Work being difficult about covering child illness

[Dontnic]

Help. Tell me I am not unreasonable. I am part time, earn a lot less than my DH and have a far junior job. We have 2 children at nursery at the moment and between them I have needed to take off 12 days since July when I went back to work (I work 3 days a week) to cover illness.

They both had chicken pox, which lasted over 5 of my working days. Also, they keep getting S&D that does the rounds in the nursery. This means if they get it on my 1st day of the week, they can't go back in at all that week due to the 48 hour rule.

DH has had some days off to cover illness, but it just doesn't make sense for him to take equal time off when he has targets to hit, meetings to attend for clients/prospects etc. If his job is affected we are financially buggered. So he does take time off but I do the lions share.

Work have now had enough and said that I can no longer take my holiday at last minute notice to cover child sickness and I have to take unpaid time off for dependants.

However, the BIG sticking point is that they deem a 'reasonable' amount of time for this as up to 24 hours. So I can leave at 2pm but need to be back in the office for 9 the next day. That is the exact example they gave.

I've called my union and they said that this was correct! Apparently the law says 'reasonable' time off but various other places deem reasonable to be up to 24 hours as it is only to arrange alternative care - not to give that care yourself.

I have no family in the area and friends/neighbours are not going to want a sick child... that is if they are free as most of them work too.

What on earth do working parents do during sickness? Apparently even child minders don't take sick children so it isn't as though I can change to a child minder.

The working from home with ill kids: if only one is ill, the other goes to school / nursery.

Ill child sleeps: fit in a hours work.
Dump ill child infront of a film with a blanket and teddy: 90 mins work. (probably won't work with the 15 month old yet)
Ill child goes to bed at 7pm: couple of hours work.

If they are both ill, its harder.

If you don't have a long commute, the early start til lunch / swap over, and long afternoon sounds workable. Thank-you for that idea.

The first 6 months were really hard, and then it eased up a bit - the immune systems get more robust. Is it the 3 yr old, or baby getting ill (or both?).

If they are passing D&V between each other, would more regular hand washing, towel changing, and some antibacterial wipes help reduce the cross contamination?

We are fortunate in that we have never had to call in a stranger for emergancy childcare: My Mum (2.5 hrs away, but has come up in time for me to go to work the next morning - ie got a call on Tuesday afternoon, and set off at 7.30 the next morning to stay for a few days), DH and I have managed it. Any yes, both of us travel.

I think you need to try and get DH to do more than his fairshare for a few months (or pay through the nose for emergancy care sometimes - days 2/3 of D&V can be predicted, so might not count as emergancy rates??), and then hopefully work will be slightly more accomadating, and the frequency of illness will drop.

Is everyone banned from last minuite holidays, or just you? If its just you, that sounds unfair. Unpaid might be the cheapest way if the sitters rates are too high.

his children too ... if Youd have had 6 days off each mmaybe your employer wouldnt have said anything.im sorry i know i am harsh but this is one of the reasons women struggle to be given fair opportunity in the work place

oh re the 'stranger' element, local agencies are often able to send the same person regularly.

12 days since July in a 3-day-a-week job is a lot.

I agree with those saying your DH needs to do his share.

The other option is to take a day off to look after your sick child, change your working days that week to make up the time. Maybe your DH could book/arrange time off for later in the week to cover your additional working day if nursery can't have one or both of the children? It would give your DH time to re-arrange meetings/plan his work, and you get to offer to work the time back therefore not just having a day off.

We specifically moved nearer PIL and are very lucky that they have been able to help when DD had hand, foot & mouth and also chicken pox. They also helped cover school holidays and inset days when DD was in reception & Y1 (as childminder didn't always have space and I didn't want to send a 4-5yo to a holiday club where she didn't know anyone, nor they know her).

Posted too soon
Meant that I was not missing a day and if it went on for 2 days me and Dh could juggle it, I only took 3 carers day in 2 years including chicken pox.

They are 10 now And i work 2 days a week as it is really hard to juggle when it's just me, dh can no longer get back.

I get 4 weeks leave plus bhs pro rata and this is all taken in weeks, out of school clubs don't cover and inset days.

So you need to come up with a plan as it actually gets worse when they are at school.

I've looked into baby sitters but they don't cover my areas am nearing the end with this as next year (year 6) I hope they will be responsible enough to leave at home

I have been blessed with healthy children so far, and haven't had to take a day off (as leave) for ages. The last time one of them was ill was 18 mo ago, and I came down with the same stomach bug that morning. My line manager was trying to make me take it as leave, but my hod, seeing that I was still a little green, let me take it as sick.

Anyway op, you really should be sharing this with your DH. It is precisely because I am pt that we always look at dh's diary first: having a day or two off in a week where I only work three days can have quite an impact. Generally speaking, however, we take turns and both our employers know the load is shared. We also see who has got the most easily-rearrageable day. Swings and roundabouts tthere.

