am I supposed to just not work and accept I will lose my job? What the hell can I do here?

[flexibilitya]

DS started nursery in May. Since then he’s been off more than he’s been in. I have 3 days annual leave left for the rest of the year!!! What am I supposed to do? He’s obviously going to be unwell again. I have zero practical support and DS’s dad has no involvement. Work are accommodating but by now I can tell they know I am doing very little, I worked through the nights last week but my job is not one you can just do on no sleep, it’s hard, I’m paid well. I feel like giving up. How can this be sustainable?

The mother’s job is always fucked by kids illness. Meanwhile dad gets off scott free. You use your holiday, then you take unpaid leave, then you try to work from home on sick days and get in trouble for not keeping up because you can’t work and look after kids at the same time. Then you end up getting sacked and have to get a part time job which is less professional and demanding. It’s happened to all of us.

Nonsense!! DH whilst not husband of the year split it equally with me.

Unfortunately in this case the dad isn't on the scene.

My partner splits it with me equally. I make sure he does.

Unfortunately single mums with no partner on the scene are massively disadvantaged, which is why they need a bit of understanding and leeway in order to keep their professional jobs.

I feel you pain 😞 im a single mum to 3 and my eldest was never ever ill… but my youngest literally caught everything and in the end I ended up having to leave my job to find a wfh job. It’s extremely stressful and like you I too had no support. She seemed to catch absolutely everything and it hit her hard too (couldn’t just give calpol and send her in)
it wont last forever. Usually by 3/4 they are fine xx

As others have said, it will pass. The first 6 months at nursery are brutal in terms of illness, especially if they've not mixed with lots of different children before but it really settles down. We had 6 months of sickness bugs, ear infections...it was endless.

oops my message was for a different thread

Oops wrong thread

Seriously? It’s 2023. Almost every office based employee with children did this during covid. People do it during school holidays. I have my 2 nursery age children with me every Wednesday whilst I WFH and it works fine. I couldn’t do it FT but one day is a week is perfectly manageable, and my employer champions this flexibility.

OP - the first 6-12 months at nursery is the worst! Ensure you and baby have daily vitamins and try to WFH on his sick days instead of eating into your annual leave. Or use your own sick days if your employer offers sick pay. Don’t quit your job and pull him out of nursery, you’ll only have the same battle when he starts school. His immune system will get stronger and it doesn’t last forever. Sending hugs.

You massively have my sympathy OP my situation was similar except I was not a single parent and I still felt very stressed. My employers have (mostly) been understanding. You have probably been given this advice but thought I would list my different options

• parental leave (unpaid)
• Work from home with DC present (not normally allowed but they make exceptions when DC is unwell.)
• split the day up so work when DC having naps/watching tv then work in the evening after bed
• make up days when DC is better I occasionally worked on my days off if someone else could look after DC them days

Definitely talk to your manager and explain your concerns and how much you do care/enjoy your job. See if there is any flexibilityor agreement that can happen each time DC can not attend nursery. It is quite common at my work to hear ‘oh I’m working from home today between 10-12 and then from 5pm this evening as my DC isn’t well.’ It’s almost like a set plan when it happens.

I'm surprised they gave him Calpol as they shouldn't be giving any medicine unless its prescription medication

Yep, phone call first to check I was ok with what they were suggesting and then Calpol.

Err no! Not in our circles. DH and I have always split it 50/50. I’m the higher earner anyway by a considerable margin but even if I weren’t it is always equal here. Do you live in 1950 or something?!

I almost did this! Luckily my best friend talked me out of it, nursery is basically ‘germ camp’ for small people. If you defer it, the first year of primary school becomes ‘germ camp’, which is arguably a more important phase for kids to miss out on.

Gosh I remember this and there was 2 of us stressful and tiring not knowing if youre coming or going.
Take hold of it. Explain how you feel to your line manager, and that you feel worn out by all the expection but reasurre them you want to be proactive to achieve as much as possible. Explore working from home and also unpaid leave if it goes over your holiday which I Believe is your legal right for emergency childcare.
It feels like it but it wont be forever, hes building up his immunity, my LO was the same.
Good luck and dont forget when you do get a chance to practice some self care x

Why would you settle for that? Women do not have to settle that's down to you.

I hired a babysitter for when DD was home sick and I had to work. If you’re paid well, it’s certainly an option

OP - like you and a lot of Mums on here Ive been through this and its hell - but I promise it passes. Usually the first year is worse and then the immunity builds

If you have a good employer they can generally see you are committed and doing your best and they allow for it. Not sure what type of work you do but if you are able to WFH and catch up out of hours they can usually tell and appreciate it. If you do shift work or work which has to be completed on site then its so much harder.

You don’t say if your employer is showing signs of wanting to act on your absence or not but I agree with other posts, I’d get a head start on addressing the problem pro-actively, before they do.

Your employer cannot dismiss you for taking time off to care for dependants so firstly ensure you communicate all agreements in writing in case they decide to act.

