If you WFH, do you use after school care?

[Carrrs]

Just wondering if anyone here manages without after school care for little ones when they are working full time, or nearly full time?

I'm feeling guilty that we've had to add an extra day of after school care for DS (6) as GPs are no longer able to help us out, so he now does 2 days childminder, 1 day after school club. Theoretically it would be possible for DH and I to manage more school pickups between us and continue working from home until 5/6pm (with DS watching tv). However, it would get stressful due to requiring a lot of close coordination between calendars etc. Currently we are doing it one day a week (Friday afternoons), but this is quite doable as most people don't schedule meetings then.

At that age I wouldn’t have been able to, mine is now in secondary and it’s fine, but at 6 I couldn’t have coped with him at home while I worked.

I work full time and use childcare two days a week. 3 days a week I collect DC and use screens to babysit while I finish off work. DH works full time out of home.
We don't mind screens 3 days a week as we ensure there's enough time out of the house on weekends to compensate and sometimes decompressing after school with screens is relaxing.
When evening activities start up again things will have to be changed up a bit but not too much.

In theory I could manage 5 pick ups while I work from home full time but honestly I want those 2 days to be more flexible for work meeting and potential office days.

I work from home and definitely need the after school care, otherwise most of the afternoon would be written off for me.
My job requires lots of attention to detail and I need to concentrate, I wouldn’t be able to do it to the same standard otherwise as dc requires a lot of attention and isn’t content to just watch tv.

Yes i do for my daughter but for 3 days a week, so except Thursday and Friday
My almost 3 yr old is in full time nursery mon to Thurs.

If nor i can't work from home properly

Also have meetings in the afternoon

Yep. DD is starting reception and will be doing 3 days a week with a childminder before/after school. Younger DS is in nursery full time. I don’t know how we would manage it otherwise. Feels a bit strange knowing that they’re 5 minutes down the road, but at some point we will presumably go back to work!

Pre-COVID, 5yo would be at GPS/wraparound care after school, even if it was a WFH day for either of us, except occasionally if GP unavailable or he was unwell. 2yo went to nursery/GPs every day.

During lockdown we had to work with them there until the restrictions eased. Now 2yo is back at nursery and GPs, however most days the 5yo will just come home after school and stay with us- he will go to GPs when other child at nursery.
It does him good to decompress and relax, he is better at behaving now anyway and has learnt to be quiet/entertain himself if we are busy. It’s more difficult with the 2yo, we had them home one day this week due to a gap in childcare and she is getting more demanding of our time.
Wraparound care at school isn’t on at the minute and GPs are less keen to have both at the same time where possible.
My flexible working contract for my wfh days forbids having children under a certain age (think it was 10) at home while working, but obviously that is suspended right now.
Not sure what we will do when back in the office, hopefully at least one of us will be wfh each day for more flexibility.

I would if we could find someone. We are really struggling. The person who used to do it quit because she was close to retirement anyway and really worried about covid. The provider who ran the before and after school care at school has shut down and is not re-opening. I can't find a childminder with space. It is really tricky. Hence me waking up at 5 in Saturday morning to go and get a few hours of work done and my husband is going to have to work most of the day too.

@redeyetonowheregood we have got our niece who is back to uni, so nearby again, to cover some afternoons if we are busy with work. We pay her as this means she sometimes can’t pick up a shift at her part time job. She can pick up one child and means we can work undistracted and have a hope of finishing at a reasonable time. Could you find someone like that?

Mine are 4 and 6. We both WFH full time currently, but since starting back at school 3 nights a week they have to go to after school club. We've limped through lockdown juggling working from home and sharing childcare throughout the day and our employer has been very understanding, but given childcare is available and we're trying to return to some form of normality we've returned to our pre-COVID work pattern, which is each doing a shorter day so between us we can finish at 15:00 two nights a week and then using after school club the rest of the week, which means we can work until 17:00/17:30. If we didn't use childcare we could probably manage pick up and then sit them in front of the iPad until we finished work but that's not fair on them. They enjoy after school club as it's extra time with their friends, fun craft activities and stuff we wouldn't do at home and when we do pick them up they then have our undivided attention until bedtime so we can chat aviary their days, play, snuggle in the sofa or whatever. I did feel slightly guilty about having to use another childcare setting (after school club is run by a private provider not school) and therefore extending the number of children they're in contact with, but they all go to the same school, have siblings in different years, etc so the odds are they'd come in to contact with those kids/families at some point anyway.

