Has anyone gone without any childcare for an entire summer?

[Chalatte]

Doing this with my kids (9&5) this summer. We spent a large chunk on classes for the older one, plus due to reasons (usual CM not available and budget) we decided just not to have any childcare at all. It has been okay so far, but as both work we try to get our kids to do as much screenfree time as possible and then switch them on to their tablets/tvs/switch until one of us becomes free to deal with them again. We are able to care for them but just not engage them the whole time, which I'm a bit guilty about.
Any solidarity/words of advice is welcome!

Sil does this and DN has become a bit feral. Each summer sets him back massively socially.

But he has no siblings.

I think it's a massive shame tbh.

Are you both working 5 days a week? Can you not flex a bit for the remainder and do some days out etc?

How much extra do you get from your job for doing this this one summer only? Is it so that you have enough bonus for Disneyland for Christmas?
Otherwise, crappy parenting I'm afraid

Mine are 12 and 13, I'm a sp working all day
They hang out at home alone.
There is no choice
There is no childcare.

Have you not used any annual leave at all? The 6 weeks feels like a really long time for that sort of set-up. It feels like something that would be doable for a shorter half term but the whole holiday period must be v stressful for you both re work but also a v long stretch for the kids.

Wow! I thought this was going to be a light hearted rant about looking after kids for 6 weeks and the joys / challenges. To work at the same time sounds so stressful.

We've had to wing two weeks and it's been very stressful. This was due to my work cancelling my leave due to staffing issues. They knew I had booked it and had no child care and needed me in the office two days then WFH the others. They know my kids are here and I told them I would need to take breaks to make sure my kids were ok. They had to lump it but I'm pretty unhappy about it as we'd actually got it sorted well in advance for once until disaster struck at my work. (Disaster being two managers pulling long term sickies because they got put on performance management). My kids are 9 and 5 and spent way too long those days playing on the Nintendo

How much annual leave have you taken with them?

That's horrendous @HobnobsChoice, but completely out of your control.

mine are older now but no I wouldn’t have ever done 6wks with them doing their own thing whilst I worked at home. Not fair to child or employer.

I’m so glad I work in a school for this reason, I wouldn’t want to do this to my child is there not anyone that can take them out for a few hours a week etc?

I had similar a couple of years ago, it was horrible. I still feel disproportionately furious at the ex manager who put me and my poor kids in that position.

I am really thankful I've been more or less able to cover the summer (2 weeks of leave with the kids, 4 weeks of various childcare, some full-time and some shorter days). The weeks where I've not quite had enough hours have been bad enough. My manager has been reassuring, but I feel pretty burnt out. And broke.

I don't use holiday clubs. I get a decent amount of leave from work as does my ex so we manage it between ourselves. The DC go to family occasionally for a night or 2 or have a sleep over with a friend. I do the odd day WFH with DC here but it usually co-incides with them needing a low key day after a busy period so it's fine.

We both work and I WFH, so we are doing 2 weeks DH has DD5, 1 week I have her, 1 week we are all on hols away, so that left 2 weeks with me WFH with her there. It’s the first time we’ve had to do this (younger DD is in full time private nursery). I did some play dates with other parents - so dropped them off at theirs for the morning, and booked her into a summer club for half a day. Then next week I’ve booked her into another summer camp (her mate from school is going as well). TBH it would probably be fine as she would occupy herself while I was working, but the main reason I’m booking camps for her etc is she would spend 8 solid hours watching rubbish on YouTube otherwise 🙈😅. Are you sure there aren’t any summer clubs you can book them into, even if it’s not full working hours? There are loads round ours, or play dates? That’s what I’ve relied on

For the odd day, perhaps but for the whole summer - not ok. Are you and their Dad taking any leave? The 5 yo is far too young for this.

Those of you who have had leave cancelled, what would have been the outcome if you'd have refused to cover? My ex often claims that he "has to work" when he's previously assured me that he's booked leave and it pisses me off. I presume he's too weak to stand up for himself generally and he'd rather let the DC (and me) down than grow a pair, but maybe I'm being unfair?

I have 2 weeks off at the end of the month so it's not the entire 6 weeks. The first two weeks were a tuition for my eldest (9-430) and my partner would take them to and from the class to drop her off, and stop at the park on the way home.

He has a flexible WFH job and we did try going no screens until 11AM, cook them fresh meals, do no screen time at lunch, and every evening after work take them out for a walk/run to the park, so they aren't totally indoor bound. Still I know it's not ideal. I can't take the entire six weeks and partner has a deadline so he can't take any time off at all. We're a bit tight for money because the tuition cost close to a grand, and our childminder is not available this summer so we didn't see the point finding a random stranger to watch our kids (we had a bad experience when we did this last summer)

To balance it out we do take them out to parks regularly and try to compensate on the weekend, and the 2 days I'm home I will make sure we do more offscreen time. This has been harrowing and I'm counting the days down to my time off so I can make i tup to them...

Yep. Aged 10 and 6. I WFH part time. It's been incredibly difficult. But beggars can't be choosers. So it is what it is.

Me- I've done this with my preschoolers because money has been tight recently (husband in between jobs) and I shall never do it again. Mine have turned feral and I'm willing to make significant cuts next time if we're in the same financial position to make sure they're attending something!!!

I do have 2 weeks off. My hubby is flexible in the sense he can start late, take a lunch break with the kids, break in between and then go back to work after I'm back home...
My 5-year olds are twins so they have each other. When I'm home for the 2 days a week I'm able to 'set them off' i.e. get them engaged in some sort of play before I get to work so they will end up with less screen time, but his play is more physical and he cannot 'set them off' and carry on working, so often he will give in to the screens more easily than I do.

Yeah I’d have spent the £1k tuition on giving your children a decent summer. What 10yr old needs 2 weeks of tuition 9-4:30 which is longer than a school day

How??? How is this even at all possible?? And a five year old?? When do they get taken out? Who mediates between fights between them? How can you possibly do any work at all if you are caring for them?

I'm probably assuming all work is like mine which is intense zoom calls and phone calls interspersed with really hard-core focus time to hit deadlines.

My kids can go about two hours and that's with screens plugged into them.

Mean to quote you in the above message. Dad can take leave when he's off project but he's stuck in projects until September so cannot take time off unfortunately.