Basically we try to cause as few problems for our employers as possible and I think they appreciate that. Mine certainly does.

thatbloodywoman well maybe it's the dh that is a piss taker expecting op to pick up the pieces all the time. i appreciate that i came across as harsh, apologies Op, but i see this all the time because of my work and it does get tiring to hear employers called unreasonable when 4 weeks off since july is certainly not, in fact its way beyond what most employers would allow. I also get a bit sick of the fact it is more often the not the mother who takes time off but yes i appreciate i was maybe harsh so sorry

can you increase nursery to four days which gives you a bit more flexibility to swap days
you may want to review in six months or a year

on the positive side, chickenpox is out of the way now and the illness does drop off once they've been at nursery for a year or so.

Slightly creative other options for sick days:

• you and DH staggering your days so, eg, you start work v early while he does the childcare, you swap at lunchtime, you both can then work about 6 hours and make time up at other times. Does depend on you not having already p'd off your employer though. Or you employ a sitter for a short period in the middle of the day, with a less extreme stagger.
• making up work on Saturdays/evenings - again needs employer's blessing
• I think your DH needs to do at least 50/50, at least for now. Arguably, more seniority actually makes it easier for him to swap his hours about - junior staff tend to be less able to work outside 9/5 and can't so easily ask to rearrange meetings round themselves.
• nurseries vary hugely in the level of illness they will accept. Ours was brilliant. If yours isn't, consider finding another.
• you shouldn't need to keep a child off for stuff like conjunctivitis. d&V and fevers yes, most other stuff they should be ok to go in. Ours used to say they'd only take them with conjunctivitis once they were being treated, but when the GPs stopped treating it, they decided they had to just let people come in with it. Adults can't take a whole week off work for a child's infected eye.

I'm lucky, my work are v flexible but it's give and take. I can't stay late due to nursery closing but I'll go in on a Saturday to meet a deadline. I think my boss appreciates this and the payback is he lets me swap when I need to. Admittedly not all jobs can work like this.

This is a relatively short period of your life. School will bring a different set of challenges - more constrained in some ways, less in others.

No, work should not do more. Seriously, things like that are putting small firms from hiring young mothers, or young women, as the uncertainty is a heavy operational and financial weight.

Another thought, could you change your work pattern to reduce the burden? Does it have to be those 3 days? If there's say, a day that your DH is more likely to be in London or less likely, could you make sure your work day is one then he's less likely to be in London, so it would be easier for him to take the day off, if he could have a day working from home that you work to ensure if that your DCs are sick, you've got that one covered.

With 3 days, if you could change your pattern so there's a gap and it's not all 3 days in a block, that might reduce the days off needed, because if your DCs get D&V and need 2 days off nursery, it's less likely that both those days are nursery days if your days aren't back to back.

It's not always true that CM are as strict with not taking ill children as nurseries, while their policies might be very similar, I know CMers who have taken sick mindees if their own DCs have already caught the same illness. (that said, you have other illness issues, as if the CM gets sick, then you don't have childcare, whereas the nursery will bring in an emergancy staff member/move someone from a different room to cover your child's key worker being off sick).

If any of your friends work PT but use a nanny, it might be worth having a quiet word with the nannies to see if they will do emergancy care on their days off.

I am also part time, but we only manage because we have two sets of grandparents able and willing to help out. I had to take a day's annual leave last week with no notice as DD2 had been sick overnight and would not have anyone other than Mummy to look after her (having had pretty much no sleep, I would not have been much use at work anyway). DD1 then caught the same bug this week. It is really difficult. Like you, it is much harder for my DH to take unplanned time off - his day consists of endless meetings, and it's just not that easy to get out of them all. I do sympathise, but at the same time I am constantly aware of not trying to make my employers think I am taking the piss...

I don't care if your dh is the Prime Minister he needs to take a larger share of time off.

I agree with Iggi here. The fact that you "earn a lot less than DH and have a far junior job" means jack shit when you've used up all your employers' goodwill. What about your long term career goals? Being inflexible and diminishing your own job now is hardly going to stand you in much stead in the future. If he's that senior and is well thought of surely they'd allow him to work from home during the occasional emergency?

Instead of getting emotive and painting it like your employer is standing over you like Mr Bumble as you hand your sick child over to a workhouse-style babysitter, maybe you could think about the inconvenience you are repeatedly causing your immediate manager and colleagues when you call in again despite the fact your DC have another parent who could share the load. He needs to step up here.

If you are in Cardiff, what nursery are you using? Mine is incredibly flexible (even with kids under two) and I have never had a problem re-arranging days. I work in Cardiff and Swansea and sometimes need to be in a different city on a different day and so have two nursery places for two children to rearrange- haven't had a problem yet.

