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!?

We have 30 days each ( both work full time) and have a week off all together in the summer so can cover all but 9 days for the year ahead (I have a spreadsheet)

We do have family that did cover those 9-10 days in the year but it would have been paid childcare otherwise.

However ds is 11 now and husband works from home full-time and me from home 4-5 days a week.so since covid ds has just hung around at home those days and since lockdown ended ds had also had playdates either at friends or ours on those days and the occasional day with grandparents or cousins.

Look online for the ones in your local area!

I've used parental leave, it's been a godsend along side annual leave, when children are young.

When there were 2 of us
-Work from home 1 day a week each

• leave 1 day a week each
• holiday club 1 day a week

Now there's me.... they are teens so easier (?!)

• work from home 3 days a week
• work in the office and kids stay at home alone 2 days a week.

There aren't a lot of options.

Mix of my annual leave, ex's annual leave, childminder and a few days at my parents.

With the older two dh worked days and I worked nights and the boys went to a holiday club 2 days a week so that I could grab some sleep. Ds1 has ADHD/DCD so there was only one holiday club locally that could accommodate him. I took two weeks holiday so that cut down the number of days at clubs.

With ds3 we were both working days. The school had a really good holiday club. Not cheap, but only one to pay for and we both took A/L. Hard going but definitely worth it in the long run.

Holiday clubs with a responsible sixth former as a babysitter to cover before/after holiday club.

I requested (insisted) on a part time and term time only contract when I moved jobs a few years ago. It's amazing not having to worry about holiday cover but also lovely to spend time with dc. Prior to that I usually took unpaid parental leave (about 3 week per year) when I worked for NHS.

Don’t people think about this sort of thing before they have children/return to work after having children? Of course you have to pay for childcare. What does the OP expect? For teachers to work from 7-7 then go home and prepare the next day’s lessons and mark books at the weekend I guess…

Or perhaps for “the government” to pay??

Until they were old enough I worked evenings and weekends opposite my DHs hours.

I volunteer to work more weekends over the holidays. As I only work 3 days a week, that just leaves one day to cover and DH is able to compress his hours to do 4 x 9.5 hour days. I also have a reasonable amount of annual leave, because we are open as usual on bank holidays, so although I don't work a Monday I get the (well 3/5 of, as it's pro rata) Bank holiday days added to my leave.

Downside is this means I am working Boxing Day this year!

Buddy up with some other part time working mums and you take their kids one day a week and they take yours? Or something similar.

I was a sahm and then only worked part time once they started school. You need to factor all this in before have children. Don’t expect family to look after your children

You say you have no family nearby but are there grandparents that could have the kids for a mini holiday? We cover one week of the summer hols by driving 5 hours to grandparents house on a Sunday and kids get returned the following Friday.

Try doing it with no family when you're a single parent! You just have to pay for childcare.

Holiday clubs, childminders etc

You can't count on being able to take annual leave or parental leave during the school holidays. I work in a team of five, three have school age children and only two are allowed off at a time. Then there's the fact that those without children might want time off over the school holidays.

Was difficult to vote on this one because I’m not sure what I was voting on.

Yanbu to realise that hardly anyone has enough annual leave to cover the school holidays - although you’d be closer to it if you and your husband take holiday separately.

yabu to think it’s impossible to cover. The answer is to pay for holiday clubs or other childcare I’m afraid.

Dont attempt to wfh with primary school children in the background is my advice- it’s not fair on them or you.

I’d imagine this is more common than not

annual leave and paid childcare of course- either holiday clubs or childminder or whatever

that’s how most people manage I assume

I guess most families don’t have a SAHP when kids have grown to school going age and most people I know don’t have families of willing relatives nearby

So there are usually 13 weeks of school holidays, plus a week's worth of inset days.

You get 5 weeks of leave, so that leaves 9 weeks to cover.

Your partner gets 30 days, which covers ten of your working weeks. That means he has three days spare, so you can all go away for a long weekend.

Sorted!

If you want to go on holiday, they'll have to spend some time in holiday clubs. It'll get easier/cheaper as they get older and don't need full on childcare, just entertaining.

I always wonder this. I work full time and DP is a SAHD. I don't know what I would do if I had to worry about holiday cover and I'd never be able to book a single day off outside the school holidays which would suck.

10-15 years from now, we'll know a lot more about how the impacts of full-time nursery, wraparound childcare, after school and holiday clubs have affected dc.

When the children of this generation are old enough to tell us we'll know. This is no criticism of the necessary choices that parents need to make in order to pay their bills but we're talking mass-provision at the cheapest prices and the UK is hardly a 'kibbutz'.

Lol at holiday clubs. Where I live, they don’t exist and neither do before and after school clubs. We also have to manage 12 weeks of school summer holidays for secondary schools.

We’ve no extended family so that’s why I still haven’t gone back to work. I do know plenty of parents that leave their secondary school age children home alone during the holidays but I’d rather not risk it.

It's why I work in a school and will till my youngest is in secondary most likely.

You may find you can look after someone's child and then swap and they have yours. Not all the time but would give you a couple more days flexibility

Look around for cheaper holiday clubs- eg sometimes a church might run over for a week or 2. Government holiday clubs also are cheaper. And sports clubs- tennis, football etc. If you work part-time, find a friend that works different days and do a few swaps where you each look after all the kids. Use childcare vouchers.

And honestly, holiday club is cheaper than nursery!