You are allowed unlimited dependant leave - you are legally allowed to take any day off to care for your dependants when ill or in case of emergency. These days are unpaid so its a cost financially but cant be used in absence calculators for disciplinary. However the law does state ‘reasonable’ time so the employer might act by implementing an absence improvement process if they felt that time was becoming disproportionate or unreasonable compared to others. You may want to keep evidence that your child was sick (such as messages from nursery or doctors notes) just in case.

Parental leave is available as a statutory right but, honestly, its next to useless as you have to plan for it and we don't know when our DC will be sick! You book blocks of time off in advance - you can take 4 weeks per year and up to 18 weeks in total of parental leave until your DC reaches 18. You still accrue holiday entitlement as usual while on parental leave. However if your employer becomes difficult then planning some parental leave time over the flu season might be a good idea. You can book parental leave but change it with 7 days notice. You cannot be disciplined for taking parental leave but they can refuse the request with a fair business reason however.

Both options above are difficult for both you and your employer to manage and utilising them often may build up resentment on the employers side.

I think your best option is to put in a flexible work request - if you feel your employer would be amenable and the business could accommodate your job on different hours. Flexible work requests could be to agree to work a set number of hours but you are responsible when those hours are worked, giving you the opportunity to catch up evenings or weekends and not lose pay. Other options include compressed hours - working longer days over 3/4 or working 5 days but some long/short daily hours, giving you flexibility to arrange working days around calls from nursery. Some employers offer a buy back holiday scheme so you can add more holidays and take a pay deduction spread over 12 months.

Flex work may mean a salary reduction but it can be small if planned properly. You risk going into unpaid leave currently so its worth calculating the cost options. Employers can decline your request but only if theres a genuine business reason and they risk a discrimination claim if they cannot prove that you couldn’t do your job just as well on a flexible work scheme.

Finally - childcare! It may be worth speaking to nursery and putting in a policy. I agreed with my childminder I would come collect for viral, high temperature or sickness but not a runny nose or cold. Children constantly have colds and staying away from nursery wont prevent other children from getting sick as children are contagious before symptoms start with most colds. Generally kids are fine with Calpol in the morning :)

To work full time with no support, be a caring parent and juggle life can’t be easy. I really admire you and good luck x

Try looking on workaway website

This is ludicrous. If you are in the UK you are well protected in law as a parent and aren’t going to be let go from
what sounds like a high paid, high skill job because of a few months of childcare issues. I agree with other posters that you need to have a sit down with your manager and talk about workable solutions. If you can afford a nanny or au pair that would also be an option I’d explore - there are companies online where you can start researching this. Be proactive, offer solutions, and come to a temporary compromise with your employers. They really are not likely to let you go because you have a small child who is in the building immunity phase of development!

Some nurseries won’t allow calpol - mine doesn’t, if they even suspect that the child might have had some they send them home! Some nurseries can really be overly strict, the covid era seems to have made them particularly sensitive to illness too. I second the childminder (I had a great one who was much better with this) or a more flexible nursery. I had to point out to mine that I was going to lose my job if it continued (I’m also a single parent) when they were trying to turn him 24 hours after they’d briefly registered a slight elevated temperature (not fever level, never repeated and child totally fine!)

Silly question but are you giving them a multivitamin? My son had about six months to a year of almost constant illness (after lockdown but also I had stupidly omitted to) and it improved a lot once I realised my mistake!

Try and childminder, mine has only been sent home a couple of times in 2.5 years) and one of those was because he had a cough and it was in the hyper vigilant COVID times.

I don't really get the arguement that it's better for them to be sick in the early years to build up an immune system. As long as they are not kept in a bubble they will be building immunity. I read an article by a doctor that said the best thing to do it to try and avoid illness, especially when kids are young and vulnerable. If there was a set amount of colds etc that you catch and then never catch up coz you've built up 'immunity' how comes adults still get sick?

It's hard but it does pass. Likely to jinx myself now but I think DS has had maybe 5 days off total in his final year of nursery because he has already had several ear infections, chicken pox, hospitalisation for viral wheeze, tummy bugs, weird hives and so on. He seems pretty robust now, fingers crossed.

You can also look into getting the chicken pox vaccination. We decided to do that for a little one for various reasons, one of which being that it can involve having to keep them off school/nursery.

When I worked with small DC I had a variety of routes to follow. One was to work around my DC being ill at home - if you can work at home - as basically a sick little one mostly dozes on the sofa watching videos, needing snacks from time to time.

My other option was having an after school nanny which I needed as I worked full time. She was flexible to come in (with the other pre-schooler she looked after) and take care of whichever of my DC was unwell too - for extra fees. She was very flexible on this.

I found her via local school networks but usually you can find someone via local Facebook or gumtree.

Another option I had, when the DC were very little was to use a temporary nanny agency.

Get tough with the nursery - my little boy used to get so worked up he would choke momentarily when I left, they kept calling me back saying he was ill and sick. I had to tell them in the end that I was taking a smiling happy child home and it had to stop. They definitely thought twice before calling me after that - some try it on