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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to wonder how people manage the school holidays

150 replies

Kafri · 15/08/2015 22:34

as in, childcare wise.

DS is still in nursery but I quite often wonder how the heck I'll cover the school holidays once he gets to school.

Obviously dh and I can try to book holidays from work to cover as many as possible but what do you all do for the weeks you can't book as leave etc.

I know IABU to worry about this right now but I can't seem to help it.

OP posts:

Turquoisetamborine · 16/08/2015 11:05

Cumber I wonder how many parents take parental leave in practice. I had to when my son first started school as we have to apply for leave 16 months in advance so I'd applied for the wrong week for him doing short settling hours.
My boss' face was a picture!
I would love to take some parental leave every year to cover holidays but I can see it getting rejected.

Original poster

Kafri · 16/08/2015 16:55

If i was to rely on friends it would be friends we have not friends I make conveniently.

I think somewhere in my head I was aware that they have holiday clubs in the summer, do they have these for the other hols/half terms for the times I can't book holiday??

OP posts:

meglet · 16/08/2015 17:06

turq I've been able to take 3 or 4 weeks parental leave a year. Once I add in my annual leave, a few days of childcare and grandparents I can cover the hols. The unpaid weeks batter my finances though, but I can just about juggle it. I plan ahead at start start of the year so my employer knows all my leave plans months ahead (basically school hols). no one else in my team has school age children so our dept doesn't take a big hit at the same time.

SquinkiesRule · 16/08/2015 18:59

We had no relatives close by when we first started having kids, our childminder did year round for our preschooler and would take on older Ds for the days I worked during holidays.
I was part time three days a week, it still cost all my wages through the summer for the childcare, but better than losing my job and earning nothing at all the rest of the year.
Now I'm full time and Dh is a SAHD for the youngest Dd.

theredjellybean · 16/08/2015 19:15

I have skim read this so hope that i am not repeating
have you thought about an au pair ?
I have 2 dds ( now old enough to leave together alone) who have 9-10 weeks summer holidays and exdh and i work ft ( i work 6 days and 3 away from home).
We has summer au pairs....the australian/new zealand and canadians have were best for short au pair jobs. Had no problem finding ones whojust wanted 8-10 weeks.
in end it is cheaper than holiday club, esp if you have more than 1 child.
I know it is recommended you don't leave an au pair as sole charge but i always looked for older student types , they had to drive as we are very local and we paid a bit more than average wage to compensate them for longer days. we didn't ask for any housework and no evening babysitting also to compensate.
we paid £100/week and you have to factor in insurance on car if you are expecting them to drive, and extra food bills and we gave £5 on payg phone on understanding it was for ringing us if they needed us .
we went for countries i mentioned as no problem with language but i do know many people like au pairs who can speak or teach LOs another language. Friends currently have a spanish teacher with them..their boys now fluent in spanish. Many Europeans ( spanish/greek) are desparate for jobs .
I reckon with extra food and car insurance and treats as we always treated au pair as one of family , so took her out if we went out etc it cost us about £150/week. but if you have two children in kids clubs that is probably not far off what you pay and you have hassles of kids clubs not really having realistic opening hours.
I had been resistant to having someone living with us - but it is for short term and actually we had amazingly positive experiences and still in touch with several of old au pairs

mimishimmi · 17/08/2015 00:10

Repeated requests of free, or at cost, childcare can do funny things to friendships, even existing ones. The au-pair solution mentioned above by the PP sounds perfect though..

DinosaursRoar · 17/08/2015 07:47

OP - yes, holiday clubs across most holidays, but not at all schools, so you might need to see what local private schools are offering (they usually rent out their space to outside companies running clubs that can be for anyone, not just targetted at the school).

Worth getting in early re Christmas though, there's virtually no childcare in our town for the week between Christmas and New Year, many childminders don't work as well, get your work holiday requests in early if you both are expected to work that week!

UniS · 17/08/2015 07:53

Holiday clubs, sports camp, dh takes some leave, I arranged to only work certain days agreed in advance, no short notice stuff during school hols. Its got easier as child has got older.

ssd · 17/08/2015 07:58

the working mums I know all have free family help, without exception, and most of them dont realise there's a whole load of parents out there without this, they think its the norm.

meglet · 17/08/2015 08:05

yy ssd. DS was upset about going to holiday club the other day and the more I thought about it the more I realised all his school mates had 2 involved parents, a SAHP or hands on local grandparents and weren't at holiday clubs, so I couldn't even arrange for him to go to the same group as his mates.

JemimaMuddledUp · 17/08/2015 08:07

Lots and lots of juggling.

I condense my hours into 4 days a week over the summer (I have a lovely child friendly employer). I take one week of annual leave so we can go away on a family holiday. Then I use flexi to take a few extra days off here and there. DH takes two weeks annual leave, one for the family holiday and one to look after the DC.

