To not have 'alternative childcare'

[strawberrycake]

My 5 m/o is on antibiotics for a chest infection, a one week course. Poor thing is pretty rough. Nursery won't have him back until 48hrs after the course finishes.

This means time off work until then. I have no other childcare. No family or friends that don't work to take him, I have never left him with anyone but dh as there is simply noone. Surely this is fairly common.

DH could take time off but we work together so however we do it the school is down. It's easier for the school for me to be off, I don't mind either. We have noone else as I said.

Someone implied today that everyone who works should have 'alternative childcare'. AIBU to think she is simply smug as she has family to take her kids if they are ill. What is 'alternative childcare' apart from being lucky in having family members to step in?

Maybe I'll stay here and put my prices up (not) haven't put them up in 3years because I honestly don't think I'd have any customers if I did! You can move here (midlands) and I'll do childcare for you from 8-6 £30 per day inc all homecooked meals

As the mother of a child who has extra support from the Senco twice a week I can tell you he would definitely notice the absence. He is 6 though so may be older than the dcs you teach.

£7 an hour is very high. I paid £4 but I think she now charges £5 per hour.

With a baby that young, you can't leave him with a stranger so there isn't such a thing as emergency childcare unless you have family/very good friends close by. As you've said, who would want to leave a baby who is ill anyway with a stranger?

When your Dcs are older you do develop a network of other mothers etc, especially once they've started school. But even so, I can't leave a sick child with another mother as they all have children of their own to deal with! Back-up childcare is just not an option for most people. Sitters (the agency) do emergencies but will charge a lot plus who wants to leave a sick baby with a stranger?

YANBU

If you are lucky enough to be able to afford an emergency nanny, or can access such a service, or are happy at leaving their child with a stranger in those circumstance, then good for you. For those of us who choose to put our child first, or simply have no choice but to stay at home and be "fluffy and lovely" (what patronising nonsense there is on MN at times) then employers have to accept that children get ill, as primary carers parents have to take time off and no, not everyone has non-working or available family and friends who are prepared to look after an ill child.

I'm surprised that your nursery insists that the course of antibiotics be finished before they will accept him back though.

lovemygirls, the real shame of it is I have a house in the midlands I can't afford to live in or sell! Rent in London for the job and rent my midlands house. Squashy flat here.

I think for most families "alternative childcare" means mum going sick herself. After the few days she can justify to look after the child she will mysteriously go down with the same bug herself. Sad, but true IME

YANBU. She needs a slap.

In countries where someone's actually thought about this problem, ie Scandinavia, parents have paid (paid!) days off to look after sick children. And no, they don't have massive fiscal deficits. They have functional economies and healthy, well-cared for children.

I kind of do as my company provides emergency childcare for 10 days a year, same as Portofino, but to be honest I'd never use it I don't think.

If DD was ill I'd want to either me or DH to be with her, and she certainly wouldn't want to be with a stranger.
When she had chicken pox we took it in turns to have days off depending on each other's workloads and it didn't seem so bad that way as only a couple of days off each before she was scabbed over and feeling fine and back at nursery.

No family nearby so no other options really.

I am alone as well which means if I were to get a job it would have to be at weekends. Not many about though

Strawberrycake YADNBU - your friend sounds like a smug bitch.

DH and I are in the same boat, our parents are hundreds of miles away, all my friends work or have little ones of there own. DH works 90 miles away from where we live, so it is down to me. I'm self employed and if I can't work I don't get paid. I have been incredibly lucky in that DS has hardly ever been ill apart from Cpox, so haven't needed to take time off. But if he was ill on a day I am working, I would have to cancel and rearrange all my work for that day, inconveniencing my team and it is time I cannot get back.
Fortunately I am taking on a new role where I no longer coaching individuals over the phone, I will be doing it all via email.

Mumblechum - I can totally see where your coming from, however I expect you are well recompensed for your career which means, it is not so much of a hardship for you to pay an emergency nanny, but a lot of mum's are in not very well paid jobs - which means they are effectively paying to not go to work.

I am so lucky with my job that we get a few days special paid leave for 'domestic crisis' situations including sick children, or even when dh was looking after her and he was sick.

