If you have no parental help, how do you cope with children?

[afternoonitsraining]

Husband and I are thinking about TTC, but we are both careful people and want to work out finances and things before trying.

Everyone we know seems to rely on their parents for childcare help, and help to buy baby things. We would have none of that due to various issues, we would have to do everything ourselves.

I know it may seem as if counting chickens before they've hatched - maybe we can't conceive anyway. But Childcare is around £60 a day in our area and with no parental help, I just wondered how people who don't earn mega salaries manage with childcare. We wouldn't get universal credit or anything, just child benefit and I would not want to give up working.

Ours are teenagers now, but we've paid for every scrap of childcare we ever had. It was horrendous in the early years - we both had full time jobs with good professional salaries, but one of them just paid for the childcare. Even in 2001 I remember day nursery fees being more than our mortgage at the time. You just have to grit your teeth and get through it somehow. We had a phase of having au pairs for a few years, which comes with massive pros and cons, and you need a big enough house to have someone live in. Also nanny-shares with a friend for a while, and before and after school clubs as they got older. You do manage to cobble it together somehow, but it's hard. Definitely took a toll on my career.

No family help either. I don’t think I would have used it though if it was there as seen too many resentful grandparents tied to childcare and unable to spend their free time doing what they want.

My mum passed away 3 years ago and my dad is elderly. My partner's parents live 4 hours away, so it's just us and almost 2yo DS. Hoping to try for another in the next year (but I'm getting on a bit in pregnancy terms so it might not happen).

DP is SAHD, I work FT (currently wfh).

I'm a sahm but thankfully I have a sister in law who will help when I go back to work. My mums passed and my dads too ill. I also have other family members that help when they can

You could skip it altogether and not have to worry about such things. It’s highly a underrated and fabulous way to live.

If a baby were a product you pay for, based on the description on the back of the box, nobody would want one! 😂

I'm a SAHM. It's the only way. We live frugally. Me working without a higher paying career type job would leave us in a negative balance after childcare.

Neither set of grandparents work, all in okay health, they all sit in their houses all day and the furthest they go is the local village shops. The kids are piss easy to deal with (great behaviour) and childcare is limited to once or twice a year emergencies or unavoidable events (such as being best man or MOH to a child free wedding)

Eldest is now 13 and old enough (and willing) to babysit for cash thankfully.

We both worked around each other on opposite shifts. Good for our kids, shit for us as we were ships in the night. Things are better now though.

We had twins, now late teens, but we had no help from my parents at all. My DP's mum sometimes had the DCs if we paid her for a week in the summer. It is hard - I worked FT and my DP went part time when they were younger. But we had to use breakfast clubs, had someone to pick them up after school, camps in the summer etc. I'm not going to lie it is hard, and it is expensive.

@cctvrec

I'm a SAHM. It's the only way. We live frugally. Me working without a higher paying career type job would leave us in a negative balance after childcare.

Neither set of grandparents work, all in okay health, they all sit in their houses all day and the furthest they go is the local village shops. The kids are piss easy to deal with (great behaviour) and childcare is limited to once or twice a year emergencies or unavoidable events (such as being best man or MOH to a child free wedding)

Eldest is now 13 and old enough (and willing) to babysit for cash thankfully.

Forgot to add, both sets of grandparents live nearby. DH's two streets away and mine a five minute drive if that. Neither even pop round for a cuppa. No reason, they just want us to go to them every time. My house is clean, tidy and welcoming and I even make a decent cuppa so I don't know why other than pure laziness.

We had no parental help, so I gave up work and went back when she got her free nursery hours. Basically practice being one salary for a while ( save the other half) and see how you get on.

No parental hope. I left my managerial job to work in a school because the cost of childcare was just taking my wage. We get 13 weeks free from paying childcare. It’s difficult I know I’ll never go back to being on equal pay but it’s the sacrifice for the children.

We never had parental help. We paid for nursery, had a 3 year age gap and paid for babysitters. Such is life

In our case we just had to pay for childcare, although my mum was able to provide some help in the school holidays.

You may be entitled to free hours of child care when they are two. Not sure how things will be in future on that one with Covid but that was the case.

Remember that actual babies (and pregnancy) can be done very simply. There is lots of pressure to buy gadgets and expensive things but there are other simply ways of doing things.

The Green Parent magazine and talk board is usually full of ideas for recycling. Practice with ebay too, both for selling and buying things. Become a coupon queen, always always getting a discount for anything you buy. Do cashback. Keep a notebook of outgoings.

Seems an odd tip but don't buy a great deal for them before they were born. You are not going to know what size they will be! Mine was too long for the baby carrier I bought.

