How do people manage this - work, ill children

[Whatsinthebag2]

This seems to be worse now I'm on my 2nd child, as it just seems there is more to juggle.
Nursery fees are £81 a day, both me and DH work full time, we can't take annual leave and our holidays are fixed.
Currently the total childcare costs are meaning that we are finding things very tight.

Baby is poorly today so I'm off. I think today is paid, for which I am grateful, but tomorrow would be unpaid. But of course the nursery still needs paying. I'm starting to panic about what this would do financially if we had to take a lot of days for illnesses.

What do people do? Or just grit teeth and bear it for the next couple of years. Good multivitamins?

I suspect the answer depends on your workplace. Some people will just WFH with a sick child & muddle through, so won’t lose pay that way. Some people who have paid sick leave will call in sick themselves. Some people might even get paid dependents leave.

it’s a reason people give for having a nanny actually, because they will still care for a sick child.

It's very difficult. We don't get paid if our DC are off sick, but we can both work flexibly so tend to work around DC at home and tag team and work evenings to catch up.

It’s a nightmare, my worry was also how work would view it, I have given up jobs and become an SAHM before for primarily this reason! However had the confidence to go back to work when people became more understanding about taking time off during covid, prior to that the expectation seemed to be that women shouldn’t even dare to work unless had some mythical ‘back up’ aka relative twiddling their thumbs who lived around the corner happy to take on your sick child’ 🙄 when all the people who had this suddenly couldn’t use this privilege they at least become a bit more understanding. As for the financial side, credit cards

Credit cards, good idea in fact. We don't currently have one.

I do have paid sick leave for myself and I am never off with it. So that's an ( unethical) solution .

I don’t know. Here for tips! DH and I both work full time. I am in week four of a new job and since I started, DD has had Covid, then an infection requiring her to be admitted to hospital for 5 days of IV antibiotics, now she has a random high temperature and is off again 😬

Re credit cards, we used them as had to to cover everything as childcare costs were equivalent to my salary but now kids at school and childcare costs equivalent to 10% rather than 110% of salary we are now paying them off 🎉
The illnesses are worst in the first few months after starting nursery then do settle down a lot so isn’t this bad forever, but yes the first few months after they start feel like constantly having to take time off 😑 By 3-4 it had settled down to once in a blue moon

Honestly, it was one of the reasons we postponed having a child until we were both senior enough to work flexibly and have a lot of control over our schedules. I'm an academic, so some things (key meetings, large group teaching) is non-negotiable, but otherwise I can often rearrange things if necessary -- DH likewise.

I don't know how to make it work. We tried but DD was constantly sick so we decided that I stay home for now. The stress and hassle my work was causing me for taking so much time off to care for sick child wasn't worth it.

That’s only a solution for some roles though Holyskirts. DH is a GP, but that doesn’t mean he can take time off work.

Sambucol is a great multivitamin. But generally - grit teeth, share load between both parents and get through.

We can use paid annual leave, paid and unpaid dependents leave. The paid is limited but we usually just about manage with that.

DD has asthma and usually misses at least 6 weeks of nursery a year, so we expect to take about 3 weeks off each. It’s just lucky we have flexible employers.

Yes my older dd has asthma too so that's another level of stress I think.
It's the thought that a week's illness would be £400 to pay the nursery but losing more than that of earnings. Could easily end up up shit creek.

I don’t think it’s recognised how much of a barrier this is for parents returning to work, thankfully covid has changed attitudes a bit but previously there was very strongly the attitude that you should not have taken this job without adequate back up. The implication being either you had a source of back up but didn’t bother to organise them or you are out of order for taking this job if you didn’t have a source of back up and either you should not be working or shouldn’t have had kids if that’s not possible. The general vibe you got from managers and colleagues (all female) was one of irritation. I actually once had a male manager who was actually far more understanding, also found more understanding when worked in London as I suppose fewer people have family living around the corner and was more of an acceptance that having children shouldn’t be a barrier to working

I do have paid sick leave for myself and I am never off with it. So that's an ( unethical) solution
Not necessarily. When my DD was quite illl recently and off school for 10 days the doctor asked if one of us needed a sick note for work.

A lot depends on the work/employer. Both me and DH have jobs we can do from home, he’s always home in fact, and have understanding employers. Sometimes when DC have been ill we’ve been able to tag team around important meetings. Other times we’ve taken dependents days, which are paid. We’re in a really privileged position that needing to manage child sickness doesn’t disadvantage us, even where we’re still paying the childminder (which is £63 a day)

I totally agree with Ren34.

Women are still expected to parent like they have no job and work like they have no children! And it’s 2023!

Most children aged 0 to 6 get ill fairly frequently. They always have and they probably always will. It’s a fact of life and how they build their immune system.

Parents of young children could be relieved of so much stress and ridiculousness if employment law encompassed, and made provision for, the basic realities of life. And many more women could contribute to the work place in a far more equal and productive way without interrupting their career paths.

So few people nowadays have extended family willing or able to step in and look after sick dc. Especially now grandparents are retiring later in life. If we want a society where we are working towards having a young and productive population, then basic, flexible, workplace provisions must be put in place.

They are long overdue.

That's brilliant !

DH and I both WFH, and have flexible employers who let us take time off in the day and if need be, make it up in evenings or weekends. We juggle it. But it does make child sickness all the more exhausting because we do caring all day then working every other free moment, you basically only get to sleep (if you're lucky) for a week or so, no downtime.

GP help out if it's a non-contagious illness and DC are not too sick.

It's all about the cost of living really, two incomes are needed to run a family and there's no slack.

I don't work full time. Dh has a lot of flexibility in his job so that he can wfh when needed which is fine if our 6 or 7 year old are ill but not the toddler. We work around each other so I'm home when he's at work and vice versa therefore we don't need to take time off. Previously I worked more days and then it depended on who had the busier day, often he would take one day off and I'd take another and then I was home the rest of the week. I also work a Saturday and dh is off then anyway. We have no family support.

Sorry to hear you are struggling and I have no word of advice for you. DH and I have both always worked full time with no family around. We used to have less flexible jobs. DH could work from home, I can't but he travelled. We managed to juggle between the two of us. Then before DC2, I moved to a flexible job where I could WFH. Then he also quit his old job and found a fully remote job.

I think unless you can WFH, it's going to be very difficult to handle illness until secondary. You can't really leave a 10 year old at home all day when they are ill, but they are very quiet and will not disturb you working if you see what I mean. There's a large gap between you can feasibly WFH with them at home and them being left all day on their own.

It's awful during those years.
Why can't you take annual leave? I used to take unpaid parental leave for a weeks holiday and saved my annual leave for the dc's. You are also legally entitled to an unpaid day or two of emergency dependents leave when they are sick.

I work the days missed at the weekend but I appreciate that isn’t an option in every job. Also, don’t forget about chickenpox vaccination if you haven’t already done it, that’s a couple of weeks you can spare yourself and the child.

I can take unpaid leave so that's fine, but then I'm down my pay and the cost of nursery for each of those days - and things are tight already.
I am a teacher so I can't take annual leave. So in a lot of respects I am fortunate as I only need to find holiday cover for 4 weeks of the year where my holidays don't align with my eldest's holidays. But that still leaves me with the problem of those four weeks and then any illness absences on top. It's tricky and I feel I'm barely keeping my head above water financially at the moment.

Thank you for the reminder. I will book one now as the baby is almost old enough.

It’s really hard when you’re a teacher or similar role that isn’t flexible.