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.

On return from maternity leave we both went to a compressed working week. He worked Tuesday to Friday and I did Monday to Thursday.

Paid childcare for three days a week. My job was taken as seriously as his so we split meetings and sickness.

He's more senior, so took advantage of his postion to work from home if illness and flexibility to do school meetings.

With one we used a full time childminder, once DC2 arrived I became a SAHM. Youngest has just started school and I was going to go back to work using wrap around but with covid making childcare arrangements complicated ( as one DC has a medical condition which means we often end up having to self isolate) so I am stuck at home for another year.

I don't think grandparents should be responsible for child care, and the fact that some people think that they should. I was a stay at home Mum, and would not have had any children if they had to be put in any childminding situations.

We have no help. We do it all ourselves. We have had to put our social lives on hold. So no we don't go out anymore as a couple etc. We've sadly grown apart recently. But that's not because we have kids. Although the lack of couple time have definitely caused a problem. I also stay home for now so I do all the school runs and stuff

We haven't had any help from either of our parents. They adore our DS but we live a decent distance away from them so it's not realistic for practical help. And other than the usual grandparent type gifts (mostly clothes and toys), we've not had any financial help.

I think it's probably all already been said but this was our approach:

Save up in advance to cover maternity leave/ make sure we have a safety net.
Buy most things second hand (there are very few things you need brand new)
Cut unnecessary spending (or at least check your finances so you know what you can cut if you need to)
Work out if sending the little one to childcare makes financial sense. If you're the same or better off from sending them to childcare then it's worth going back to work fulltime. If not then it's not up to you to be a SAHM, consider if one or both of you can work part-time.
Remember that it's not your responsibility to cut down hours, take the little one to appointments etc. You both will need to take time off work for childcare related things, not just you.
Don't feel the need to spend lots of money on baby activities while you're on maternity. Your baby's unlikely to be any worse off for skipping baby groups, swimming lessons, baby yoga etc. And there's plenty of free things you can do. If you sign up for NCT classes once you're pregnant you'll be paired with a number of other people who are due at the same time as you. If you make a few mummy friends then you can have free baby play dates .
Sign up for a tax-free childcare account. You get a 20% top-up of anything you put in. It does have a limit of just over £2k top up per year but that's just over £2k you wont need to pay for childcare. Given your scenario it would bring your daily childcare costs down to £50 per day.

Now I'm back at work it's just a case of alternating night shifts and dropping/picking DS up from the childminder. The biggest issue I've found about not having parental help is that we're very limited on when we can have time as a couple. Luckily DS consistently goes to bed at 7pm but it means we're tied to the house for date nights and such cause we don't have a baby sitter.

This thread just goes to show that there are lots more of us in this position than you would think! We saved scrupulously before TTC in order to cover the shortfall in income that the maternity leave drop in pay would mean. We did the same again before TTC DC2, to cover the additional nursery fees. Our joint income is modest but we manage. TBH, the hardest part of having no help at all is not even being able to have a date night together once in a while! Booking professional babysitters costs money we just don't have spare. It's hard, but it can be done!

I wouldn't dream of using my DPs for childcare and I sincerely hope my DS doesn't expect me to provide childcare for his family in the future (barring genuine emergency), many of my friends are grandparents and feel completely taken advantage of but are frightened to say anything for fear of upsetting their (adult) children.

I was able to be a SAHM when we had our child, but we deliberately postponed having a child until we were financially secure.

It's definitely worth thinking through different options; start by looking at the maternity/paternity packages that you and your DH get. You may well be surprised by what you find (eg. I discovered that my company paid me an extra 20% of my salary from the day I went back to work until my child was 18 months old - that encouraged me to go back sooner rather than later, and for DH to become a SAHD).

Also, which of you earns the most - can the lower earner cut hours/do a job share for a few years? Many companies are quite good about allowing people (in particular, parents) to find the right balance.

Like others have said, you cope because you have to - neither DH or I have a single family member who could/would help so we simply just got on with it and replied on nobody else... it was fine

Plan ahead, save as much as you can now!

I live a 3 minute walk away from tbe nursery. Work a 10 minute drive away. Have a boss that is very understanding about family life and also work part time. Don't in anyway feel that I've missed out or sacrificed anything by not having grandparents around to help.if anything the changes I have made have improved my life

I had to become a SAHM until our two are both in school. Husband has an incredibly demanding job with stupidly long hours. We could pay for childcare so I can work now but as I also do 100% of running the household I choose not to have to juggle a job at this time.

We have loving families, but both sets live far away. Depending on how your birth is, and whether or not your baby is a good sleeper will determine how much help you need from friends/family in the early days. Do you have friends who would bring you the odd meal/just come round and sit with you to offer support? If not, fill your phone with helpline numbers before you give birth or breastfeeding support workers/health visitor/any other useful new Mum’s supporters you can find locally.

The childcare thing generally works itself out. You either (one of you, not necessarily you) goes part time, does shifts or you find a cheaper child minder (often cheaper than nursery). We just have one and won’t have another until we can afford it.

You do manage, but what you need to build - in advance - is a support network for if you’re having a bad few days/PND.

