to ask how on earth you manage to work when you have kids?

[whyareallthegoodnicknamestaken]

Currently just having a look at whats out there in terms of work as i have taken time out to have dc's so have been a SAHM for the past 6 years.
Everyone wants flexible working hours, zero hours contracts, People willing to work weekends..
Dh is away for work quite a lot and works odd hours, I have no one to drop off or pick up dc's from school. Paying for breakfast club and after school club every day isn't cheap..
How on earth do people juggle it? Genuine question. I have no idea how I'm ever going to b a able to get a job.

Have DCs aged 5 and 3.

DH works 4.5 days, two as an employee 90 mins away and 2.5 on his own account very locally with his own office that I can also use. I'm incredibly lucky. Work 3 days a week - once from home, twice in office (90mins away).

On two of my working days I go to the office so my DH, it being his "own account day", drops my eldest at school breakfast club and my youngest at nursery and then works at his own local office. My parents collect youngest at 1 and eldest at 3 and take them back to theirs (3 miles away). They give them supper and Dh or I collect at 6pm.

On my third working day, DH only works in the morning. I take youngest to nursery and DH takes eldest to school for 9. I come back and work at home. I collect youngest in my lunch time at 1, bring him back and hand over to DH. I go back out to DHs (local) office for my pm's work. DH does the school run at 3 and makes supper.

On my two no work days I do the lot as DH is at his employed job 90mins away.

In school hols the kids just go to GPs all day on my first two working days and on the morning of my third I take half a days leave or fudge it a bit.

We find all that exhausting enough with huge amounts of flexibility and GP support and having to pay nothing for childcare except my youngest 's nursery lunch Bill. God knows how others manage.

Myself and OH work full time.

My DD who is 7 goes to breakfast and afterschool club which is open 7am - 7pm, it is next door to the train station we use to go to work.

DS is 12, he takes himself to school and home and is happily doing homework / watching TV until we get home.

DC3 is due in July, I will have 6 weeks maternity leave and be back at work when DC3 is 10 weeks old (2 weeks annual leave and OH has 2 weeks paternity leave)
Baby will be going to nursery full time (same place as DD's breakfast and afterschool club)

The cost is not cheap, we do not get any assistance with tax credits.

OH is a teacher so thankfully off half term times!

We use the childcare voucher scheme which saves us quiet a lot.

It is doable, but expensive, however it does benefit us.

I work from home (20-30 hours a week) so have no problems with childcare, kids being ill etc. My work is flexible as I get paid for what I do rather than the hours I work so I can work in the evening and at weekends too if I can't get it all done in the school day. In the holidays I work in the evenings, use holiday clubs and my mum helps but I still have a lot of time with my children. I work on a contract basis so am forever worrying about losing my job but when I look at jobs available locally I worry like you how it would all fit together!

I have a part-time job and have negotiated school hours. I have kind friends and family who help in holidays and a DH who is supportive (as he should be - they are his kids too and when there is a clash, e.g. someone off sick, he might take a day's leave if I had to go into the office and could not juggle things round). It is hard.If the kids are ill my boss is flexible, I have remote access and can swap days around as I do not work in the office every day.

I think this is the upside. The downside is I could probably do a more enjoyable and more demanding job with more money but I can't risk changing at the moment as I have been here years and build up this flexibility.

I work in administration but previously have worked in restaurants and as EFL teacher and as a receptionist. I purposely avoid jobs where you need to be in the office at set times. If I were a teacher, waitress, receptionist or shop worker I might need to be there to open up or close down to when set things happen. This all makes working with kids harder. The other option is to go freelance, work from home, be your own boss etc. None of these options offered the money I can make having a regular (not especially well paid) job in the charity sector.

Having a boss who understand about school hours, child care helps.

Good luck.

I was a waitress and teacher before having kids.

beachysandy75 can I ask what you do, without being too nosy. PM if you prefer? As long as it won't out you!

I work from home too, around 35 hours a week, I squeeze most of it in when the kids are at school, but I do work weekends and evenings if I want to. I work less when the kids are on holiday, maybe 10 hours a week or so. My kids have loads of after school and evening activities- so I fit my work around that too.

I teach English as a foreign language part time at most 3 hours a day oh has to come home at reasonable times when I work evenings twice a week and he drops baby off some mornings when I have an early class for a couple of hours

DH is full time, I work 22 hours a week but have a long commute added to this. I work 4 days, 1 of these from home thank goodness. Working days I work 7:15 to 2 pm , DH takes the youngest to her childminders for breakfast, the eldest gets himself to school. I pick them up. But it involves getting up at 5am 3 days a week. And most evenings there are clubs... It is extremely tiring but if I work locally, my wages are almost certain to go down and my current job is really interesting and rewarding and I feel makes me a good role model for the kids. Holidays my DD goes to her childminders, but I'm increasingly at a loss as to what to do with my eldest, he is too old for the childminder and there isn't much provision locally, we are quite rural.