That leaves 3-4 days a week for 4 weeks of the summer holiday which is covered by family, friends and holiday clubs.

DH and I split the other school holidays between us. This year I took Feb half term, May half term and one week at Easter, he took one week at Easter and will be taking October half term. My office closes between Christmas and New Year so there are only a few days then, which are usually covered by my DM and DMIL.

purplesprings · 17/08/2015 08:22

Getting divorced really helped as we no longer wanted time off together - although possibly a bit drastic if you get on with your dh

Working FT I rely heavily on parents and holiday club run by nursery which operates 7.30 - 6.00 (expensive but ok if you're used to paying nursery fees).

muminhants1 · 17/08/2015 08:22

When my son was younger, a mix of childminder, holiday club, me and DH taking annual leave and occasionally my mum would come to help.

Once he got older, and I was working at home much more, he could stay at home and our local leisure centre does a programme called Boredom Busters with two 2 hour activities each day for about £70 for the whole summer, so I booked him on lots of those activities to keep him busy. He's a bit too old for that now at 12 so this year...

...we went away for a week, he went to my mum's for a week, there's a scout camp for a week, last week he had a week at home and went swimming every day as the leisure centre had a £5 for unlimited swimming for kids in July and August and next week we are away again for a few days.

purplesprings · 17/08/2015 08:24

That should be my parents not parents of other children.

blueshoes · 17/08/2015 08:53

We use an aupair, wrap around care during term time (£90 a week) and full time care during school holidays (extra £100 a week for additional hours).

You will need an extra room in your house to host one.

VolumniaDedlock · 17/08/2015 09:11

weeks one + two - DH off work
weeks three + four - holiday club
weeks five and six - ME off work

colleagues at work are that we're not having time off all together, but there simply isn't enough annual leave to go round. I do get pretty generous leave but even then workload means I couldn't take 3 weeks off out of 6.we have a week together at Christmas and half-term instead.

the sports camp-type holiday clubs are all 9am-3pm (but cheap). we use one that costs £109 per week, but offers 8.30-5.30 care.

VolumniaDedlock · 17/08/2015 09:13

some colleagues I know "buy" extra annual leave, although TBH this is not cost effective - cheaper to pay for a club.

ssd · 17/08/2015 09:21

is there any posters on here who dont have free family help for some of the school hols??

Purplepoodle · 17/08/2015 09:26

I fly solo so ds's go to summer scheme at local daycare - it's not much cheaper then the amount I was paying when they were at the daycare before school BUT at least it's 7.30-6.30. I have to use rest of my holidays for Easter, half term, christmas ect so only have about a weeks left for the summer.

TheFatHobbit · 17/08/2015 09:43

We split holidays between us. Try to get 2 weeks off together each year.

Holiday clubs otherwise. Expensive but necessary.

Grandparents are willing but unreliable due to not being well. They have needed to cancel at the last minute a couple of times so we no longer rely on them for work cover.

Ragwort · 17/08/2015 09:44

Yes - we have no free family help - despite years of looking after nephews and nieces during school holidays - we moved away and that was one of the downsides .

We had local teenagers helping quite a bit - but I only worked part-time so they would just have DS for a few hours.

DH and I also take our AL separately so no 'family holiday' as such but each takes DS away for a week or so ........ might not work for everyone but doesn't particularly bother us.

AspieAndNT · 17/08/2015 09:50

I work two days a week in the NHS so I do get a generous holiday allowance. I take 2 weeks. My mum and inlaws do ine each. Odd days are covered by DH and holiday club. No friends to help as my eldest is Aspergers and also only one childcare provider will take him.

UghMug2 · 17/08/2015 09:57

I've often wondered about this. I was a student until recently so always had the holidays free but I've no idea why we're going to do next year. I start a nmw job soon (yay for being a graduate) and it won't be nearly enough to cover the costs of playschemes and all our very basic outgoings- it doesn't even cover after school care although I'm told I might get wtc for that. My oh is training to be a nurse so all his holidays are on placements. My parents are too selfish to help out (yachting is so much more important) and oh's parents live in a different country. I get so jealous of people who have family nearby to help out.

FrenchJunebug · 17/08/2015 12:02

that's going to be my problem come September when DS starts school: single, no family around and working full time. I'm searching for holiday clubs frantically. Don't talk to me about summer holiday though, I haven't fathom what to do yet...

takeinyourhen · 17/08/2015 12:46

Just to say, as I always do on these threads that Kings Camp is a life saver for me! They do 9.30-4 or 8.15-5.45 or mornings and you can pick and choose days or book block weeks. Code F&F025 gives you 20% off too!

DS goes for 4 weeks at summer and loves every day! Lots of self esteem building and friendship making! Cannot rate it high enough!!

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