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.

My own mum died a long time ago while mil, whom I love, was never a babysitting granny.
I was a sahm to three for nearly ten years. We were skint but childcare would have meant the same anyway. It was a no brainer at the time.

Also, babies / children genuinely need MUCH less than you might think. Concentrate on buying the essentials only, and ignore 'nice to have's. Consider buying the 'OK for the longer term' rather than the 'perfect for now' - my 19 year old DS still sleeps in the very plain single bed, using the same plain coloured duvet sets we bought for £49 when he was 2 (obviously changes of mattress along the way) whereas others might have had toddler beds, child beds etc. Same applies to pushchairs, though never economise on car seats.

Me and my dh don't get any help. Before my children fell ill we used to work around the child care schedule. Guess we was lucky we could do it like that. I'd work late he'd pick kids up an I'd take them. You just find a setting that can suit you! But I'm now a Sahm as my baby's have got poorly and I still get 0 help. You manage x

We have had to just work around each other. Prior to having DS we both had careers that involved weekend work. After mat leave I changed career as obviously no childminders work weekends. Its worked out well up until this year - I've been around every weekend and DP has had one or two weekdays off so cutting down the need for after school care. It isn't ideal as we don't get to do weekends away and DP misses out on a lot but it was the only option we had. I need to look for a new job as I'm in an industry massively hit by Covid but there is nothing I'm experienced in that doesn't involve weekend work so I'm back to square one. Its tough without parental help.

I do it all myself and childcare provision and after school clubs - hard but if you are organised can be done

It’s hard but you just get on with it. We have no family help. I went back to work part time after my first and worked nights so I could come home and look after the baby to avoid childcare costs. I will do that when I go back in March after my second baby. My hours mean I can work round school pick up and drop offs so won’t need to rely on anyone. It is hard and sometimes I do get jealous when I see my friends and all the help they get from family, especially after night shifts and surviving on no sleep. But it is a very short period until they get their free hours at 3yrs and then school starts. You just muddle through!

I'm a sahm plus one child is very unwell on a lot of medication and misses a lot of school. We have no family or friends and because it's how it's always been it's fine.

I am a SAHM, when I do go back to work it will have to be nights as we have no one to watch the kids for us if for instance they were sick or on school holidays.

It's going to be shit but it is something we can reassess once our mortgage is paid off and also once our kids are old enough to be home alone on holidays etc.

Baby equipment can cost as much or as little as you want it to.

Childcare, it's a relatively short time that it's really expensive. We built up a credit card while we had 2 in nursery that then got paid off once they were at school. But if either of us had taken a few years out the loss of earnings longer term would have far exceeded the nursery fees.

There are ways to maximise earnings vs cost, ie If you both worked 4 days you would only need 3 days childcare, or if you worked 4 long days you'd have full time pay and only 4 days childcare.

Its hard we had zero help. Guess you cant change it. I worked til 6 but was local job. Gave up after child 2 as no profit. They teens now thank god. I used to envy those with good help. Always someone as backup.

My husband and I work alternate shifts so we don't have to pay any childcare. We saved up plenty of money so we could buy the bigger items, and we just didn't go mad with what we bought and got some items second hand.

Our family have never babysat or bought anything for our children, other than of course birthdays and christmas, and the occasional items picked up at boot sales. My husband is in a reasonably paid job and I switched to a part time, low paid job after my first because I absolutely love the job. We still live comfortably and I wouldn't say we have found it hard as such. But we have had to make lifestyle changes and we only get 1 day to spend together. But we just get on with it. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices

You just make it work, both my parents are dead and I am in my early 30’s. My baby was just 2 1/2 months when my mum died and I have no family living anywhere near me.
You can apply for tax free childcare which will cover Up to 20% of your nursery fees.
Otherwise, you just make it work. It is more than an adjustment, your whole life and priorities will change and you won’t care about having less money for hols or things, because you will have your child instead.

Paid for it. Daycare for 3 kids was nearly double my salary but was worth it to keep my job. You make comprises. We extended mortgage to reduce payments, no holidays, no eating out etc. Until.all kids were school age

With difficulty!

As the lower earner I’ve dropped my hours and work flexi time but it’s still hard.

Is your profession one you can take time out of and get back into easily? I took 2 years out to avoid the worst of nursery fees.

Yes. It’s very possible to have DC without any parental support.

I’m not british, moved to UK to marry my DH so no parental help from my side (except for two weeks when each DC was born, my mother came) and my in laws were never that inclined. Never once did in-laws baby sat or helped. They did, however, buy the one pram.

