Young children and Police

[BananasinPyhamas]

I've been offered a job as a police controller

12 hour shifts given out well in advance

6 days on 4 days off, can swap shifts with others if needed

Husband works mon to Fri 9-5 but can have some flexibility

We have a 2 year old and 7 year old

Is this doable? I guess lots of you are nurses/police etc etc and work long shifts. Do you need the other parents to be a SAHP?

YABU it won't work
YANBU you can do it

12 hour shifts for 6 days?? Are you sure that's right. 12 hour shifts tend to be 4 on 4 off.

We do 6 on 4 off but it's 9 or 10 hour shifts. 2 early, 2 late, 2 night

What shifts are you doing

Absolutely if dad drops to childcare and collects on your work days. Most childminders work between 7am and 6 pm and do school runs.

I worked in healthcare, the hours are similar and most women have children, so it certainly is doable. You need your DH onboard though.

As your husband works regular hours it will be fine, assuming you have decent childcare covering regular office hours and commute, and he's not the sort of twat who would be incapable of getting the children to school.

12 hour night shifts are absolutely brutal though.

I work 2 days/2nights (7am-7pm and 7pm-7am) and 4 (3.5) days off, DH works 9-5:30 out kids are ages 22 months, 7 and 10 years. On my days he drops kids to school and childminder and collects them. On my days off I take over, it works well for childcare but you need to be disciplined regarding sleep if you work nights.

It's absolutely doable. Just need to plan well in advance.

Thank you I'm not 100% on shifts they may be 10 or 12 hours I havent seen examples yet. Does anyone have experience of being granted part time (after probation period) in this sort of job? Or do the shift patterns tend to work out so you don't need to. Husband is on board but at the moment I do 90% of kids stuff so will just have to flip some of that over to him.

It he shift patterns are given out well in advance I'd ask to see an anonymised example for clarity before accepting.

This is actually a really good idea thanks

Absolutely. Plenty of shift workers are parents.

I started doing this role when my son was very young as a single parent, he used to stay at my mums on my late and night shifts. It was hard at the time and I went part time for a while. But now he is older I am back full time and it's a great job. Certainly do able if you have a 2 person household.

Six day runs of 12 hour days?! The trade unionist in me says no. The parent in me also says no - you'll be shattered.

Plenty of parents work shifts, but do you have anyone who can step in and help you out occasionally if there's a mismatch between your work and his, or other things for that matter eg grandparents? It's also not the sort of role they can have people calling in sick for unless it's you - what emergency childcare can you call upon?

Hi Op,
I have de-lurked especially to advise you 😂
It's definitely a good job with a family. I work in a Home Counties force as a controller as if you think along the lines of Harry and Meghan you'll guess which one 😂
I work a 6 on 4 off pattern. Earlies 06x1600, lates 12x22 or 16x02 and nights 22x0600. You definitely won't be working 6 x 12 hrs as that way over 37.7 hrs spread out over the shift pattern. As long as they don't change the pattern I can tell you what I'll be working on the 30th March 2033 !
So on lates and nights you have plenty of time in the daytime to do school runs etc. MAKE SURE YOU GET ENOUGH SLEEP.
Nights are knackering when you aren't used to them so take it easy - plus as soon as I hit 45 I found them a whole lot harder ! And I've been working nights for years
Will post more shortly

Yes it is possible with just you and DH but in my experience the only families that make it work long term are those that have grandparents to help out as well.

Do you have family to help out OP ? I don't know how we could have coped without our parents. My DH is an officer which has its benefits but also many drawbacks eg enforced overtime, not finishing on time, shift changes. You won't get that as police staff but it really does help knowing exactly what the other half of your childcare will be doing well in advance.
also will you have a long commute ? Work is 30 miles fir me each way, don't underestimate a long commute on top of a 10hr shift, you'll need to factor that in. on the plus side most of your commute will be at random hours !

I used to work for the police but a 9 to 5 job. I found people doing 6 on 4 off mainly hated the lack of weekends as some weekends you are working both days, some you work 1 day, occasionally you get both days off but if you ended up with nights on Friday your first day off was mainly sleep.

I think some people adapt to working nights better than others. The force I worked for the officers did seven straight nights and some of them looked half dead by the end of it and they were doing 8 hrs, some were happy with it.