I found a part time administrative job in a university where they are still very family friendly .

BUT I only took a year of maternity leave when I had DS and went back to my old job part time for a couple of years first 3 days a week then 4 days a week. Then the company went under (it was 2008) and I was made redundant and we moved to be nearer DH's work.

That is when I found this job a few months after that. I am paid a third of what I earned on my last job for the same hours. The job now is pretty lowly admin type job. One of the lowest level administrative roles the university offered. They snapped me up as I had so much recent experience. I was massively over qualified for the job but I have stayed for 5 years now as it works so well with a child at primary school who has a statement and where we need to take time off for school meetings, statement reviews, medical appointments etc, let alone the standard school run and and childcare issues.

TBH my last job would not have worked, even part time once it became clear that ds had issues at school. Working is far easier when children are very small and with childminders/in nurseries. Once they start school it all becomes much more complicated. I have never understood the whole thing of taking several years out of work for the early years and expecting to slot back into work hen they are all at school.

I moved overseas where home help is affordable, flexible working is more acceptable and the sun shines for 11 months of the year. both these things keep my sanity levels up despite working full time and DH being away for weeks/months at a time.
tbh I struggled when I returned to work in the City, hence why I took off overseas in search of another way of keeping my career on track and still being able to see my child and even contemplate expanding the brood (DH being in the same place would be helpful for that one though!!!)
If I had my time again I would choose a career which enabled me to work for myself and choose my hours, eg an osteopath or physio or lactation consultant or reflexologist etc. The stress of having to get my own clients would surely be offset by the relief at choosing when to work? It would certainly make certain times of the year so much easier - school holidays, the start of the new school year, croup season, etc and would have made those first 3 years of PFB's life a little less stressful.
My job can be stressful and in the City it was incredibly stressful for me as a new mum. There was just no support. By living here I am learning that there are other ways of achieving work objectives and maintaining basic health and sanity.
If I was in anyway entrepreneurial I Would have ditched the day job by now though to start my own business. Sadly I am not creative enough so have no such ideas!!!! I Am very good at strategy and planning though so need to find a creative partner and someone to fund us!! in my dreams, one day!
However back to the OP question: I know people who have taken 5 or 6 or more years off and then retrained. The book keeping & accounting courses for example mean one can work from home and during the school day. I also looked at the Company Secretarial jobs which can similarly be done from home.

Start a little business from home & work the hours you want to

I have been unbelievably lucky to find a local part time very senior role, I thank my lucky stars every day. I work 2.5 days, 2x 9-3.45 and one 9-1.30 but tend to stay till 3 on my short day. I have an extremely flexible employer and have the option to work from home when I want to. In term time I tend to work all 3 days in the office and do all drop offs with my younger 2 doing a club for an hour after school on my longer days and in the holidays I work one day from home and use a mixture of reciprocal play dates, grandma and holiday camp to cover my office days as well as DH taking the odd day off. All of the women on our senior team are mums who have taken a sideways move to local flexible work and my boss really appreciates that he gets real skill and experience for a much lower salary than we could could earn elsewhere.

I could never earn what my husband earns as I would never be prepared to work a 15 hour day in the City, I work in the voluntary sector and there's just no option to earn comparative salaries.

I freelance from home with occasional meetings 45 mins away. As DS is only on 3 hours at nursery every afternoon I pay a childminder to have him one morning a week, give him lunch and take him to nursery - I just tell clients if they need to see me it has to be on that day.

I have been a SAHM for the last 4 years, DSs dad lives abroad.

I am returning to work in a few weeks - the job is in the town where I live, around the corner from our 1st choice catchment area school, I have managed to negotiate p/t hours (2 days/3 days a week until Sept when I will switch to school hours). And it is in the field that I am trained in and have worked in all my life.

What are the chances? It is like a gift, I still cant quite believe it

Ssd - There are many ways round it if you need to work. You could always work opposite shifts for a while?

A lot of schools have breakfast clubs (starting at 8) and homework clubs (ending at 6), so that helps during term time. Mine are now all just about teenagers and my eldest drives so she often takes and brings the other two and when she can't there is a school bus which I can book.

At one point I was living an hour away from my job (P/T) in London and had three very small DCs, including a baby. I really don't know how we managed. It was a combination of part-time nanny, day nursery, DH working from home. We have no extended family help. Very stressful. We ended up having a live-in aupairs for three years and that was brilliant as they also did light-housework and babysitting, so we had an almost 'normal' life being able to do impromptu cinema visits! 10 years on and we are still very much in touch with them.

DH is self-employed and works from home a lot so he does a lot of the pickups whilst I did the drop offs in the morning on my way to work. DH also does a lot of the laundry, all the hoovering and some of the cooking. Our lives wouldn't work if we didn't share the responsibilities and the chores.