We paid for child care and spread our holiday time between us to care for the children for school holidays, DC illness or other disruption to child care arrangements. This at the time of no parental leave and short maternity leave. First DC born here, I was back to work when she was 3 months (1996), second DC was 18 weeks (1999). Each was with employer contributing to maternity leave funds too.

Until our youngest went to nursery (no such thing as funded hours back then) we didn’t plan any holidays away in advance so we were sure to have holiday time to cover any problems. However, you’ll find there’s loads to do locally for days out when you are able to use up your remaining leave.

If you can swing it, live in child care works well if you have to commute or often need to stay late at work at last minute. Easier to give time off in lieu for your child care provider Or extra paid leave. Less flexibility with nurseries. Some child minders can be flexible.

I moved to consultancy when DC were born. Worked from home, chose clients in different time zones so I could work when DC were sleeping.

You just have to take the financial hit for those years. I used to get childcare vouchers, but sure if that's stopped? I had tax credits during maternity leave too.

My eldest is 16 and we never had invested parents. No childcare, no going their houses for tea, really hardly see them at all during all the time we had kids.

Fill was once a year, now it's never
Mil moved abroad when my second child was two days old
Dm is useless at bring MY mum so I see her four times a year

The kids dont have found feelings for any of them and it was / is hard, but we survived. I'm just praying that I can be active in my adult kids lives when they grow up. It seems that a lot if grandparents recoil at grandkids and living their best lives ever means having zero relationships with the grand kids. I actually think fil and his wife hate the kids, very weird

We had no financial or other support from anyone. It was tough. We never went out for the first few years, until we could afford a babysitter. When we were both in with flu, we would just take it in turns to rest. We had to pay a child minde when my husband was taken to hospital. You will manage because you have to.

the only SAHM around here are the ones with no family support and not enough income to employ a nanny.

I found pre-school children fairly easy, nurseries are not cheap BUT they are opened 7 days a week 52 weeks a year apart from bank holidays and have early drop off and late pick up when you need them. If you can afford the financial hit, they make life very manageable.

Once schools start, it's a (planned) nightmare and impossible without family or close friends. You can chose not to attend various nativities, sports day, etc etc, but you need childcare for holidays (around here there's no holiday club at Christmas), for inset days, election days.

All the TA seem to be SAHM who went back to work when the kids were a bit older but too young to do anything else than school hours term time only.

I honestly wouldn't have been able to work with no help, and once you add childcare, transport and extra costs, it was only worth it because my job pays a decent rate - and I can WFH more and more (well, pandemic aside obviously)

When ours ex first born I changed from working in retail management and started working in hospitality in the evening part time 2/3 evening shift a week. Dh worked day shift and then I went out when he came home. Worked well for us for 18 years. Meant there was always one of us at home.

You make a lot of financial sacrifices to pay for childcare and you choose schools and nurseries to accommodate it. There's never a perfect time to have a child but it is worth it all

No parental help, and both DH and I work full time. Have you look at tax free childcare scheme? We were both basic rate tax payer when we had our first. The childcare cost is very high when they are under 3. Then it goes down when the child is eligible for 30 hour nursery hours a week. See if you can afford the first 2 years, cutting down all expenses. Plan to have your second child so you never have two in nursery. We had our second the year before DC1 started school.

It really all gets cheaper childcare wise after the nursery years. What you need without parental help is flexible jobs. Ones where you can work from home if they are ill, able to swap hours for assembly, sports day etc.

We had no support, initially we used a childminder but DH and I managed to alter our hours to cut down the amount of time at the childminder as you usually pay buy the hour. I managed to be home for school kick out time and lived by the school, this suited childminder as she could drop off and have spare space to pick up extra after school work.

We then found out we were expecting DC2 (they are 13 months apart) and our childcare bill was very similar to DH take home plus travel etc. He then gave up work and got a job on one weekend day and 2 evenings. We were better off.

He had to give that up when I got a new job and couldn't guarantee being home in time to let him away.

He stayed at home until they were both in nursery and then got a part time job.

You really just have to cut your cloth tbh.

In those days there was no child credit or anything.

Expecting first in a few months - husband and I live in U.K. and the rest of our family is in Ireland! So zero help except when we go there to visit or if they come over here!

We are just gonna have to pay for childcare while we work and sort out a babysitter for Nights out and whatever

School years aren’t hard if you are in an area with good wrap around care. Don’t let people scare you off about this. We use a childminder and she takes the children for all the holidays. With our lockdown experience, we are thinking we can stop paying for that now. The children are actually really good at entertaining themselves while we work from home.