To wonder what working parents are meant to do in school holidays?

[StepAwayFromGoogle]

DD1 starts school in September. DP and I both work because we can't afford for either one of us to be off. I have applied for part time but my work have been spectacularly backward and refused point blank, which is a whole other thread. I am looking for another job but work in a very specific field in a very specific industry so it's not looking likely that I'll get something, much less part time.
DD1 school have a before and after school club which is over subscribed so she won't get in for the first year. We have scrabbled around and managed to cover the week with GPs and a childminder.
So on to the holidays. DD1 will have 13 weeks off school a year. Between us, me and DP will have just under 10 weeks holiday. AIBU to think that if the govt wants parents (particularly mothers) to work then there needs to be better holiday provision? I'm not blindingly sure what working parents are expected to do after 3pm every day and for the 13 weeks children are off in the year. At the moment all our holiday days will be spent covering time off school and we won't be able to have a holiday together as a family.

Thanks once again for all the helpful advice and experiences. I'm going to learn from it and do what I can! Couldn't agree more about schools publishing what they offer AND the waiting list. Would have at least given me a heads up.

School holidays are set and published at least a year in advance. We both work full time with one in school and one in nursery. We manage morning drop offs between us by having flexible working requests (we have an hours commute each), that means we have to use after school club every evening. Ours is open to 18:15 (same as nursery, which is 15 mins away in another village). School holidays, we split 50:50 between DH and I, and then use holiday club for the remainder (it's open 7:30 to 18:15). Long days for our children but we need to work, financially and for my mental health. But school plus after school and holiday club is still much cheaper than our nursery bill was (even with 30 hours funding). In the scheme of things, when you consider the length of your working life it's a reasonably short period of time for which you need this care. Working full time has meant my career has continued to progress, which coupled with the reducing cost of moving from nursery to school + clubs has meant we are financially better off.

Also our after school club and holiday club isn't run by school it's at one of the local private nursery's. They pick the children up from school and drive them 10 mins back to their base. There's no school provision for breakfast / after school / holiday club here. Could you look at holiday club provision closer to where you work?

I’m not in the least privileged. I’m a tax paying pensioner who’s already paying for free school meals and subsidised pre school childcare - neither of which were were available to me. Are you seriously suggesting people in my position should pay for your school holiday childcare as well, OP?

@Alsohuman, well I'm paying for your state pension and you won't be paying for mine so quid pro quo. But for the love of god and for the very last time: NO I'M NOT SUGGESTING TAXPAYERS SHOULD BE PAYING. I'm saying I should be paying for it. But the government should at least be ensuring that there is enough available.

The answer is boringly pedestrian. You are not the first person to go through this. DH and I both work FT and have 3DC.

1. Wrap around childcare for during the term plus we both work some short days
2. Staggered annual leave (DH and I just have Xmas off together plus one other week, I'm working this week, he's visiting family with the DC, I'll take them to see my family later)
3. Holiday Clubs (we use about 3 weeks in the summer, a week at Easter, and a couple of days each half term)
4. We both buy back as much holiday as possible from work
5. Unpaid parental leave. Needs to be booked in advance in blocks of 1 week. You can take 18 weeks off per child over the course of their childhood. DH takes a couple of weeks a year, my work are more awkward about it so I don't.
6. Grandparents (we get maybe 3 days from Mum and about a week from MIL each year)
7. Sharing care with friends (in the bad weather last year we looked after a friend's kids because she couldn't miss work as a doctor whereas we could use our annual leave. We would similarly ask for this only in an emergency).
8. Au pairs. We've never had an au pair but friends have and I think they are really good for filling the gap that grandparents might do if you had them nearby.
9. Build some slack into the system. You have to cover teacher training days, Christmas and children being sick when there will be no formal childcare to help. Hold back annual leave for these emergencies.

Don't forget to add in the 5 inset days as well

And once your eldest starts secondary they'll have different inset days from their sibling .

No, you’re not paying for my state pension. I’ve made 47 years contributions at higher rate tax for that.

It's not the publication of the formal term dates that are the problem (although they are full of code too - INSET, year 6 booster days). It's the withholding of absolutely crucial information such as that it's not possible for Reception parents to use the wrap around due to waiting lists or age limits. I must say I assumed that if schools didn't publish wrap around details and/or have Saturday open days, they probably wouldn't be terribly welcoming to working parents.

There's nothing to say that workplaces will allow you to take all your annual leave in school holidays either. Everyone wants to do that and you can't always be accommodated. You need a back up plan. Is this the first time you've thought of this? We talked about what we'd do before we started ttc!

