To not want to waste annual leave on unwell child?

[coffeeforone]

DH & I work full time and DC (age 1 and 3) go to nursery. If they are ill we alternate staying at home with them. I can do my job from home but my employer doesn't really encourage it, if DC is unwell and its my turn then I usually say I'll work remotely, doing as much as I can and make up the work in the evening once DH gets home. I don't think they are keen on this as I've done it 3 times since October and I don't get the impression they like it. They say 'ok, as a one off' but try to make alternative arrangements for next time. My alternatives would be:

1. emergency unpaid leave (legal right I think). Can't really afford lots of these days, and I don't think they'd like this either.
2. call in sick myself (I would get paid but it's a bit fraudulent). I'm never Ill myself if that makes a difference.
3. last minute holiday (which could potentially mean needing to cancel booked holiday or asking for unpaid leave

There are no alternatives are there. What would your employer ask you to do?

I always take annual leave. DH and I each save a few days, then if we haven't used them it means we don't go to work between Christmas & new year.

I also use a childminder who is much more sensible than the local nurseries about taking a child with a lingering cough or sniffle who is perfectly well otherwise & follows health guidelines so does not exclude for things like hand foot & mouth if child otherwise well.

Also i work my hours.im in a senior role, and if I start finding the job can't be done in the normal hours with a very occasional email in the evening or late finish during our busy month, I go and raise hell about staffing levels.

It's so hard. I'm extremely lucky that my employer are happy for me to work from home, but when the kids were smaller it was difficult to work properly and care for a sick child. So I'd often take half a day but spend the whole day trying to work, so at least it felt I was only making up 4 hours in 8, if that makes sense. Shows goodwill to employer but preserves your leave a bit.

I feel for you, it's incredibly stressful. Reassuringly, mine are now 3 and 7, and it's much easier wfh when they're unwell now (and less frequent too!)

Do they not offer emergency family leave? We get this at my work, separate to annual leave, for times like this (3 days a year).

If your child is sick you really need to annual leave. You aren’t focused on the job you are being paid to do if you are wfh with a sick child

If you are getting the work done and they haven't said it's a problem but they are hinting it's not ideal just continue to do that until they say otherwise?

Hopefully your DCs will have had their fair share of bugs now and you won't have to for a while

3 times since October if you're alternating is 6 absences - that's a lot really

Other people must have very different kids to mine!

When our twins started nursery last January, on any given day at least one of us was sick for 6 months! The norovirus followed by a virus that led to pneumonia was a particular highlight, but the worst was chicken pox - one had two weeks off as it took forever for them to heal, then the second came down with it the day the first went back. We had one or the other out for a whole month.

An average of 3 days per toddler for the four months over the winter, especially if the 3 year old hasn’t been to nursery before, is pretty damn good IME. If they’re sick once, that’s two days off right there.

I’d look into a nanny if you can afford it, but also if they haven’t had chicken pox I’d get the jabs privately - wish I had.

If I’d been working FT I’d have been fired last year. If DH had split it with me he would have been fired too.

This year so far has been so much better - hardly any days off, just one sickness bug and one day for a high fever for the current very unpleasant virus. So hopefully this is just a rough patch. After the chicken pox in June / July we’ve had hardly any illness requiring them to stay home.

I use annual leave. I leave 7 or 8 days a year out of my AL plans for things exactly like this.

I always kept a buffer of about three days annual leave for just this situation over winter. So that I could be off for the first and worst day of anything and then get reinforcements from dh and family. Needed it EVERY SINGLE WINTER until dd was about 10.

DH has unlimited paid leave from his employer, and they're happy for him to work from home as and when needed. They trust him to get the job done.

I work in a school (not teaching) and my work have been really understanding about the occasional day off for appointments/sickness.

Honestly, my DH has had to use a lot of his annual leave for hospital appointments for DD1 (now 10), previously for a weak eye. She had to have patches for several years. Thankfully now there's been no change for some time, she just needs annual checks at Specsavers. However, she also has hearing aids and has an annual appointment at hospital for a review.

However, she had to go for 10 sessions of therapy last year, and we have endless appointments with school and Post Adoption Support. Because of DD2's needs, it wouldn't be possible for me to always take her, despite being a SAHM and I wouldn't be able to anyway, as I have MH issues (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and PTSD.

Thankfully my DH has flexitime but as a senior manager now, he can't just down tools like he could in our early days.

So sorry, no sympathy from me. (Although I understand that it must be frustrating.)

It has become easier recently in some ways as my DH is allowed to work from home, but he needs to plan that well in advance. And his job with the Council has relocated to the city centre, so in other ways it's harder.

OP - if your on a good salary, doesn’t your contract say you have to work whatever hours are necessary to fulfil your role.

Yes, my contract does say this.

3 times since October if you're alternating is 6 absences - that's a lot really

I'm glad some people disagree with this as I don't really this it's an awful lot, it's actually 5 days, I've took 3 days and DH has took 2 and will take the next one.

My one year old had a stomach bug (D&V) in October so needed 2 days off (we took one day each)

In December they each had a high temp one day after another so we again each took a day.

Then DS1 was too unwell (including high fever) one day last week

I do send them if they have a cough/runny nose but seem fine in themselves. Only when they have a high temperature and a clearly unwell in themselves would I keep them at home.

I also don't think it's that much. I only have one child (so half the illness jeopardy!) and I've actually had a similar amount and that's with getting grandparents to help at the tail end of an illness. One bout of D&V can easily be four days - two days of illness and then two days lost to the 48 hour ban.

Just to update you all, I spoke to my boss this morning and asked them to clarify if it's ok to WFH or not and what to do in future when DC are too sick to go to nursery and it's my turn.

My manager said to book 'emergency' annual leave in the morning, so colleagues can see I'm potentially unavailable.

Then see what I can get done work wise and if I do manage to get a lot of work done then cancel the leave, or change it to a half day if I feel I haven't been able to put in a full day.

A bit of a strange approach IMO but I'm happy with this compromise!

Your manager sounds very sensible!

Glad you worked out a compromise. This is one of the reasons I work part time so I can 'swap' my days to look after sick kids without having to use leave etc

A bit of a strange approach IMO but I'm happy with this compromise!

I think it’s a very sensible approach. Your colleagues don’t expect you to be available and there’s no pressure on you to get some work done, but if by chance your sick child doesn’t need constant attention and you do get some work done you can have the time back. It stops people thinking you’re using WFH for childcare because you get back the time you’ve been productive at work.

What I would then be doing is really setting boundaries about the amount of work you’re prepared to do “out of hours”, so you don’t feel taken advantage of.

@coffeeforone glad you have a way forward.
I've been thinking about my comment on 6 days being a lot. Most years we don't use that many and post early years dc don't seem to be as sick - but we've used it this year with a hospital stay already. BUT what really makes the difference for us which I completely overlooked is that I work part time - so in any illness there can be a day one of us takes off work, followed by a day that I'm off already - which obviously reduces the numbers a lot!

A very sensible approach- thanks for updating!

Sounds fair, and definitely good they trust you!