As a long term nursery user and working parent I heartily sympathise. I had very limited Grandparent availability when my dc were ill and now it is non-existant as my parents are too old and I don't want to expose them to so many illnesses themselves.

I would however advise you to use this as a wake up call for the future.

Nursery attenders are exposed to lots of other children's germs and potentially will experience plenty of viruses, some of these such as chicken pox, hand foot and mouth etc may require more than a day or two off work for you. (Having got this sort of childhood stuff out of the way your child will however very possibly be rarely off school when they reach school age, having developed some immunity to bugs.)

You do need to have a plan however for chicken pox or whatever, keep a file of agency nanny details or whatever you may need. Have you asked nursery if there are any part-time members willing to come to your house on their days off to earn extra cash. This would not be official and nursery could not "arrange" it but get to know the staff and sound them out. Sometimes they are part-time have their own young children but can leave them with relatives whist they care for your own child.

WARNING - ENTERING DODGY TERRITORY HERE....
IMHO, from 6 years experience, nurseries are sometimes very quick to ring you and ask you to collect your child who "has a temperature" or "has refused all food and is lethargic". Sometimes I suspect that staffing numbers have dropped as a member of staff has gone home ill, they can't get any cover and so they have to reduce the number of children being cared for.
I have several times picked up a child who was being clasped in the arms of a nursery staff member only to have said child skip out to the car and ask for food or entertainment etc within 5 minutes. I have had this sort of thing confirmed "off the record" by an ex nursery worker who worked in a different nursery (although she seemed surprised that I had worked this out for myself).

Going forward, not relevant now, but something to bear in mind........
Make sure you tell nursery that it will take x amount of time from receiving a call from them to you arriving to pick up your child and they may not be so hasty in calling you. My problem was that I work literally on the doorstep of the nursery that I use and am there is therefore only a short delay before I collect my child.

I have on two occasions, I admit, given calpol at 7.00 am in the morning before dropping dc off at 8.30 and not told nursery, knowing that the staff will call me before giving dc any more so no risk of overdose (and you'd have to give a child a lot of calpol before it was dangerous). Both times dc was fine in my opiniopn even though temperature was slightly raised (cough/cold type bug both times) and I received no calls from nursery that day and picked up a happy child that afternoon.

You need to distinguish for yourself if your child has vomitted at home/had loose stools because of a bug or as a one-off for whatever reason as it is an instant 48hr ban for Diarrheoa or Vomitting.

Conjuntivitis - don't get me started on that one ! I even got called to pick up my oldest dc because of nits (we found 1 adult and a dozen or so eggs !) and could not drop them back off until treated. I did get back to work in the afternoon that day but only for a couple of hours.

In summary you do need back-up childcare if at all possible but it has to be searched for, it won't drop into your lap if GP's is not a possibility and it probably won't be cheap either.

YANBU

I think it's totally unrealistic to expect alternative childcare. Childcare is expensive enough without having to pay for a back up arrangement. As far as I can see it, you would either be paying an absolutely huge hourly rate to get some sort of emergency nanny cover, OR you would have to pay some sort of all year round retainer to a CM to provide back up on the rare occasions it's needed. And remember, you'd still be paying the full rate to your normal childcare provision, because a child being home ill doesn't reduce the nursery fees - they still have to be paid.

I had no problem paying the nursery a big chunk of my income, indeed all of it when I had two kids there - but I think expecting parents to pay ON TOP OF THAT some sort of 'insurance' provision is bloody daft.

IME the only people who make this sort of smug comment about people who haven't got back up, are the people who dump their kids unpaid on grandparents or other family, and perhaps feel slightly uneasy at not paying for proper provision - it's a cheap dig at other people who do.

Yanbu

I'm in the same boat and DH and I take it in turns to take days of annual leave.

The first winter DS was in nursery was grim, 6 lots of antibiotics and lots of sick days. But since he's been 18 months old he's barely been ill. I think his immune system must have been so challenged it's pretty bullet proof now.

I've done the same as sitdownplease and given calpol at 7am before nursery. Also, I don't tell them if he is on antibiotics. He has them at 7:30am, 6pm, 10:30pm and 3am so his doses are properly spaced but not given during the day.

My boss (who has a SAH husband) helpfully suggested I find a "local lady" to take DS when he was ill?!?

