To wonder how you cover school holidays with no family?

[LivingMyBestLie]

There are around 14 weeks of school holidays per year and I have three children (two primary school age, one 1yr old).

AIBU to think it's impossible to cover school holidays with no family childcare?!

For reference my partner gets 30 days annual leave a year, I get 15 (pro rata). I work 3 days per week.

Please tell me how you do it!?

For those saying holiday clubs, where I live (north west England, not rural) the only holiday clubs are the sports camp ones which only run from 9-3 or sometimes 10-3. This is no use whatsoever if you work a full day and have no-one who can pick your child up. None of the schools here do their own holiday clubs and never have done.
I have a similar problem OP as DH works away a lot and very irregular hours and grandparents are now too old and in poor health to be asked to look after DD for more than an hour or so. I took redundancy at the end of last year and decided to have a year off but with the end of that year fast approaching, I'm really starting to worry about it.

I have family but they all work. I started off as full time when dd was 1.. nearly my whole wage went ilon private nursery fees. I now work 3 days a week and will do until she is in high school (2 years to go)

I use all of my annual leave during the school holidays.

For the rest of the days I pay a childminder 9 hrs per day @ £4 an hour = £36 a day. I used to pay holiday club but they would charge per day, then charge for outings and had to take packed lunches. Mine were open from 7.30am - 6pm. Childminder does free outings and provides lunch. Works out cheaper.

Childcare has always been a big stress for me because childminder is unreliable and after school club have no spaces. And I need childcare both through term time and school holidays. Thank god I won't have to go through the stress and expense of it all soon.

Feb half term - my left over annual leave or holiday club
Easter- one week holiday, one week holiday club
May half term - DH holiday
Summer -two weeks family holiday, rest holiday club
October half term - mix of holiday and clubs depending how much holiday is left
Christmas - DH holiday as his company closes over the year end.
We normally kept one week holiday free for school things and often used all of the days.

DH and I both work full time. We pay for childcare. Until recently we had a nanny and were paying £40k/year for childcare (inc preschool). I would keep my full time job even if it meant a loss in the short term. You lose out SO MUCH for career progression and salary if you take time out or even go part time. There are exceptions but at a population level, women who take time out earn on average 40% less when they re enter the work force. I’m going to have a 40+ year career, I’m not going to throw that down the toilet for 3-4 years of expensive childcare. But I also like working and don’t believe it should be my problem as a woman to solve this problem, childcare doesn’t come out of my salary. We are also fortunate that childcare has just meant we are saving a little less rather than any real hardship/lifestyle change (partly because we planned for it and partly because we are high earners who never let our lifestyle match our income).

You pay for childcare and claim 85% back through UC.
We earn above the threshold but the price of childcare x2 brings us within it.
Monthly childcare of over £1000 but 85% comes back to me which makes it affordable and also ensures we both remain in full time work.

When ds was at primary I met a mum of one is ds's classmates who worked 3 days a week. She took ds 2 days a week most weeks of the holidays and between dh and I we reciprocated and took her ds the same number of days.

Dh and I took mostly separate holidays.

Used clubs for the rest.

Unpaid parental leave , you/your dh are entitled to 18 weeks per child so that a could cover 3 weeks a year, but got employer would need to support you taking it during school holidays.

I'm a single parent (so only had my annual leave) I saved all year to cover the cost of holiday clubs/childminder for 3 dc. Took my annual leave spread out over the year to reduce the cost so instead of booking a week off I'd book 2 days off and then book 3 days childcare.

Unpaid parental leave 4 weeks if full time?

We work on different days so there is no overlap. I work Tuesday and Saturday whereas dh works the rest of the week. It means holidays get covered and annual leave can be spent together. Appreciate it's not possible for everyone to do this.

£38 a day in holiday club, or £50 a day in childminder. I'm in SE.

We paid 1k for 2 weeks over Easter. I was earning 24k, DH was on 20k. Childcare was still completely unaffordable. For summer hols we typically tried to book annual leave each to cover as much of the holidays as possible and minimising the childcare cost.

My husband works around 70 hours per week, I do 16 on a flexible basis (part time bookkeeper). I try to do my hours over 3 school days but at holiday time my hours
change and in do evenings and weekends, combined with using mine and my husbands A/L. I have no help from my parents / in laws and my kids are very young so can't go to holiday clubs. We may look at a childminder for next summer if I'm working more but there aren't many around here!

Combination of paying and splitting the duties - I worked 4 hours per day so i went in at 7.30am then exh went in as soon as I got home until 9pm

Pay for childcare. I used to basically work in August for free.

You plan every school holiday like a military operation.

annual leave needs booking early, out of school clubs need booking early.

you have very little time off a the same time as your DH.

pension payments made now are worth more than those made towards the end of your career or so I’ve been told so don’t just look at the pounds and pence in the short term.

I used to us annual leave and unpaid parental leave the cover the holidays.

Now due to us both working part time when my husbands adoption leave is over we’ll only need two days a week childcare, so we’ll most likely do a mix of annual leave and holiday clubs is they run 8-5, if not it will just be annual leave.

Holiday clubs
Not just school ones- any interesting ones within a 20 mile drive once a bit older.
Take some leave separately.

Did you consider your return to work before having the children or have your circumstances changed?

I'm not judging. I am asking as I'm curious as to how people plan or whether they do things and just cross bridges as they get to them plus even with the best laid plans things can change.

there are some dire holiday clubs (think student in a hall on their phones while kids go wild). At £25 a day you’re raising your risk of a rubbish club. I pay closer to £50 for the decent ones near me. Am trying a £35 a day one over Christmas to see how it compares.

You might find a week of unpaid leave is better value with 3. There is statutory unpaid leave for parents (up to 18 weeks ) but it isn’t talked about very often.

Holiday club

I pay for holiday clubs. In the south east usually £25-£35 per day. Often with a discount to the value of one day if they do the whole week.

some employers allow you to “buy” annual leave through a monthly salary sacrifice aswell.

I have no family help whatsoever so I have to use holiday club & AL.

Various holiday clubs.

I always used camps/clubs for my DD. Even if my salary covered it with nothing left over, I knew it wouldn't be forever and knew it was just one of those things I had to put up with til she turned 4.

Holiday clubs, some of our holiday &/or unpaid leave. Also we sometimes do swaps with neighbours so we have 6 kids on a Monday say and they have them on a Tuesday/Friday

God I had to think. Holiday club plus swapped with other parents. I remember doing 4 weeks for one friend 2008. I wouldn't recommend it! The kids were fed up with each other at the end of it. A lot of our holidays were separate in the early years.