I did stop working at one point (5 years ago) because it became too stressful managing work and children. But 3.5 years ago I saw a part time job advertised in our local paper for 12 hours a week and applied. I now do 18 hours a week although actually work around 23 hours per week so that I can do less hours in the hols (wonderful boss who actually suggested I did that). I'd love to do more hours and when the chance comes up I will leap at it. I've learned a whole new career (digital marketing) and it keeps me sane.

A DH with a flexible schedule and the ability to forget I have DCs the second I walk through the door (which is usually long before they need to get up).

DH and I both teach. We use breakfast club and afterschool club, which costs us about £250 a montth. Obviously we don't pay for childcare during the holidays.
I do marking etc while DS does extra curricular stuff (English marked during tonights drum lesson).

I managed to negotiate very favourable conditions with my existing employer when ds went to school (completely agree that working is much simpler when dc are preschoolers! ). Did very reduced hours in a junior position to begin with but now both dc are at school I work 4 days over 5 in a management type role. Dh works flexibly and picks up one day a week, I do all the rest.

School holidays we cover through annual leave, minimal use of holiday clubs as ds seems to hate them all, and unpaid leave which I negotiated. No family anywhere near to help out. Plenty of friends to help in an emergency but I use them as little as possible as I worry about taking the piss, although we all help each other out.

I am forever thankful that the dc are very robust and rarely ill - we've had to cover two sick days so far this academic year.

To be honest this arrangement works really well in school time but the holidays are a constant stressful juggle. We were discussing the summer holidays today and i'm still not sure how we're going to cover it all.

It is hard but doable. I have four children ranging from 2 through to 12. DH works full time and I work 30 hours a week over 4days with the odd extra day to make up for time off for school assemblies, kids hospital appointments etc. I also only work during term time. I also have the arrangement of only getting paid the hoursI work. I have a child minder for my 2 year old and my in laws help out one day every fortnight. It is a constant juggle, particularly as both DH and I sometimes have work commitments in evenings so once a fortnight we spend an hour going through diaries and planning. We have a large family calendar on the wall and have to do.a lot of taxiing kids from clubs and friends. One tip is to invite kids friends over as much as possible so they can return.the favour when needed. It can work won't takes a while before you get into a rhythm. I can only cope because I work. Makes me.love being with kids more. DO has autism so.that made it tricky finding right pattern for her but think we are there now. Another tip is to figure out what works for you and get your work to fit around your requirements, not the other way round. Good luck x

I'm suddenly thinking that I am going to start doing childminding during summer holidays only ....... a big market out there it seems. And with my lot being teens they don't want me to organise the fun stuff for them any more. I'd better starting getting registered!

I went back to work when my ds was 7 months old. I worked 4 days a week with a full-time nursery place (as it cost very little more than 4 days a week) which gave me some breathing space if I needed to go to the hairdresser etc.

When he was 2 I changed jobs to full-time but was able to work from home from time to time.

A year later I was made redundant from that job and got another job full-time in an office which was ok but it was stressful with the pick-up as I could never rely on the trains to nursery but usually I made it on time.

When he went to school I cut my hours to 4.5 days a week so I could do school pick-up one day a week and my dh changed his hours so he could do it twice. I found a childminder for the morning drop-offs and two pick-ups a week. I changed jobs again shortly after he started school, and worked in London, but was able to work from home one day a week so was then able to take ds to school one day a week as well.

The school then introduced a breakfast club so I was able to use that in place of the childminder for a couple of the mornings. And sometimes there were after-school activities (only until 4pm but gave us more time to get home).

In 2012 I changed jobs again and worked part-time locally, so by then I needed one drop-off a week and two pick-ups.

Since mid-2013 I have worked from home, one day a week in London and so cut the childminder to one drop-off a week so that I could get an early train. Since September he's at secondary school so I don't need anything and I just work around him when I need to go to London and my husband still does 3 long days and 2 short days so is home early twice a week.

Holidays - childminder two days a week, and things like local football coaching camps. Occasionally my mum has helped out (but she doesn't live locally although one time she did drop everything and came to help when ds was ill), and my husband has done at least one day a week in the holidays. I draw up a grid each year of all the holidays and gradually fill in the days until I've filled everything in with someone or something. Nowadays it's much easier as ds is 12, I work from home and he just entertains himself. Also our local leisure centre runs lots of pool-based fun sessions which he can do for a couple of hours, although that only works because I work from home.

Anyway I hope this gives you an idea of the different options and the fact that things change. And dads should do their fair share.

Not sure if anyone has made this point but from this April, unpaid parental leave has been extended up to the age of 18. You can take up to 18 weeks in total of unpaid leave from birth up to the age of 18 so say 2 weeks per year for 9 years. You have to have worked with an employer for 1 year in order to apply.

see www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1637

I waited nearly eleven years before I finally found something that fitted in with the children (a flexible 10am til 3pm, term time only). I know I am very lucky.