Try to choose a cot that can be converted into a bed. Mine was a Danish or Swedish make. Quite expensive, but could be used from day 1 up until age 3 depending on sizing. And then I sold it on ebay afterwards...

National Child birth trust has classes and tips for saving money.
The website Turn2us does a benefits check so that you can check and calculate what you might be working with.

Good luck.

Creche was €1100 per month, and my take home pay was about €1500 per month at the time. But I wanted to stay working. We had savings built up before dd was born, and later my salary increase which helped.

We bought what was needed, and I had a lot of clothes (reflux baby and to cut pressure on needing to wash loads during the week) but most were Penney’s (primark), H&M, Dunne’s Stores, a few Next bought in their sales etc.

We were always good at being frugal. Coupons and loyalty programmes for food, buying basics and cooking from scratch, batch cooking and freezing for simplicity mid week, etc. I had an allotment when dd was small (gave it up when life got too busy and I could dedicate enough time to it but it gave us a lot of berries and veg for about 6 years) and still grow a fair bit in our small garden.

We had already been in the habit of preferring self catering holidays and generally not hot beach holidays. So we just kept doing those with DD which gave us plenty of scope to enjoy them but work around her needs.

It’s hard work but she’s worth it and I am so glad I didn’t give up my job as I’ve done so much since that I am really proud of.

Our families both live 2.5 hours from us and we had very little monetary or practical help, but managed fine ourselves.

We have a 21 month old at the moment and no family help throughout the week. We are both civil servants though so our jobs are fairly flexible. I used leave once I went back after maternity to take every Friday off and then eventually cut my hours down to 32 over the 4 days. We are in then north though so childcare is about 50 a day and with tax free childcare we manage! We are slightly more than average though, I don't think we'd manage on min wage.

I saved up for ages before TTC so I could stay at home for 2 years. Then when I went back I paid childcare for a year before the free hours kicked in.

I would recommend childminder rather than nursery as it's cheaper.
You don't need things new except the cot mattress. But you don't need many of the fancy things that are for sale. Don't fall into the trap of buying baby sized wardrobe, special changing table.
Ikea has great stuff like high chairs, cots.
You can try to build up a network with mates so you can help each other out. Quite a few people live away from parents nowadays.

Are you assuming that other people get their childcare paid for by grandparents?

Buy cheap. No one needs a £1k pram or designer baby clothes. Think about where you spend the most on- spend as much as you can where it really matters, like a car seat, but clothes, toys, baby bath etc can all be from ebay or similar. Adjust your mindset and don't gripe about no longer having the spends for pre baby life. Don't chase a lifestyle.

One of you needs to be prepared to give up work until they start school or you both work and a huge chunk of wages go on childcare. Many opt for one parent to give up work and to be honest most don’t regret it. When you have your baby, most likely you will want to be there for it and not leave baby with a childminder

And yes to things that will last a long time - the high chair could shorten its legs to be a toddler chair so we got about 3 years from that, the cot converted to a bed that we only replaced when dd was about 8, you don’t need a changing table - a mat laid on top of a normal chest of drawers worked really well for us and the drawers were used for years after the mat was gone. And a normal kitchen basin is fine for a bath initially (I used to bath dd in the kitchen sink when she was very small - it was a good height for me not having to bend, I could lay things out on the worktop ready to use, and her towel on the draining board ready to take her out).

We have no parental help, 3 small child (youngest just started primary this month) and both work full time.

Basically we have just paid for full time nursery for MANY years - often for 2 at a time at nursery, we knew that though and are happy with our choices.

Disclaimer - we haven’t really had any money for years either 🤷‍♀️😂

No support here and we manage just fine! Got one ds who is 2 - I imagine it will obviously become harder if we have more (hoping for 1-2 more one day). I'm a sahm.
I've got some amazing friends who would happily provide childcare if we wanted to go out on a date (rare!) or if there was some sort of emergency. I'd do the same for them in a heartbeat and feel lucky to have them.

Another thing that helps is where we live. Is where you live child-friendly e.g. lots of nice things to do that are walking distance?

The thing that's really the key though is how we work as a couple. If your DP / DH is willing to just get on with things without needing to be asked and you can work well as a family then that will make for a lovely dynamic.

We saved money so we could afford the first few years of childcare.

We both had flexible hours so we could reduce the number of days we needed childcare. We used the childcare voucher scheme which helped too.

It was tight for a few years but we managed.

I think the government should offer a scheme similar to student loans where parents can borrow the money for childcare and pay it back through increased taxes once you return to work. It would really help parents in your situation.