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 used to use a childminder and pay with working tax credit but then that was stopped. So far the last 2/3 years we do Mon-DH day off, Tues-childminder, Weds-comes to work with me (my job is flexible luckily), Thurs either DH or I take a days holiday and Fri he goes to DH's work.
We are very lucky in that our jobs allow us to take DS in for a day a week-he loves coming to work with us.
Its the only way we can make it work as childcare is so expensive and no family to help. We're not high earners so couldnt afford full time childcare.
This is kind of why we only had one, I feel for parents with multiple kids, thats a lot of money to spend.
Plus, I prefer dogs.

Ah I see sorry I haven't RTFT

You pay and off-set it against the pension benefits, promotional opportunities.

Calculate your childcare costs on an annual basis. Over the summer you may feel you’re not earning much money but if paying that money out in the summer means you can accept a job and earn more during the rest of the year. If you can put the childcare money aside each month so it isn’t a big hit in the summer. Use tax free childcare savings to help offset the cost.

Find a childminder who collects from your kids school. Send the baby there 3 days a a week year round. Have her collect the kids three days a week term time and have them full days 3 days a week in the holidays.

She can calculate the cost and split it into 12 equal payments.

This really, otherwise you're paying extortionate amounts of money for childcare.
Just a word of warning though, term time only school support jobs are not that well paid compared to the private sector.

I have family nearby. I work full time, as does DH but he also works abroad for months at a time so sometimes holidays are entirely up to me to juggle.

I don't rely on family at all for childcare but they may decide to have him for the day/over night which is appreciated but not expected. I take some annual leave if possible or unpaid leave and the rest is holiday club. If I know I haven't got a day off I book and pay for holiday club. It's about £30 per day, North West. I use tax free childcare so get some money towards fees.

DS is also booked in breakfast / after school club for 5 mornings and 4 afternoons during term time. Works out about £180 a month.

Buy an extra 10 days a year which gives me 33 days plus bank holidays, then try and get them in holiday clubs /sports clubs. Apart from a few weeks at emer together we split the holidays between us as DH at the time (until contractual change) 30 days per year. I'm just now beginning to feel in a good place a youngest In year 7 and I work from home 95% of the time
But yep massive juggle and struggle

No family

Dh worked away 3weeks out of every 4 so didn’t work.
We couldn’t afford for the child care as it would have eaten up anything I earned

When DS started preschool I changed jobs to work part time term time only. My job has changed a bit so now I work Term Time plus about a few weeks in holidays, but not all of it. I gave up my previous career as childcare costs didn't make it worthwhile for the amount of misery it caused me. So now my income is far lower, but then so are childcare costs are also lower so not actually that much worse off.

Due to nature of DH job I can't rely on him to be able to take leave to cover my school holiday working. Nearest relatives to help with childcare are 3 1/2 hrs away. So book holiday playschemes. The cheapest around is £18 for 9-3. But DS doesn't really enjoying going unless a few friends are going too as it's a bit basic and I can't always get away with the short hours if I've meetings etc in the afternoon. The other more specialised activity ones and that do the longer hours that actually cover the working day range from about £35 - £50/ day. Obviously he wants to do the most expensive 'fun' ones so I compromise on the odd expensive day, but not all the time.

Yes but it takes a while to find good ones especially if you need a 8-6 cover.

Lots are sport orientated which DD really hated. So we stuck with 2-3 providers and it worked until she turned 10 and got really bored. So the last year of primary school we left her mostly at home or did shorter clubs with DH WFH (more flexible than I am) and also sent her on Scout camps.

Working part time helps as the club time is set-off with lazy days at home or doing outings DD really wanted.

Friends did PGL at least once a year and worked overtime during the week to gain extra days off.

I work in a tiny team, we struggle already with everyones annual leave, no way I could buy additional one/get unpaid parental leave approved especially as we are two with children in school. The idea sounds great on paper but hardly works with smaller companies. The only time I knew it was approved was when a colleague had a child ill for a long time with hospital stay.

Stay FT and pay for holiday childcare / clubs as well as some annual leave. The cost during school holidays is high but it's not forever and staying in a career is beneficial.
Where is your 1 year old normally?

