How does childcare work when you do shifts?

[fairgame84]

Sorry if this is a stupid question but I used to work normal hours when DS was little so I've no idea how this works.

Im pregnant with DC2 and will be going back to work full time after mat leave. Im a nurse and work 3 or 4 13 hour shifts per week; days/nights/weekends, no set days or pattern.
DH works normal hours, mon-fri 8.30-5.

How does it work with nurseries and childminders?
Do we pay for the days we use or do I pay a retainer for the whole week and just send DC when needed?
Or do we have to send DC for set days and hours?
We have no family that will help so we'd need childcare otherwise DH will have to stay home.

You either get childcare for your dhs work pattern and pay for more care than you need, or you negotiate set shifts. Be clear you might need to resign if you can't get set shifts for each week.

I'm sorry, I've done that 'cut to the end to reply' thing, 50 posts in, that causes others to rightfully say 'RTFT'. So I apologise in advance, and will slink away....

But- HCPs have sleep-walked into looooong shifts.

Let's face it, you're 23. Hey, nail my hours in 3 days? Three thirteen hour days? Four days off? Yeah! Managers LOVE rota'ing them! Win/win!

Until- you find you spend Day 4 sleeping off Day 1-3. So you may as well have done 0800-1800 x 4; same hours, less 'on your knees' exhaustion.

Then you have DC. How many childminders can accommodate 14 hours? How many PT jobs are there? When you need them, aged 35-45?

Oh, none.

HCPs have allowed this to happen; not least because of a huge influx of overseas trained staff, good/bad/ugly though they are, who will work all the hours god gives.

I’m a nurse, kids are 4 and 2, have always worked 13 hour shifts on the ward.
I don’t work Wednesday/Thursday. That includes not working Tuesday night. So I have the kids at home on those days.
I can then basically work any shift pattern Friday-Tuesday.
Maybe you could try something similar, then you only need 3 days childcare, your DP can do the drop off/pick up and if you happen to be off on one of the days you have childcare it gives you some time for yourself for catching up with housework/errands or some time to rest and relax.
You are also being fair to your employer by offering as much flexibility as you can. Maybe would need to reduce your hours slightly to give you some weekends off, but there is always overtime if you want to top your wages up.

Op, is it possible for your DH to drop any hours/days?

My friend who works shifts found that it worked well once her DC were at school. She was usually available for either drop off or pick up, and then her DH who had fairly flexible hours could do the other one (and work early/late to make up his hours). So they could nearly always cover it between them, despite both working full time, without having to use breakfast club and after school club like most working parents, and saved money on childcare in the primary school years. Sorry, I know that's not much help now, but it may help to remember that there may be savings in the future!

If you haven't check your nurseries.

I looked at loads and (only) one catered for parents doing shift work.

I dropped to 11.5 hours a week Sunday days only to work round DH weekday working. No childcare costs and all my hours are done as higher rate unsocial hours.

We paid for a lot of care that we didn't need just to hold the space open for the weeks we did need it. It was financially crippling until they were in school.

I work on NICU, I would say at least a quarter of our staff with young children do fixed shifts. Your employer has to look into flexible working, it's the law. Obviously you have to have some flexibility yourself, but it's worth an ask!

[quote ImSaxyAndIKnowIt]@cptartapp can I just ask what was the new pattern they brought in? I’m a district nurse, currently doing 8.45-5 full time, we do 2 weekends month each. Fits in fine with family life but there is beginning to be talk of merging with out of hours and creating one big team and we are all
Horrified![/quote]
They disbanded the twilight team. Then everyone had to work 7-3 and 2-10 ad hoc to fulfill the 'needs of the service'. No set hours allowed. There was a consultation period (a legal tick box exercise, meaningless) and I was told I had six months leeway to sort childcare. They could have given me six months and it was unsolvable, so I left.

I work M-5 9-5 and my DH has a shift work job. We use nursery / wrap around for eldest 4 days a week. He negotiated one fixed rest day during the week (Wednesday) with his employers when he does the childcare. It means that he can still do nights/weekends but sometimes he is off when the kids are at school and nursery. We are overpaying in those days to keep their places but the fixed rest day has saved 1/5 of costs

It's rough,

Could you ask that you have a day clear (eg never rostered on a Friday) but you're otherwise flexible? Then you're only paying for 4 days a week of childcare.

As I childminder I would be happy for you to pay for two fixed days and then ad hoc any extra you need each week.