The OP did her research. You can’t predict being turned away from that childcare because it’s oversubscribed or no longer available, nor should you let that prevent you having children. If anyone came on MN and said ‘I can afford childcare and there’s good provision in my area, but I’m too scared to have children in case that provision isn’t available in 5+ years time’, people would be absolutely dumbfounded.

We used a mix of childminder, annual leave, holiday clubs, working from home, my mum would come for a week of the summer holidays etc.

I used to create a grid at the beginning of each year with all the holidays and known INSET days on it (schools are better at publishing those in advance now) and gradually filled it all in so I knew ds was going to be looked after.

Term time similar. Childminder two days after school a week. DH finished early twice a week, I worked from home one day a week. I was able to use a mix of breakfast club and childminder for the 4 mornings I wasn't at home.

Primary school was actually quite easy in our area - lots of options if you can afford it.

Early secondary is more difficult because you don't necessarily want to leave a 11/12 year old home alone all day but they are too old for most clubs.

I haven’t read the full thread but someone suggested you should have planned this when you were having children.

13 years ago when I was planning to have DD I didn’t know the government would make cuts meaning all the local council holiday schemes would be closed.

I didn’t find it so hard when DD was younger. Now she’s older because she isn’t football mad there is almost nothing for her. She goes to a specialised summer club for the 3 days it’s on and that’s it. It’s why I am now term time.
We have no family to look after her and DH couldn’t take a single day off last summer. It’s jusy impossible.

Oh yeah. Nothing beats the smuggery of the posters who have it all together. Really, really hope that a couple of your options don’t close down very suddenly and count yourself very lucky. A workplace can withdraw a flexible working arrangement if they want, people move jobs, GPs decide they can’t really cope anymore/they’re getting too old, you can’t get leave in school holidays because you have to take turns with someone else who’s joined your team, holiday clubs shut down or cut their numbers... these are all reasonable things to happen.

I suppose. But surely essentially, you check out the usual cost of childminders and nurseries in your area and check whether you'd be earning enough to make that worth it. If there turns out to be after school club at your dc's future school, local holiday clubs etc and help available from grandparents etc, then great. Otherwise you choose a childminder/nursery.

Again though, you can still do all this and be left in the lurch. Because you have no guarantee that the provision existing in your area while you're TTC will be there five or ten years later. Absolutely zero. The number of childminders, for example, is shrinking annually.

Some of you are ascribing virtual talismanic status to figuring out what's available before you get pregnant and crossing your fingers it'll still be there a dozen years later.

Wait until schools start closing on a Friday or at lunchtime because of lack of funding...that'll be the next issue!

Yeah. I actually wouldn't mind that, it'd work ok for my family. But I'm already breaking out in hives thinking about all the idiotic school is not childcare, you should've thought about this before you had kids comments.

I agree, in my job I work 3 13 hour shifts including nights. I struggle every holiday as Childcare is only open office based hours here! It's truly a nightmare!

Our childcare workers are all advertising their free spaces for september, they are all quarter to half full.
We are in a deprived area and a lot of parents can't afford childcare so only have one working.
It must be bad for those who can afford it easily but live in areas where they are full.

ziggiestardust exactly! My mum was perfectly capable of helping me look after dc1 in the holidays. By the time dc3 was school age, she's completely incapacitated and needs round the clock care

All those people who thought about absolutely everything before even dtd are surely unusual?
I'm trying to think how the phone call with the school would go;
'Hi, I'm enquiring about after school provision.'
'Certainly, we offer x. Will your child be joining next year?'
'No. Possibly in 6 years time. That's if we get pregnant the first time we ttc. So, it could realistically be between 6-10 years time. Well, that's if we choose this school of course. Got to go, I've got 100 more schools to call just in case we move.'

OP I totally hear you. DD gets 14 weeks off a year and it's a killer as we both work.

We chose to have one child partly because of this.

We try to juggle the best we can, we live thousands of miles away from family. Last year our daughter became really good friends with one of the neighbour's kids which has been a Godsend as we set up a mini summer camp in our homes and alternated childcare!

Good luck.

Becoming a teacher helps. Helps the recruitment crisis for teaching as well !

What we done was:-

1. used club, before and after
2. used grandparents
3. used friends

However me and exdp did consider dc3, both working and earning enough. However parents were getting older and would not have managed childcare, and when we looked precision was poor where we were- we would have been using just dp’s salary for childcare, so pointless. Therefore dc3 just became a thought.

Thankfully they are now 19 & 14 and self sufficient. If they were younger we would seriously struggle.

This is NOT aimed at you OP, but I can not get over how many people panic when it comes to this, surely people know that babies become children who go to school and get over 3 months holidays each year? That has been the same for decades, so not a surprise??!!