*of, not or

We're due our first soon and live nowhere near any family. Childcare costs would eat up my salary if I went back to work so we saved some equity from our recent property sale and will use that for the 2 years between Mat Pay finishing and 30 free childcare hours starting.
We'll be tight for money on 1 salary for 2 years but with me at home, planning meals etc I'm hoping we'll be fine!

We have had zero parental/family help (in 14 years it has been 12 hours and one night actually, so not quite zero but dh had to beg for those, no joint holidays, time off when visiting etc though). DH and I have worked FT throughout and used nursery plus babysitters and holiday clubs. We split our annual leave to be able to cover everything, and when ds was younger we had a complicated spreadsheet of what was happening in the year.
One of the several reasons for having one child was to be able to manage things more easily

No family support and we just manage. It can be more tiring but it’s doable! Nursery from 8-6, expensive but means we can both work full time and bring home the money we need.

We live in a cheap part of the country, so could just juggle - work refused to adjust my days.
It was school starting that tipped us over the edge, and I've been a SAHM since then.

I took a lower paid job with a more flexible employer before ttc. It meant that I was able to drop to p/t hours and DH was able to compress his hours so we minimised our need for paid for childcare. It worked for us.

I would commend you for thinking through these things now, a lot of people don’t. Saving as much as you can before maternity is always sensible.

We never had any help from grandparents or anyone else as we moved away from most of our family before we had kids. We just threw money at it but I appreciate we were lucky to be able to. Kids were both in nursery full time from 9months. When they started school, we deliberately chose a school in the next town with good wraparound provision over the lovely outstanding rated village school literally on our doorstep. DH and I alternated who took which school holidays off where we could and used holiday clubs to cover the rest. If the stars aligned, we sometimes managed to coordinate a week or two off together for a holiday every now and again!

The old childcare voucher scheme helped a lot as both our employers offered it. It was tough going for a few years and money was a bit tight but we got by. Now the kids are bit older, only the youngest needs after school club and holiday club now. In a couple of years, she won’t so the end is very much in sight.

Its hard. I think there should be a law stopping people from having children if they have no parental help - save us from ourselves

Its very expensive - both at nursery and even at school, especially if you have more than one and need after and before school care and holiday care.

But there is a relentlessness to the sheer volume of work that is involved in having kids - never getting a break - not getting time alone as a couple, - not getting time to get stuff done when the grandparents have the kids. If you are both going to work full-time it will be really exhausting, and expect your quality of life to drop dramatically and your relationship to be put under pressure. You will be constantly juggling spending time with the kids, against getting the house sorted/ life admin/ time for yourself/ work/ need for sleep.

If I am perfectly blunt, unless you have a strong and irrisistible drive to have children, I wouldn't bother.

Well I had to find ways of working round it which meant until dc were in school I earned about £20 a week. By doing a couple of hours when they were at nursery when they were old enough for free hours. My then husband who was shift working would take no responsibility for childcare but insisted I earned money at the same time. Before they went to nursery I had small amount of savings as well as child benefit which I used for food shopping and to clothe me and the kids.

I have now had the same part time job for over five years. Because I have SN kids and family that depend on me for daily support, I find I can only manage part time. I am also now a single parent and the dc do not spend vast amounts of time with their dad. So it is still an ongoing juggle. I guess for me it has meant I go without so the kids can have what they need.

I also think people with young families now are much more inclined to share childcare etc.

Saved as much as possible beforehand and became a SAHM for a few years (I despised my old job and wanted to change career anyway). DP worked hard to get promoted in that time. Will be paying nursery fees from next year as going back to uni to start a new career. I did try for a few months to work without family help but found it very difficult and my manager wasn't flexible (an unmanaged long term sick member of staff who was close to union reps and work didn't cover my mat leave at all meant that they were short staffed). We looked at our finances and figured out we would be ok financially for a few years if I was to be a SAHM. DP will be mostly dealing with kids school stuff next year whilst it's my turn to work on my career. We would not have coped otherwise in our situation.

Suck it up.

My parents are dead.

We live in a different country to DH’s mum.

We have no family and had no real friends until I broke my arse making a network for us when we had DD. After 8 years of trying - 4 self funded courses of ivf and 5 miscarriages.

We had no one.

My family are in a different country, DH only had a sister and she is seriously weird, refused to babysit so we could go out and buy his 1st Christmas presents(that was the first time we had asked) (we are now low contact.)

We ended up in debt, but knew it wasn't forever, and we had equity in the house if the balloon went up, the balloon went up (9/11) Dh made redundant and unemployed for six months. More debt, but we just ploughed on through.

I never had any help with my five. We live far from both sets of parents. You just get on with it.

It is good to have a support network such as church or NCT, and make friends with people who can help you in an emergency (and you likewise).

You just manage. My entire wage (actually slightly more than!) went on nursery fees in the first year. It got easier to manage financially as I was promoted and then we hit the 30 funded hours. We didn't receive any financial help other than the standard child benefit. If DC is ill, either me or my husband take a day off work to look after him- we both work in public sector roles so fairly good parental/emergency leave policies. We are lucky in that we have a good network of friends to rely in an emergency. I am lucky enough to work TTO so now he's at school I won't have to fork out for holiday clubs either. You will manage fine though!