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 find a way. We have no local family. I work two long days a week and DH is self employed so he has the days I work off to look after the baby. It works well for us.

You look at your finances, can you afford to pay your mortgage and other essentials if you only have one income?
If you left your job to become a full time, stay at home mum, can you get back to your current position in let’s say 7/8 years?
Sometimes staying home to raise your family works out cheaper, not only are you saving the £60 daily childcare, but add on to that the daily £6.00 commute, the £4. coffees, the £5 for a sandwich, the £10 collection for Lisa’s wedding, Norman’s retirement, Lucy’s baby etc, £4.00 on new tights, and on and on and on it goes.

Childcare, then nappies, maybe formula milk, new clothes for baby every 6/12 weeks in the early years. No coat does two winters for a pre schooler.
Basically having children is very expensive. But equally rewarding.

I had zero help, not even from my now ex-H. Thing is, if you’re broody, you’d sell a kidney to be a mum.

Could you afford to quit work and move somewhere less expensive? Would you be prepared to leave your job in advertising/Egyptology/Tv to take 16 hours a week on a Friday night and all day Saturday n Sunday in Sainsbury’s to be home all week?

Put thus way, if you found out today you was 9+ months pregnant and you gave birth tonight, you would find a way. That’s how it works. You might not get another 4 weeks in Australia and two weeks in the Bahamas fir the next 20 years, but you’ll do ok.

if you are in an area with good wrap around care

This is such a big if though. Anything in summer hols around here only starts from age 8, and "around here" actually means 1 hour drive away. 9am -3pm. At £300 per week. So that's completely useless. Term time only work has been the saviour here for us.

As pp said, the childcare voucher scheme was brilliant. And tax credits meant that I was able to become SAHM when first one and then the second child were sufficiently complicated that I was having to go between multiple dr/physio/occ health/hospital/paediatrician/ speech and language sessions. DS's needs also meant we got DLA and Carer's Allowance.

With no parental help, and had ch not had over-riding needs, working full time would have been a nightmare. We couldn't have survived on just oh's salary (mine would have been eaten up on childcare) - just enough to mean we would have had no help from benefits of any sort, but by time mortgage and bills paid, no £ for food. (And our mortgage is actually less than renting around here, so couldn't have done that to free up £ either.)

We just had the 1 dc. Couldn't have afforded nursery for 2.

Absolutely no help here

We have one child, both work full time
My advice would be

1. If you can work condensed hours to try this. If both of you can condense hours into 4 days, this means each of you can do 1 full day of childcare. That means paying for 3 days per week (£180pw) which is a much more doable amount
2. See it as a joint cost, not from your salary alone
3. Remember you are investing in your future, pension and career. Childcare costs don’t last forever

Easy. Don't have children until you can afford them. This should be the case for everyone but it's a sadly lacking assessment in far too many instances.

DH and I both work 30 hours a week. He does 4 days a week and I do 3 days a week and we work alternating days, but we've been with our companies many years so theyve been very accomodating.

This arrangement works really well in terms of childcare. But we have very little time except for when we book holiday, to actually all spend together and it has been a strain on our relationship. Almost no time or energy for sex, and the only communication we do is fleeting, usually misunderstood, and results in arguments that didn't happen when we didn't have childcare worries.

It does also mean that because our employers are flexible, we wouldn't get a good deal like that elsewhere so we can't look for employment elsewhere until our son is in school.

Dh wage pretty much just pays the childcare costs. But we have only needed to do that since August as previously my dm did the childcare but she is shielding so can't for now. Ds is 2 so he will start nursery school in September next year so it's only short term.

There's two ways to manage the nursery years:

1. Aim for one child, accept the hit on earnings and grit your teeth.
2. Have two kids, either back-to-back to maximize maternity leave or else spaced apart, so the free nursery hours kick in for the eldest when you go back to work after the youngest.

Either way,when you start looking at schools, take wrap around care, holiday provision or childminders into account.

If you enjoy your job, I strongly urge you not to give it up. DH needs to be flexible too -part time or compressed work patterns for you both, overlapping shifts or weekend work. When one partner goes part time and the household is dependent on one income, the power balance shifts. It's one of the reasons this Coronavirus recession is about to shaft women so badly. It's mostly females that take the hit, both in the three years off, and then reduced pay progression and pension contributions.

No support, DC2 has autism.

I switched my work to part time and night shift only.

School holidays and in service days covered by both of us with holidays during a week, DH is home at the weekends

We both work (me PT and DH full time). Our DD (age 2) goes to nursery when I work. DH's parents occasionally babysit for us, but can't do childcare as they don't live locally and my parents live in Scotland (we live in SE England). Currently nearly 24 weeks with DC 2. You just have to get on with it!

