Childcare & shift work

[forsythg]

What do you do?

We’re hopefully TTC soon, I do a 9-5 and my husband works shifts which he knows months in advance. My role is hybrid and involves some full days at office and some work from home, and some where I’m just in the office for mornings etc. DH shift pattern often means he is off work either the weekend and Monday and Tuesday and working Wed through Fri, or off Wed to Fri and working the other days. Like I say we know it in advance but it’s different weekly which throws up some issues.

We’re comfortable, live humbly & are by no means big earners. I can’t believe it’s over £1000 a month for a full time childcare place - not that I even think it’s necessarily ideal for a little one to be there 5 long days. It’s eye watering and would really affect our financial situation!

Both sets of parents would help and live 3 and 20 miles away respectively, but I don’t think either would want to commit to regular help as they would understandably find it a tie. Haven’t actually asked them, think it would be weird to before even getting pregnant right? I do think from conversations with my mum that she would be up for, say, on my work from home days coming over to my house all day or till DH wakes up after a night shift.

We’ve bandied some ideas about inc -

1. Me dropping a day but condensing some hours (possibly doing 33 or 34 hours over 4, if allowed)
2. Finding a childminder or nursery understanding of shift work - if one even exists ??
3. Reciprocal childcare with another local family in a similar position

Interested to know what you do as I am a forward planner, or try to be :-)

Also sorry to drip feed I know about tax free childcare and we’ve seen 30 hours with come in for 9 months plus from Sep 2025, which would be helpful if true but I know there are still costs to top up with from speaking to friends

Your best bet is probably to keep your 40 hour week but do it over 4 days instead of five. You're unlikely to find a nursery that charges for 9-5, you'll be paying 8-6 anyway so may as well use 4 long days and save 20% on your childcare bill. Or maybe use nursery/childminder for three days and hope that your husband, mother and in-laws can cover the fourth day between them (in this scenario you may also get lucky with nursery/childminder having a space on an.occasional day).

You're very unlikely to find a good nursery that offers flexible days, unless your DH is a doctor or similar and there is a work place crèche/nursery that is designed to cover shifts. You may find a childminder who will be flexible, but it's unlikely tbh.

Reciprocal childcare is extremely unlikely to work.

Honestly, she as much as you can now, take as much maternity leave as you can afford and then use proper childcare on a set routine with the same days every week.

Yes, it is expensive but only for a couple of years and adhoc/family childcare gets messy and complicated. I tried for a few months when I first went back full time, I had a friend who offered to have DD 1 day a week (paid) and my MIL offered 1 day a week so I had DD in nursery 3 days.

Soon realised that I was using my annual leave when friend or MIL wanted to go on holiday (completely right that they could choose but limited me and DH), then MIL had some health problems and had to stop, friend had some challenges with her own child and had some days she couldn't help at the last minute which meant calling in or changing work plans.

It wasn't as transactional as nursery either, so on nursery days I would cheerily drop DD off and pick her up and we were in and out. On friend/MiL days, there was the feeling of needing to have a chat/cup of tea at either end of the day which after a full days work elongated the day another hour or 2 and threw off any chance of a routine.

Nursery was great, DD had the same keyworker the whole 3 years she was there, she had loads of little friends, they did day trips and went to the park often, if someone was off sick there were others to cover, they were never closed for snow days, they were open year round barring 1 week over Xmas, they followed the EYFS framework so she was well prepared for school. It was a really positive experience and she still looks back fondly on it now and she's 9yo.

Things were really tight for 2 years, our nursery bill was twice what we paid for mortgage, but it was temporary, and once the 30 funded hours kicked in there was a lovely noticeable drop in the costs.

Be mentally prepared for childcare to get messy again when they start school though. 13 weeks of school holidays, trying to find wrap around care for before 9am and after 3pm. Nursery was so much more convenient!

That first sentence should be 'Honestly, save as much as you can now....'

There are a couple of nurseries around here who cater to shift work .. but need a month or more notice .

I was a childminder . I couldn’t do flexible shifts as essentially blocked a full week .

I wouldn’t take too much of the 30 hours . Nurseries can’t afford to run on the amount the government pay so claw back in other ways .

Thank you I don’t think I’d quite realised this perspective especially the transactional side and things taking longer at both ends of the days. Really helpful insight!

Ok, so my youngest is now 11, but the nursery my dc went to accommodated shift work with 6 weeks notice of shifts. Don't assume that nurseries don't/won't/can't accommodate shift workers until you've spoken to a few.

(The payoff was lots of fire officers, police and doctors etc came to talk about their jobs! )

That’s very good! Was it an NHS nursery or just a random one? Heard busy bees accommodate sometimes

Unless you can find a nursery that will accommodate shifts (none around here), I would resign yourself to covering your five days with nursery and having some of those days go unused when your husband is off.

Personally I wouldn't condense your hours unless you really need to, your days will be really really long, and you'll likely struggle to make nursery drop off and pickup. It'll be even worse in a few years as wraparound and holiday care for primary aged children can be difficult.

Having days with the baby in nursery and your husband off will occasionally be very useful anyway when you've fallen behind and the house is a state, or there's something that needs to be done that you can't do with the baby around.

Get proper childcare for your WFH days (ask anyone who had young DC in March 2020), but WFH as much as you can to save on commuting time, catch up on laundry etc.