DD still goes to breakfast club even though at least one of us is WFH everyday when she's there. It's just easier than trying to juggle getting ready/work/breakfast & get her to school on time (takes longer with the new rules). She likes going as well which helps!

Thanks all, this eases my guilt! I know other parents who have dropped their after school care significantly since COVID, whereas mine has increased. It sounds like what we are doing is kind of in line with what PP are doing, with us doing one or two pick ups but not all.

No because it doesn’t exist here. No breakfast club and there is an after school club (think like choir or film club) for 1 hour 1 day a week. It’s no use for childcare. But even that isn’t running now because school bubbles can’t mix.

But yes, Dh and I do by one of us starting early and the other working late. I start early and dh does school run, I collect at 3, work til 5 while eldest watches tv, collect youngest from nursery at 5, extra work after bedtime in the evening. It’s not an issue but we both do work that’s very flexible and we have a lot control over how we plan our days.

Is it just you WFH or you and DH? There are different ways of coping with this. If you are both at home one of you could work 6 to 3pm then do pick up and the other could work 9.30am to 6.30pm and do drop off. So there's always someone on childcare duty. Or you could drop your hours a bit so you aren't so stretched, a 6am start everyday is pretty brutal (I did it through lockdown) but 7am is a lot easier.

Yes, I use after school care for the days I’m working - 3 days a week.

My child is still a toddler but I work in after school club and we are back open now.

Lots of parents who are working from home have cancelled their places but there are still some who who are wfh that have asked to increase so id say it depends on your child's ability and resilience to appropriately keep themselves entertained while you're working.

Don't feel guilty though, if you need to concentrate then you need to concentrate and it is easier to do that when you're not stressing about getting to school for 3pm, getting the kids a snack and having to get logged back on and back in the zone.

Plus ds will be with his friends and having fun and outdoor play so it's a win win really.

Why do you feel guilt??
I could pick ds up at 3 and then ignore him till 5:30 while he plays alone.
Or
He goes to a fantastic club with great leaders and plays outside mostly in the field / woods with all his friends.

The second option is so much better for him I happily pay the £14/day three times a week (dh or I finish early the other two days).

The only thing that would concern me about your set up is the number of different social circles your DS is now part of, if he has his school class, his after school club, and his childminder. I’d not worry about the length of his days (my DD3 is in daycare from 7:30-5:30 Mon-Thurs and totally loving it), but I’d worry a bit about how many places her could pick up or transmit the dreaded lurgy. Is there any way you could stick to more days with EITHER the childminder OR the after school club?

I couldn't work FT without wrap around care. DH works an odd shift pattern, so will do the school run when he can, but he starts work at 7.00am, for the most part so I tend to do the majority of the school runs.

DD goes to breakfast club and after school club, about 3 - 4 times per week even though I wfh.
I can't do anything that requires my full attention if she's home.

I've been lucky through lockdown and up until now because a lot of my colleagues were in the same position, now though, I need to get back to working to my pre lockdown capacity.

It's not easy, I wish we didn't need to send her to OOH clubs, but unfortunately we do

I did until y5 when they could start to walk home on their own. In your position I’d definitely use after school clubs (if income allows for it).

DS is 8. This week my mum couldn't pick up, and when I asked him whether he wanted to come home and read/play for 2 hours or go to after-school club, he chose club. More fun apparently. Easier for me too.

I don’t now as my children are both in secondary school but in my previous job when they were younger I wfh 2 days a week and the kids were in childcare. Childminder and then after school club. It was in our contract that we weren’t allowed to care for children when wfh.