I think you will just have to book childcare around DHs predictable 9-5 shift pattern and accept you may occasionally have child care you don't really need. ( but then I would just see it as childcare I did need as if been working long days and needed some down time.
I'm a nurse but also a single parent so I had to make the decision to move to community and now only take jobs that are monday to Friday office hours.

It’s a nightmare. I found a childminder that would be flexible with days but when they went to school she couldn’t have them anymore.
I eventually quit my job as a nurse and now work on the nurse bank picking and choosing my shifts.
Unless you have family help it just doesn’t work and is stressful.

My youngest child is about to leave primary school, but their nursery offered flexible days with 6 weeks notice ie: if your could give them 6 weeks notice or 6 weeks worth of which days you needed when, they would accommodate it. As a result, there were a lot of shift workers’ children - nurses, hospital doctors, lots of police, several paramedics, care workers, fire service, and often couples in the same occupation - It made for some excellent “show us your job” type days and quite a few fire engine drive pasts.

I've done hospital shifts up until recently. It was part time though so at one point I would work every weekend.

Then I did permanent nights. I applied for set days and it wasn't an issue in my old department. Could you cut your shifts down to 2 or 3 maybe? Definitely try applying for a flexible contract OP.

It’s definitely worth asking, our nursery allow flexi days, they charge an extra £10 a week for this. So you have to pay for 3 days a week every week but you can swap and change the days to suit. We are near a large university hospital so I assume that’s why the offering is there, even though they aren’t based at the hospital

When I had DC1 10 years ago I was offered 1 set day off each week, so I didn’t need to arrange and pay for childcare for 5 days a week when I only worked 2 or 3 week days. We had some family help and nursery that DH did drop off and pick up. DC did go to nursery when I wasn’t at work for the consistency of knowing when it was a nursery day and to give me chance to catch up on housework etc that I couldn’t do when out of the house until 9.30pm.
There should be some degree of flexible working available even if no one else uses it. In the last couple of years a few of my colleagues have come back from maternity leave on set shifts to make childcare work (single parents, husband who works away etc).
Also, I don’t know where you are, but I have heard that on the other side of my city there are flexible nurseries that will work around shift patterns. They are near the airport.

I work for ambulance service and work a relief rota that I get 4wks in advance. My son goes to nursery on an ad hoc basis, I just let them know the days 4 weeks in advance after checking my rota. They have a minimum requirement of 2 full days per week or 3 half days

I'm on mat leave but will be returning to NICU nursing after. We have registered for 4 days a week nursery and MIL will cover one day. DH is a teacher so will do drop off 7.30 and pick up 6.30 on days I am working. After final night shifts he will drop baby off at 7.30 and I will collect once I've had a nap around lunchtime. We are still working out £1000 better off for me working, plus pension contributions, sick pay etc, so although its annoying paying for days we won't always use, it seemed like the least stressful option to always have nursery available when we need it.

Our nursery isn’t flexible at all. So I send DD three days a week, and quite simply told my boss I don’t have any childcare on two days a week, so please don’t schedule me on those days. On the rare occasion she has, I’ve just swapped the shift

My nursery accommodated my DH 4 week shift pattern. I was able to provide it 6 months in advance. I really expected them to say no, but struck lucky. DC had been going there for 2 years already, but it was a perfect set up. 3 different days in week on a rotation.

It's shit. I'm an A&E nurse and do fixed shifts, it's the only way. The hospital nursery makes no allowance for shift work, normal nursery opening hours only. Without my mum to do pick ups I wouldn't be able to do shift work

My kids are older now, but I've always worked shifts 12hrs day/night, DH 9-5.

When they were in nursery we paid for Tues-Fri, and if I picked up a shift on a Monday we would ask if they could accommodate for an extra day that week and pay additionally, and if not, DH would book a day of leave.

Day shifts DH would do drop off and collection

Night shifts DH would do drop off and I would pick up as soon as I'd woken up (usually around 230pm) so I'd get some time with them before work.

Days off- I'd keep them home, but obviously be paying for the space. Occasionally after a run of shifts I'd send them in for a few hours on my first day off in order to catch up on a few hours sleep/chores etc.

It's an expensive way of doing it, especially on weeks where you end up paying for far more than you use, but for us, without any family around to fall back on, the flexibility and security was invaluable, and we couldn't really have done it any other way.

Nursery were very understanding and I'd keep them in the loop with regards to what days would be being used each week.

Are childcare vouchers still a thing via your workplace? This saved us a few £££.