think about this before having dc, my first was a complete accident and I was very young when I had them. We've always supported ourselves, never claimed benefits (not that there's anything wrong with those who do) never had any help from family. We are now married with two children and trying to save for a house deposit. So yes, I could give up work and we would be fine but it would take so much longer for us to save. So I'd like to try and keep my job.

I know no one can help me I just needed a little moan as I was feeling a bit upset this morning that I'd let people down again. Unfortunately annual leave doesn't cover the 13 weeks of school holidays, all Bank Holidays, hospital appointments and sick days I need take for my kids.

Both of us have physical jobs which means we can't work from home.

I do have one friend who I can ask for the occasional school run favour but would never expect any one other than family to look after my sick child.

Thanks to everyone who's been understanding and I'm sorry so many of you have similar problems. It really is shit.

Kids are nearly 6 and 8

Can you use childcare for the holidays and then annual leave for hospital appointments and sick days.
You won't be as well off during these times but at least you get to keep your job.

I think you just have to cultivate more paid options or ask friends, I was a SAHM for many years (by choice) and I frequently helped out friends who were working, it helped in that I had an 'only' child so having other children round meant my DS had someone to play with. Also none of my friends took advantage of the situation and would often have my DS to play at weekends or for sleepovers so I got a break too.

I realise that not all friends are in a position to help but is it worth asking around? And also maybe the teenager who helps you has other friends who can babysit too?

I feel your pain. We have 17 weeks holidays to cover (not UK) - only solution is holiday clubs (and a bit of grandparents).

I've just googled out of interest - there are agencies who will look after ill chilren on an ad hoc basis here (they usually will turn up within half a day). I expect it's hideously expensive though (I pay 25€/hour for my after school nanny, though 50% is income tax deductible)

We’re expecting our first and I’m going to have to stay home. It means I won’t really have a career and I’m terrified of that, but we don’t have many options. I’m relatively new to the country so don’t have friends or family here that can help.

Honestly, I don't work. Pretty unhelpful I know.

We juggle carers leave, annual leave and working from home or making time up in the evening/ weekend. We don't have anyone to help and paid childcare won't take a poorly child.

It's so hard trying to juggle work and childcare with no support.

When your boss has calmed down (and got over himself) have a mtg with him to discuss how best to manage the situation. Discuss possibilities of making up time, taking unpaid leave or swapping shifts with a colleague.

Show you are trying to address the situation and go to the mtg with suggestions on how to solve the unexpected leave.

Hopefully he won't be a dick about it...