A final tip
i tutor new people into our role. Have you done anything similar before ? Lots of newbies really beat themselves up because they feel they aren't quick enough/find it much tougher than they thought.
It's a very fast paced, adrenaline-driven dynamic environment with a lot of pressure. And that takes a bit of getting used to ! I was an officer and had 12 years service before I got my current role. It still took quite a long time before I felt I knew what I was doing.
So be kind to yourself, it's a job like few others. Abd it takes a while to learn. Especially with a non-job partner you will find your colleagues become a second family and the 3am conversations can be of the oddest, most personal nature because you get to know people well. Some of my colleagues have been a tower of strength during recent very challenging family medical stuff.
in short it's a bloody good job, fun, stressful and interesting.
one minute you're sitting watching the cctv cameras following a fox rummaging in a bin.. then 5 minutes later someone has been stabbed and it's all systems go .

This is the same set up as we've had for years.
Most childcare is provided for 9-5 workers weekday workers, which means getting the hours/days you need will be harder than set days, but it's definitely possible.
We used a childminder for the preschool years, solely then combined with funded nursery (15 hours then). We paid extra to secure a space with a set amount of hours per month, though not as much as for a full time space. We didn't always use the hours, but it was worth the extra to know we had childcare.
Once at school the childminder did pick ups and drops offs as required in a similar arrangement, but with less hours. And there was breakfast club and after school club too for backup, which the 9-5 parent did whichever drop off/pick up was needed.
I contacted childminders directly through childcare.co.uk. I ignored their availability and just asked for what we needed. A lot said no, but a few agreed to discuss it further.
Alternative options are paying for a full time nursery space - obviously expensive and unnecessary, or a nanny-again, expensive, and I didn't like the idea of being an employer with all that entails.

Remember that unless you go for the gold plated many option, whatever you arrange will most likely be cheaper than if you both did 9-5 (though more expensive than others might pay because of the flexibility you need). And the time you get with your DC, and to yourself once they're at funded nursey/school, will be far more than you would in a 9-5 job.

Thank you so much particularly @DaphneDeloresMoorhead2 your posts are invaluable thank you for delurking.

I've never done anything like this before, I've always worked very 9-5 Monday to Friday and hybrid/wfh jobs. This would be a huge change and I'm fearful of the commitment but i do feel its sort of my calling and its a job I've inexplicably always wanted to do. But its niggling me how would my young kids cope without me over whole weekends at work for example (they'd be fine, their dad is here and capable but in my head they'd be desperately missing me). The commute is 20 mins (on a good day) each way.

Is there scope to do overtime generally?

Should have said we have no family help (they live too far away) and I've worked full time on shifts throughout.

I'm an officer rather than police staff and it probably depends what force you're with but I started off full time and then had kids several years later and was able to go back on a flexi pattern and then drop days as well on a regular pattern so there is definitely scope for flexibility once you're out of a probationary period!

One thing I would say though is control room tends to have a high turnover of staff. It's not for everyone!

@BananasinPyhamas

overtime goes in phases in my force. Someone High Up decides we are spending too much on it and it all dries up. Then the shit hits the fan in some other area of the "business" eg. New system is introduced which fucks everything up they desperately try to plug the gaps with overtime. Staff sickness is immensely high at the moment - so they chuck overs at the problem. At the moment I could write my own pay check with the amount of overs going.

re weekends I much prefer having days off in the week but as DH and I both work shifts we have time off in thr week together. I get quite a lot of weekend time off - remember that while you might be working on a Saturday and Sunday, the Saturday could be your first night shift coming off a late shift so you end up with 24 hrs between shifts. Eg Friday working 12 x 2200 and not back in until 2200 Saturday evening. This also works really well with school holidays - sometimes my rest days work out the I have a half term off without having to take any extra time off as I work my last night on thr Monday then 4 rest days.
I only have to take off 6 days to get 2 weeks off.
I worked in hospitality before the police so have always worked shifts. I did a Monday - Friday role in the police for a few years, I hated it and spent much of thr time applying for shift roles !

Apologies for my terrible typos 😂

Your children will be absolutely fine, they will enjoy spending time with daddy plus when they get older they will enjoy the sanitised version of How Mum's Day Went.
Another really good plus is I almost always make it to every school event as more often than not I am off or another colleague is happy to do a shift swap