Oh yes, I posted much earlier in the thread, but forgot to mention that I became a SAHM but did pick up some evening and weekend shifts in restaurants (pre covid obviously). That worked well actually and meant a bit of extra income.

Many days with reduced sleep, no childfree time until DC2 started the nursery and I became a master of bathroom haircut since I was doing it for 6 years now.

MIL has offered to come a few times, I took her up on the offer but her help was to clunk the pots and dishes in the kitchen while I was trying to sleep.

I actually realised that until the youngest went to the nursery my friend was looking after him as she’s had a child the same age and no job but I paid her to do it.

as previously my dm did the childcare but she is shielding so can't for now.

so you have parental help

I paid for full time childcare. DH's family are an hour away and very dysfunctional, so while we may get the odd hour or two of babysitting, they're not regular childcare. My parents are elderly and 3000 miles away.

Honestly, it's fine. Expensive, but fine. We both work full time, so we just shell out for the best childcare we can afford.

It is very hard! We had no family help, are lucky to have OK salaries though. This is why people are always harping on about the price of nursery, then you others who respond to that with "if you can't afford children don't have them" and I wonder if those people actually understand the figures involved.

Anyway your options include the following things (probably all been posted by haven't RTFT):

1. One of you gives up work for a few years to be a SAHP (neither myself or partner wanted to do this)
2. Use savings to help pay for childcare along with serious belt tightening of everything you can think of. No holidays or extras for a few years (very common strategy)
3. Plan your family (choose to only have one child or an age gap between kids whereby you have one in school by the time the next one is due for nursery, or only a small overlap of two in nursery. I had two in nursery for a whole year and had barely any wages left until DD went to school. But it was only one year)
4. Buy second hand stuff for baby. We had loads of clothes given to us which was brilliant, but I bought other bits such as the pram new. If I could go back in time I would try and grab a good quality brand second hand.

It's hard, and despite what you said, many people are in the position of not having wider family to help or high paid jobs. If you can, start saving now to help. And as a poster said above, it's not forever, it's only while the kids are small that the childcare costs are so frighteningly high.

And financially, my parents bought DS his infant car seat, and that was it. We paid for the rest of it. If they'd helped out, they would have wanted a say and that's a no from me. I'm a grown up. I buy and choose my own things.

@serialreturner

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.

It's not about "sucking it up".

It's about the practicality and not being able to be in 2 places at once, surely that's obvious to anyone with a child? As soon as they start Primary, you need wraparound care, you need someone to pick them up if school calls, you need someone when schools close for whatever reason.

Unless you have one of these mythical MN jobs where you earn a 6 figures salary working 10am to 3pm, it's not possible for many parent to hold a job without help Which is why most parents do have family help...

There are some ridiculously dramatic posts on this thread.

What is difficult and costly is childcare, but unless you’re going to never leave the town you grew up in (or stay within a ten mile radius of it) all your life, then you have to pay for it.

That is it.

You have to pay.

Same as anything else in life, isn’t it?

then you others who respond to that with "if you can't afford children don't have them"
Arrghh. I meant "others" not "you others", I wasn't referring to MN posters, more older people writing comments under newspaper articles etc when they say "don't have kids if you can't afford them" without having a decent grasp on the current costs compared to salary.

It does get easier when they get older, because you can employ cheaper help, au-pairs used to be life-savers. Brexit and the Pandemic have screwed that up completely, it's going to become even harder.

So no one with children should ever leave mamas apron strings santa? And you don’t think that’s just a bit ridiculous?

I had to give up my job because financially we were quite a bit better off with me not working. I've taken the time to do my degree so hopefully will be a more desirable employee when I return to work. We live quite rurally and childcare is pretty hard to come by as well so it was really the only option for us. You can make it work whatever you choose to do, if you're realistic about finances and budgeting there are lots of ways to work around it.

No support ever, all but one parent dead (who lives 5 hours away and sees not ever helping with GC as a badge of honour). We just get on with it although I do feel jealous sometimes of friends getting lots of help.

No coat does two winters for a pre schooler.

It always has done for me .. I just buy slightly too big. Not really a cost thing more an environmental/ waste thing...
School coat this year was gifted to us also and I’ve learnt that there are lots of people (like me!) with bags and bags of this stuff just going to waste.

I actually think the “stuff” for children is not really an issue for most people (or shouldn’t be) if you are prepared to buy second hand or take the hand me downs that are out there (so many people who are desperate to get rid of all their baby stuff but can’t even find people to take it because everyone wants new every time ...).

Childcare is expensive, no two ways around it. I spoke to a colleague once who was of the opinion that really a lot of people have to work on net no pay for a few years in order to maintain their job - of course during this time they are building experience, getting pension contributions etc.