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!?

Childminder, paid her a set amount each month that covered after school and all day in holidays

@Skatewing work it out as you go but also be very organised. I tried out taster days this summer to see how my child fared. I actually don’t need them till next Feb but I know what the options are.

Unlike nurseries holiday clubs publish their hours and prices on their website so you should be able to price up your local ones fairly easily. The big chain near us does buy 2 get 1 free as well!

And no, I wouldn't work term time only because I can't think of anything worse than the long summer holiday with no money for days out because I'd taken a massive pay cut.

I work term time in a non school job. I negotiated it when they offered me the job. Financially, it just makes sense and one of mine has SEN so wouldn’t manage in a holiday club and so Id have to pay for a holiday nanny.

Combination of leave, sometimes together, sometimes individually and paid holiday clubs and scout camps and school trips abroad.

A friend in the same organisation has ‘bought’ 3 weeks extra leave which helps square the circle. It’s an employees world right now so don’t be afraid to ask for what you need

I'm a single mum with very little family support.

I get 5 weeks holiday, during which I'm here for ds, and for the dc of a single friend. Between us we cover 10 weeks holiday. Then 1 week ds goes to ex = 11 and 2 weeks holiday club.

Thirteen weeks.

I purposely took a term time only job. I'm not sure how we could cope otherwise, our closest family is over 250 miles away!

Annual leave and holiday clubs. It's actually not been as hard as I expected.

We do it as -
Monday - WFH and kids spend all day watching TV/gaming/arguing
Tuesday - I'm off
Wednesday - DH off
Thursday and Friday - holiday club

We can't manage it so I stay at home and don't work. No other way around it for us. No family in the country

We do one week all off in the summer. And keep days leave around Christmas as it’s the one time I found it harder to find holiday clubs on.

Then split the others between husband and I - and the other days covered by using holiday clubs. There are a range of them and prices the local council sport centre ones are usually reasonable priced. You can still use the child care vouchers as well for most holiday clubs.

We both work. No family or childcare. It is doable. We only take annual leave together for one week in the summer holidays. For the rest of the time we take it in turns to make sure we can cover it.

I work term time in a school, it was the only way I could make it all work. Probably
Not helpful though sorry!!

Do peoples children enjoy holiday clubs?

Not RTFT but if your husband has 30 days leave and you have 15 and you work 3 days a week then that actually covers 15 weeks, as presumably he’d only need to take 3 days off in any given week as you’re there the other days.
It’s obviously not the ideal scenario though.

Holiday camp here (Greater London zone 6) is around £45 per day for 8:30-5:30, 5% discount for all week and I think they do sibling discounts too.

My husband is a teacher.

We use AL/unpaid time off (Dh self-employed so no AL) plus holiday club. When ours were in nursery, they went year round and we carried on working. Personally, I have AL to carry over every year, so it’s never been a tight squeeze. Holiday club for 2 costs about £55 a day. Together Dh and I earn more than that in a day so financially works out fine.

I work 3 days and get around 137 hours pa annual leave plus bank holidays pro rata, I use most of my AL on school holiday and I've found a holiday club that offers 9-4 for £18 per day per child,.

I think this is doable. His 30 days would cover 10 weeks worth of holiday (3 days/week, your 2 x non-working days complete those weeks). For the remaining 4 weeks you take 3 days/week holiday on top of your 2 non-working days leaving you 3 glorious days left to cover inset days. I didn't take into account bank holidays as my brain couldn't cope with that.

Assumption is that he works Mon-Fri and that you don't have much holiday together altogether as a family.

Summer schemes/holiday clubs
Using annual leave
DH working from home (if all else fails) and lots of screen time.

Single parent and no family. DC’s father does a few weeks. I cover the rest with annual leave and holiday clubs.

Yes, mine has a good time.

But even if he didn't love it, I would still send him - it's only 2-3 weeks a year (6-9 days as we both work 4 days a week), he can cope

Mine do. They play all day, do different activities and hang out with their friends.