For years my annual leave was
4 days at Easter (covered 1 of the 2 weeks). 4 days Spring half term(1 Bank holiday) 9 days last 2 weeks of hols (Bank Holiday. 2 days between Xmas and New year, 2 days Feb half term, 2 days October half term.
Everything else was paid for clubs.
Hardest for me was inset days -5 a year. I'll be honest, I pulled the odd sickie then.

Pay for childcare / holiday clubs, nursery , childminder etc

I saved up the child benefit to part pay for holiday clubs. They were about £40 a day and we also used our annual leave separately. I was so glad when it was all over - from about aged 12 one of us worked from home a few days a week as no clubs available for teens

@LivingMyBestLie if you don't want to pay out, can one of you work opposite shifts or nights?
It's hard but durable. My DC are teens now so no need for it. But I can honestly say, that I have met quite a few parents that have done exactly the same.

We have used a childminder and holiday clubs. Not easy as 10yo has ASD and can't/won't go to a wide range, but it has been fine. I also buy 2 weeks' extra leave every year on top of my 33 days, and I only work 4 days a week anyway. DH takes ad hoc days off too.

DC are 8 and 10 and I have to say - it was easier when they were younger and less aware! They often ask to stay at home but as neither of us wfh that much, they can't.

Of course it's a big expense but we have always paid for childcare as no local family, no flexi available at work. I looked into term time contracts at my work were v long summer off (13 weeks) which would decrease my salary a lot. Overall, what we does works best for us. I do daydream about having the whole summer off work though!

Problem with nights though is when does the nightshift worker sleep when the dc are home for the holidays?

Haven't read full thread.

Lots of people on p1 saying holiday clubs, but that depends. Nearest holiday clubs to us are 50mins away in the opposite direction to work.

No schools locally run them.

A couple of leisure centres closer do rum "Activity Days" but as these start at 10am and end at 4pm they aren't much use for childcare for most working parents.

Term time job here, as only way to do it without having obliging and spritely grandparents on hand.

I have said on other threads previously that one of the benefits of living in London is holiday clubs - there are 3 within an easy walking distance of us with 8-6 type hours and many more a little further. But I always get told, the rest of the country has them too..

In all seriousness, I simply wouldn't live in a location without any but I don't have family help and my career doesn't lend itself to term time only so it was a priority to live in an area with good choice.

Train as a teacher. According to posters on other recent threads it’s very well paid and teachers don’t work as hard as office staff. And of course you get the holidays!

Holiday clubs are the obvious answer. Typically £20 - £30/day. There are some cheap options sometimes. Used to pay £16 for some but a while back.

Anyway much better working FT and paying for childcare than giving up your job which is financially much more damaging. It can be tight in the early years but they don't need clubs from 10 or 11 up. If you are really poor then you can tag team holidays with dh but I'd want a family holiday sometimes.

Exactly this. Having one parent work days and one works nights SOUNDS like the ideal solution, until you're working all night and then having to be available for kids during the day whilst trying to get in as much sleep as possible so you're not the walking dead the following night.

I don't want to be too outing.

But I was made redundant whilst on mat leave. I had twins with health issues so decided to stay off partly due to costs, partly because my previous role was a bit niche so getting the same income was tricky and partly because I had PTSD and little took all my strength to look after the kids, let alone plan working again.

I then got a menial evening job.

Now looking for something more meaningful that can give me a step back into my career and something I can develop over the next 30 years.

I'm tossing up whether to go into a term time role for the next 5 or so years and suck up the lack of pay and choice in role.

Or whether to jump into a 3 day a week all year job. From reading lots of these posts, I think we could wangle it, and we'd be better off financially (by a bit, not lots) BUT it sounds stressful. I'm not sure if I can take the stress of planning the childcare cover (and if I'm honest, whilst my partner does a lot, I carry the childcare mental burden).

Thank you! I've literally spent months trying to work it all out and gave up.

It sounds like it's possible, albeit stressful.

Long term organisation isn't my strongest point and the thought of having to plan a whole year in advance is scary!