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.

You make a compromise for the early years.

Either this is a financial compromise - and you put a child in childcare and understand that part of your family wage is used for childcare.

Or, you compromise on your (and it almost always is the mother) earning ability and quit work to be a SAHM.

I chose the nursery option for two reasons - I was bored being at home all the time, and it was important to me that I retain some momentum in my career. We were both fairly low earners so we had top ups in the form of tax credits, but it wasn’t much. We also have twins so almost double the cost.

My advice would be not to compare before-child and after-child earnings. If you can afford it, I would recommend staying in work, even if part time. It’s much easier to get into work when you’re already working than it is when you’ve been out for childcare reasons.

Case in point: my husband is a SAHD (from redundancy whilst youngest was a baby) because he’s not been able to get a job in the last three years since our youngest started school. I promise you this is not through lack of trying! On the other hand, I’ve had several promotions and pay rises so my single wage at least covers our costs.

My family live 200 miles away and his family still work full time.

No help either... in the end DH started working nights shifts. I had 30 hours during the day.

When DC were very little we only paid pt nursery... it works well with school hours & breakfast clubs. Holidays are a combination of annual leave and clubs- the shifts help as it's usually only 2-3 days / week we need to cover.

You will be broke for a few years. Resist the urge to be short termist. If you have a career that can progress don't sacrifice it so you have nicer things in the baby years. This expensive exhausting phase feels like it lasts forever but is actually a short period of your life.

It gets a lot cheaper from starting primary school and massively cheaper when they start secondary school.

By the way, I do not know anyone who got all the childcare necessary for free from grandparents to enable them to have two parents working full time. I mean who would fuck over their own parent's retirement like that even if the parents were willing.

We live a bit of a distance from family and they wouldn't be able to help much anyway, we re due our first next month and had saved 1.5k which has covered all the baby bits we ll hopefully need for the first 6 months and then we ll sell on bits when we don't need them anymore.

Having played about with eligibility calculators it doesn't make much sense for us to both work when I m on a bit above minimum wage, I will likely choose to stay at home until the government childcare hours will kick in.

However, I didn't get much time with my dad with him dying young so i don't think it's the right decision for me personally to pay for full time childcare for no overall gain ( I ll still have over 30 years to pay into my pension when they get into school and we re homeowners so we would look to down size for extra retirement funds when the time comes).

You ll just have to figure out how what works best for your family.

I work freelance which works well for us . I don’t at all get how it gets way easier as they get older tbh, I think childcare gets way more difficult. My three dcs are all finished at different times and early , my youngest is in nursery until 11.30....and there’s no possibility to add on hours and huge shortage of childminders in our area. Also there’s so many holidays in school whereas they don’t follow these in crèche /childminders etc.
Also we are extremely lucky to have afterschool in the school but 5 euro per hour per child , once our youngest is in school that would be 15 euros per hour afterschool if I have to work until 6pm (3 dcs)
The tricky part without family support is sickness, we’re lucky in that I work flexibly and our kids are rarely ill but it’s still so tricky having to take time off short notice (multiply this with covid now, plp constantly having to take time off work).
We chose have three dcs and absolutely love it and family life but would find it extremely difficult to work ft with no adhoc or any fall back help hence why I work flexibly and we’ve set up our own small business too . It is hard though as with covid I've had to make sure my hours are all early mornings, evenings and weekends.
Not to be all doom and gloom but the lack of help when either of us had been ill has been so,so hard .
Pre-covid I’ve had to bring kids into dentist with me.
Looking after small kids when sick is v tough but no choice as our families are lovely but never , ever help whatsoever with kids so we just have to cope and get on with it.
I think with 1 dc you can still manage pretty well (any illness or issues aside) but unless you are in big money and can afford a nanny one of you should have some flexibility

Most people are eligible for tax free childcare, which means that you pay 80% of childcare costs and the government pays 20%. Not a huge amount but every little helps.

DH and I use childcare vouchers but the scheme is closed to new applicants so that wouldn't be relevant to you.

It might be worth doing a hypothetical calculation for Universal Credit, just in case you would be eligible once you factor in maternity leave and pay, and/or going back to work and adding childcare costs. However, if your combined income is high then you probably won't be eligible - unless you are renting rather than paying a mortgage?

We've no help. Either with childcare or buying what we needed. We bought everything ourselves. We saved what we would need to cover maternity leave plus 1 months nursery fees before my first was born.

Our nursery offered a 10% discount for full time and we got the tax free childcare which took 20% off. Worked out about £750 a month full time.

We've saved the same for no 2 plus a bit extra to top up our firsts nursery fees, if we decide to put her in during my maternity leave. She's 3 now so gets 30 hours.

When we had our first we were on about £42k gross between us so not a massive salary.

I know a few people who do it but also agree that having someone mind dcs fulltime in their retirement is totally taking the piss. I’d they really , really want to that’s fantastic however!

I had help for the first 9 years which was incredible but I was conscious that it was my place to look after DS so I did most of it and I was a lone parent. I used kindergarten and holiday clubs. Then later after school clubs. Some of his friends parents and I would double up to make our annual leave stretch. If he was on holiday at any point I worked extra hours so I could have flexi time. I also used to work in the evenings if I needed to. It was so hard but I did it!