I'm in same position as you - for a week I'd collect some work from office & attempt to get something done from home, at least keep on top of emails etc.

DP has family in town but that would involve taking DC on 70 min + journey across London on public transport to his Mum's place, then back again. She would look after DD but as she hates to leave the house & doesn't 'do' public transport we'd have to get sick child to her each day - not a great option.

Once DP's brother was on holiday & was able to provide a days emergency childcare - it was marvellous & BIL & DD had fab time together.

But VioletHill, what can you do?

I am an employer and a parent. All staff in my organisation get the same flexibility and consideration I do - if work can be done from home, or flexi worked, or annual leave taken at v short notice, or unpaid leave, then that's all fine. DP and I share sick-child duty equally, too.

But once all that is exhausted, no employer is going to want to say 'fine' every time a parent needs 5 days off to care f a child with a sick bug or flu or chickenpox if the absence of the employee would mean the loss of a public event, for example, or having to turn away other people's children from an understaffed nursery, or whatever.

So, one of the tensions, compromises and difficulties of woh f/t is either finding a job which is totally flexible, or else finding a source of alternative emergency childcare. What other option is there?

yanbu

It is often just impossible to have a childcare arrangement where someone will take your sick child. It would have to be family really.

I would give that owman short shrift.

If I were you, strawb, I'd offer to take unpaid leave after your care days are up.

Personally I wouldn't mind taking unpaid leave at all. It's something that just has to be done at times and we could all do without the guilt.

Have experienced this from both sides of the fence - as an employee with a sick baby and, a bit later, as an employer (am now a partner in a smallish legal firm).
The firm allows a days leave "to arrange emergency childcare". The firm recognises that this isn't always possible but after that employees have to take further absence as annual leave or if they've run out then as unpaid leave (though we do try to be flexible and let people work from home or make up the hours another time instead). Whilst this might seem harsh, allowing more paid leave is unfair on other employees who have sick elderly relatives etc - and allowing everyone indefinite paid leave to look after all sick children/elderly relatives would be unaffordable.

I think the bottom line must be that if someone hasn't got or can't afford alternative childcare, they have to use up holiday or take unpaid leave.
When my DD was small I used to expect to have to use up part of my annual leave looking after her when she was sick and couldn't go to nursery.

Blu- as others have said, allow the employee to take unpaid leave. I can totally see that the employer can't cope with endless time off, BUT I do think it's an exceptional situation when someone has their childcare totally sorted and paid for, but then temporarily can't use it because the child is ill. It's totally different to a situation such as someone being inflexible about childcare.

Strawberrry - try the local Babysitting services. Quite often they have nannies on their books, yet charge less than Emergency Nanny Agencies. Most nannies would be happy to look after DS, even though he's not well etc

In general though, I think if you WOH and use a nursery, you do need a back up plan. Kids get all kinds of things and you can't be off work everytime they are ill can you? Another reason why nannies and some childminders are a better option, but admittedly more expensive - but if you can afford it and need to keep your job, they may be a better option.

I just don't see how you can commit to a job without a back up plan for when the kids are sick and the nursery wont take them?

Get to know a local ad-hoc nanny or a SAHM who would be happy to have a little extra money. There are a lot of lovely people out there who would be willing to do this ad-hoc - you just need to find them.

You really do have to be prepared to leave the kids with other people and if you aren't then maybe staying at home is a better option until they're at school.

That only works if you can afford additional childcare, have access to such a service, or feel inclined to leave them. If you prefer not to leave them, then it's a bit of give and take - the employer should recognise that employees are often carers with responsibilities, and allow them to take some level of carers leave, and the employee should be prepared to take annual leave, or unpaid leave as a last resort.

Of course you can commit to a job without having a back up plan and I wonder what you think happens to children once they are at school? They get ill there too, you know

Prefer not to or can't leave them

I (or dH) have always worked from home. We have been fortunate I know - if you work in Tesco this won't work.

FWIW I gave up on using a nursery as DD had too many days off with minor illness. We ended up doing a nanny share and nanny happy to look after kids with minor ailments.

Also build up reciprocal relationships with friends, etc.

But anyway entitled to take unpaid parental leave.