Nursery is great, both of mine have gone five days a week from ten months and they both love it.

I would just consider going back to work part time maybe 3 days. Would that be possible? Could your partner request set days/flexible working pattern.

I would look at nursery or childminder 3 set days a week then the 4th day manage between parents and your dh

My dp works shifts with very little notice of his rota. With ds1 we had to pay for full-time childcare despite only using maybe 2-3 days per week which was really expensive!

By ds2 I had dropped to 4days and dp negotiated the same day off every week. So doing 4 days each. We also found a nursery that would accommodate shifts and ad-hoc bookings which are like gold dust! Unfortunately the standard of care was not great but it saved a lot of money!

@forsythg just a local independent nursery in the village.

Our nursery offers flexible shift patterns so they do exist. One of our biggest client bases are shift working key workers though..

Pay for full time nursery.

we were the same. I looked at all our options.

for our nursery full time got a discount, so I think a full time place was only about £10/week more expensive than 4 days. I would have had to cut to 3 to see a saving.

I was the shift worker, so would keep them off if I had a day off, run them in late if I was in late etc.

the big, and don’t underestimate how big, plus to this is if you are sick, or you need a day to get stuff done, or you just need a day off from it all, the childcare is there. Taking a day a/l now and again kept me sane.

bear in mind nursery costs are temporary. Going part time may save you money in the next 5 years, but long term you will lose a lot more as your career, pension, future mat/sick costs will be impacted.

Round here, there are a small number of childminders who cover shifts, and one nursery. They basically need enough shift workers to be able to make it work - every childminder having one shift worker isn't great. One childminder having 6 shift worker kids can work.
I'd strongly suggest either a flexible childcare arrangement, or your hours covered with childcare. Depending on ad hoc stuff is challenging. Save the grandparent care for when they are ill etc.

When I did shift work I did family and reciprocal childcare for nights. It was very difficult and often would be about to fall apart but held for two years. Make those close friendships now, and as soon as you have a baby and be prepared to step in to help others as much as you can.

We are both nurses so have always done shift work. I dropped my hours to part time and work opposite to my partner. It means we have never had to worry about things like school holiday cover or anything.

Even though your dh works shifts, he is still entitled to submit a flexible working request as everyone is. I'd suggest he submits one to have every Monday off. Whether he drops to a 4 day week, or Mondays are just his fixed off day is up to both of you. (Doesn't have to be Mondays of course but a set day each week).

Then if you switch to 4x long days, you work the Monday. Childcare for the 3 days you are working after that, and you take (eg) the Friday off.

If dh is off one of the other weekdays dc can still go into nursery but maybe a shorter day and he uses that day to do the big shop and a good clean of the house without the little one under foot.

Makes sense it must be a lot harder for the childminders to accommodate!

Thank you @BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz didnt know that about flexible working requests. We could def ‘choose’ a day off each then hopefully. It’s all so tricky

1. Take the full 12months + holiday as maternity if you can. You will not get that special time back.
2. The 5th day of nursery is usually half price as full time people get a discount.
3. How does your company treat part timers, ask around and find out. From experience- if you go to 4 days a week, unless the company finds a 1 day a week worker to pick up your work (unlikely), you will be expected to cram all you existing work into 4 days for 4 days pay. From a work life perspective, a 3 day part time job with a job share is most likely to work as your workload is more likely to remain proportional to the hours paid and you are less likely to burn out. If they say no to 3 days a week/ job share then if you have to go to 4 days at least do compressed hours, because that work is still going to need doing (and at least you will be being paid).
4. Keep the grandparents on standby for covering sick days. There will be lots of those in the first 6 months of nursery. Nurseries do not permit poorly babies, so lots of days with no childcare (which you will still have to pay the nursery for).

When DC were little I worked random shifts, 13hr days and 12 hr nights, DH worked 9-5 with flexibility around start and finish times. I did a flexible working request to have one set day off, we paid for 2 days of nursery and each set of parents volunteered to do a day each but they didn’t have to do every week because I usually only worked 3 shifts a week and often at least 1 was at the weekend. I did hear of people with a nursery that accommodated shift work, they were near the airport, but that’s very rare. Family childcare definitely has its problems but we couldn’t afford to pay for full time nursery when we were usually only using 2 days. We unintentionally ended up with a 3.5 year age gap, so DC2 started nursery just as DC1 finished which helped with the cost.

Thank you I think we’d want to try something like this

My husband works shifts (nurse), and similarly to you, I work a 9-5 pattern.

I took a years maternity leave, and returned on a 3 day week, with DS in nursery for those days. After a year, I went up to 4 days a week and DH agreed a flexible working pattern which meant he still worked shifts but had a set day off each week for childcare. Now DS is at school and I work 30 hours a week over 5 days - I can work from home for most of it so this works nicely for pick up and drop off etc, and I just go into the office on days DH is off.

Nursery was an excellent experience for our DS. It was a fairly small nursery and our DS had the same key worker throughout. He also made great friendships, some of which have continued as they now go to the same school. Our original plan was for my parents to have DS one day a week, but my mums health didn't allow this by the time he was here. To be honest, it was probably a blessing as nursery allows really certain childcare - no calling off at the last minute, people turning up late or asking to changes days etc.

Nursery is expensive, but not for long. It was a really positive experience that I wouldn't change for my DS. Good luck 😊