We just pay for childcare. We both earn about 30k a year full time, but worked out that if I went part time we were better off financially because I paid less tax, so I fo 3 days a week. DDs nursery is about 560 a month (we use the government 20% tax back scheme). I only end up taking home about 400 a month but it's better than nothing. We have done one 4 day holiday in cornwall since she was born. We have saved up to buy a caravan which will mean much cheaper holidays. We live very frugally, have no debt.

Unfortunately I am now due DD2 in 6 weeks which will mean there will be a period of 4 months where we pay for 2 kids in childcare. It will cost us about 300 a month out of our household income (as in its 300 more than I earn). Its that or I quit my job. After the 4 months DD1 will get 30 hours free childcare meaning I only have to pay for DD2.

After that, we just accept that we never, ever have a break. I can count on one hand the amount of times DHs parents have had my DD in 2 years, and that's mainly been so I can go to medical appointments. They live 40 mins away but just make a HUUUUUGGGEE deal over being asked to mind her for maybe 2 hours. Once we went to a spa. DHs mom wanted chocolate and a medal for taking DD for 6 hours. We apparently "owed" her. My parents live abroad so do babysit when DD goes to bed so we can go for a dinner if they are over. Thats ever 8 weeks (before pandemic. Now its never). That's it though. You just accept that it's you two and nobody else, and you get on with it

No help at all here.
We paid for full time nursery from 6 months old. DS is now 5 and still pay for breakfast club, after school club and holiday clubs for part of the school holidays.
We saved a lot before TTC and also paid off any debts, except mortgage, shipped around for saving on insurance etc, cut back on sky tv etc that we had pre baby.
A lot of cutting back and being more frugal than we had been previously

Also sign up to the government childcare account

Like many who have replied, we made a conscious decision to manage on just one income and have one SAHP - in our case, it's DH. Now our son is older and his disabilities more limiting, we couldn't get appropriate childcare even if we had loads of money (short of hiring a Nanny). So we manage on a low income, in an ex-council house, and with one holiday in the UK per year.

I would say do not become a stay at home parent for financial reasons if you can possibly help it, childcare costs only last for a few hard years. If you have completely given up work it will be much harder to get back to where you were. Even if childcare uses up most of your wage (why does it get compared against only one salary?!) for a bit the long term financial effects are much greater.

We both went part time and did a day of childcare each, we were lucky to have grandparents who looked after ours for a day a week, so only had two days of nursery to cover. We got tax credits too, which helped a bit.

Now our kids are teenagers and I still earn roughly the same as my husband, whereas some other mums I know are still on pin money in term time jobs nothing like their original careers.

My husband is self employed and works his hours around the 2.5days at nursery- I used to have a day at home too.

We only had one child because we don’t have family available to help and could only afford childcare for one.

No parental help here. I know not everyone can do what we did but we put off TTC until we knew we could cope (just about and with sacrifices) on the one salary so we wouldn’t need childcare. A lot of the equipment we got secondhand. We got a new car seat, a new cot and a new mattress for a second hand Moses basket But everything else was secondhand. We didn’t have holidays or anything and because we had no parental help this meant we also never got to spend money going out as there was no babysitting.

By the time we had our second it was much better, he had a brand new pram and we had caravan park holidays.

I went back to work fifteen years after becoming a SAHM and we had our first night away together without children 16 years after first DC was born!

We paid for childcare. I went part time. Took advantage of government childcare tax scheme. We only had one child. Bought stuff second hand, then sold it on after we'd finished with it. Few holidays, small house, old cars.
It's hard, but bloody worth it.

You have two incomes, so it should be doable. Can either/both of you do compressed hours over 4 days? I save a days nursery fees that way.

We also managed to negotiate a lower mortgage payment, temporarily.

Only 2 years between mat leave ending and 30 hours free childcare.

We are in this position. I became a SAHM in the end, as it worked out cheaper! I'm trying to get back to work though, and I'm finding it hard, so I wouldn't recommend doing that necessarily. There may be childminders etc who are a little cheaper than that, but not round where I live tbh. £60 is about average.

Look at longer term arrangements too, because some schools don't provide wraparound child care, or have a waiting list. Also what will you do if your child is ill and can't go to nursery/ school? Does one of you have flexibility in your jobs to take time to look after an ill child?

We work opposite hours as in I do early start and finish and he does mid day to eve.
He does morning school run and I'm around the afternoon.
Our hours over lap by an hour or 2 so when my mat leave finishes he will put baby in play pen at work.
He runs a restaurant so are allowed to do this.
I know loads of people who don't have much gparent support and manage fine.

I working full time and had no parent nearby -they are fit and active but their own lives. I'm moving -soon. They are all school age -but the time is right to move, so move we will. I hope they will have a relationship with them and see them once a week compared to 4 times a year. But I'm not relying on them for childcare.

I had no support OP you just manage.my son had 2 buggies, both second hand and both that bad they were free but they worked so I didn't care. He had a second hand free cot, high chair, lots of stuff tbh. I moved in to my home with him aged 2 with no furniture I had to sit on the floor for months before being given a second hand 2 seater sofa I literally only had a bed and his cot. Needs must you get there in the end.

Flexible employers. We were very lucky.

Both did compressed 4 day weeks while eldest was in nursery. 3 days in nursery. FT nursery would have been unaffordable.

Now she is in school and youngest is with childminder school hours and we are flexible to be able to drop off/pick ups between us. Childminder for 6/7 hours a day is cheaper than nursery (also £60 per day here).

You make it work. You have to.