May be worth a thought changing nurseries?

My concern is that if the dh did take equal time off,6 days in that time period could be seen as unreasonable,thereby putting the main breadwinners job in jeopardy.
I can understand why the lower earner tries to carry the burden given so much illness to cover.
Its sometimes like trying to put a round peg into a square hole.

I don't think you were too harsh NotGoingOut. The op needs a reality check because if she doesn't do something things will only get worse for her. It can't be much fun being in her team at work having to cover and even after work have spoken to her she still wanted to make it someone else's problem.

Attitudes like the op posted in her op make working life tougher for all working parents and most of us make compromises somewhere because we have to. Yes it is shit that the majority of responsibility for looking after children falls to mothers in our society and that has to change - but equally we need to look to make the change ourselves in how we behave and choose to priority our work as women.

It's not easy and the op has my sympathy. I empathise as well with the frustration of not having equality of choice with my co-parent because I'm a woman (maternity leaves which couldnt because shared, pregnancy, maternity and sex discrimination) and I hope that by the time my dc are old enough to be parents both parents have true equality of choice.

That said, the op has been told and we can ease off now and start looking for solutions. I do think the nanny/au pair and emergency nanny options are worth a look. Obviously if the idea of leaving the children with one person is unconscionable then I'm afraid that does rather drastically limit options :(

Is there any way you could work Mon, Wed and Fri so if they did have S&D on a work day then you're off the next day anyway? It makes the 24h emergency leave into 48h which gives time for your DH to get back and do his share if they are still ill.

As difficult as it is for you to arrange back up it is up to you and your OH. companies don't have spare staff hung on the back of a door just in case someone is off. We all have to cover for holidays, sickness etc. you can't expect the company to magic up someone to do the extra work. Sorry but that's how it will be for many people.

I do sympathise and this is one of the reasons that we went for a nanny for childcare as we have no family help. But come on OP, you're clearly being unreasonable - you've taken 1/6th of your working days off for child sickness since July, your husband doesn't do his fair share and now you're pissed off because your work are firming up the boundaries? Interestingly nowhere in your posts do you mention the impact on your work of you taking the time off, you're only looking at it from your perspective. I've had unreliable colleagues (which you are although I appreciate not intentionally) and it is a royal pain getting shafted when they haven't turned up again and you've got to do their work on top of yours. And I'm sorry to say it but attitudes such as yours is one of the reasons that sometimes employers are more reluctant to hire women with young children. And that harms us all.

In terms of emergency cover I've had to bring in stand in child care when my nanny was unavoidably unable to come to work and neither DH nor I could stay home for the 3 days needed. So we got in a temp nanny, spend as much time with her on the first day as we could and just got on with it. I didn't much like it, DC didn't much like it but needs must.

On the up side you've done CP and a range of bugs so there is a decent chance that you'll get a lot less illness going forward. But you'll still have to make some arrangements, if for no other reason to deal with 48 hour exclusions for D&V.

I think half the problem comes from the fact that people don't understand the law and, like the OP, think they have the right to have time off to look after their sick child.

This week I've had three different clients call me for advice about parents who haven't come in to work because their children are "sick" (and by strange coincidence its also half term). In two cases this is now being taken down the disciplinary route. The other one was dealt with appropriately by the parent i.e. they took a morning off to get the sick child to a grandparent and then came back in to work. That's fine, they simply get the salary deducted for the morning not worked. That's how the legislation works.

Things are very different for working parents nowadays because for the vast majority of us both parents work. This means that having a good network of family around to share the burden is increasingly important. The alternative is paying for ad hoc support.

In the early years preschool especially with 2dc then a nanny can be the best option.It can cost more however you need to consider it an investment in your career.I assume that whilst working you pay into a pension &NI so these are additional benefits. The other option is to be more flexible and work extra days so your employer sees that you are trying.Managers can't let one employee do less( as they are a parent) as it a causes massive resentment within the rest of the team.

I however had to give up fulling employment and now work as a contractor which allows some flexibility.

In the last fortnight I have had to leave the children with three women I've never met before although the nanny agency has vetted them and they come with good references.

I don't get to check or see the references of the staff at my children's nursery or school and I don't see a huge difference really.

Is a nanny share an option?

I'm a single parent and I work full-time. Many of my friends are in the same situation.

Our company has made the following service available, does your employer have something similar?
www.myfamilycare.co.uk/services/backup-care/emergency-childcare.html

My son is an older teenager now, but I have used them in the past and they were great. You fill in a form with each child's likes/dislikes/habits etc and they will try to get you the same person or venue on each occasion they are needed.

(Not affiliated in any way).

Best of luck...