To think we can avoid the need for full time paid childcare for a while?

[hopingforbabyy]

We’re trying at the moment but just pondering our options, as I will need to return to work after 9-12 months maternity leave and people are having to put their name on waiting lists as soon as they get a BFP around here. I have worked in nurseries before and would not want to leave a young baby there, in my personal opinion.

DM is available and willing to help us out on Mondays and Tuesdays, I am hoping I can condense 5 days into 4 and have Wednesdays off, and DH can hopefully put in a flexible working request to not be rota to work Thursday or Friday.

It would leave one day not covered. We do have other family who might be willing to help such as MIL but they haven’t explicitly offered and live a bit further away for it to be practical.

DH shifts are on a rolling pattern and I’d say he would maybe do two Fridays in any normal month anyway, one of which would be a night. If he put in flexible working request to have Thurs off then even if he was working Friday night, he’d be fine to have DC until I finished work at 4pm as his work is really close by

On the one or two times a month that it is a day shift, I could book annual leave or ask another family member. I usually work from home Fridays anyway and my job is flexible so I could just book half a day of annual leave if it needed to be

As I say, I have worked with young children - I understand they need your full undivided attention and would never give them anything less than this.

AIBU to think we could get away with not having to use nurseries or a childminder until they’re a bit older in these circumstances?

I think buying in help to have flexibility and reliability and also some respite, is money well spent. If you don’t have a baby yet, don’t underestimate how much you’re going to need a break sometimes and not just to be constantly focused on being ‘childcare.’ You/Dh will need some days home without a child in tow to re-group, to catch up on sleep after working through a week with an illness plus sleepless nights with sick baby, you’ll want to go away with friends for a few days, it will be a stag do for someone’s brother’s cousin, you’ll want to have some family days together meaning needing to juggle your days around. This will be much easier with paid childcare in place.

Also don’t underestimate how much you may feel you’re missing out on working compressed hours with a baby/young toddler. It may buy you a day off a week but it does mean if working til 6pm the other days, you’ll barely see your child 4 out of 7 days. You may actually prefer shorter days so you get a short bit of family time every day, rather than leaving at 7:30 ish right after waking and getting home at 6:30 ish and going straight to bath/bedtime.

I think it can be worth spending a bit of money to buy yourself some better quality time together when you aren’t run ragged and like ships passing in the night handing the baby off between you.

I think this sounds really stressful. It won't work.

Here's my experience: before you have a baby you are used to multi tasking and you know that with efficiency most things take less time than they "officially" do. So, you might be drafting an email while on hold on the phone, mentally writing a meal plan while in an undemanding meeting, and so on. You aren't aware how many little sections of time are getting double use, or even triple, so you think you have much more time than you actually do.
After you have a a baby, every single thing to do with the baby takes at the absolute very least ALL the time you think it will, but usually more.
So getting ready to go out is not something you will quickly do while checking for any any urgent messages. It is a laborious task that will take ages while your baby undoes everything you are doing and demands full emotional attention and eye contact at all times. Thus you will arrive where you are going slightly late, and not having checked for messages. Your working day will be shorter, in real terms, than you expect, and if you are attempting greater volumes of work (compressed), it will seem punishing.

The admin alone from this system sounds exhausting, and this in a world where you have no time for admin. you can't do it at work, because you've got hard start and finish times and compressed workload; and you can't do it at home because the baby won't let you. You will do it sitting on the toilet on your phone crying with fatigue at 2am.

Meanwhile every other fucker who doesn't fancy this level of intense availability will be checking out at every possible opportunity. Sorry.
All this relations - even your husband - they'll all let you down.

Just to reiterate what others have said, fit healthy grandparents in our family (in their 60’s) have suddenly needed operations that have taken several months recovery. I would use nursery as you know you can rely on it and it sounds like you will have a busy schedule and wont need any added childcare stress.

yabu
your plan sounds incredibly unsettled either for you, your parents and baby.
condensed hours and 4 days (or 3 if dh can do that as well) would be much better imo.

Glad to see PP talking sense here. No offence OP but it sounds more like you don't want to pay for childcare rather than having an issue with professional childcare settings. Your family will be stretched to the max with this arrangement and it comes across as rather naïve. Also of no benefit to your little one, not knowing whether they're coming or going. I hope you will listen to the good advice given so far. Recommend getting onto a waiting list pronto.

I would seriously look in to working one day a week less rather than compressed hours. Don’t forget you will have housework and normal
life like appointments to fit in. You could be seriously burnt out doing it all and full time hours. You do want to enjoy your time with your child (to be) on a non working day and be able to attend groups and activities to socialise. They don’t run as much at the weekends.

Nurseries get a bad rep on mumsnet but don’t rule them all out, OP.

My baby’s carer only ever had three babies max to care for, the baby room only went up to 12 months so no toddlers contending for attention, there’s a big playground, a little sanctuary with guinea pigs and rabbits where they can pet and play with the animals, they eat whole foods with a really varied menu and they’re assessed every six months for a whole range of milestones from physical ones to social ones.

He (now 14M) is so happy there and already has his own set of friends - he shouts their names as we go in! He also loves all the staff - a couple of them have babysat for us privately and he’s loved it!

He’d go stir crazy if he was just stuck at home with me all week, let alone my much older parents.

Not trying to push anything on you but please know that there are some good nurseries out there!

We never used paid childcare. I worked 4 days a week and DM had DS for us. I dropped to 3 days a week after about 4 months back at work and DM had him the 3 days.

It worked for us, DM was eager to have DS (first and only grandchild as I’m her only child), I felt like I had a good balance and he was somewhere that was familiar.

The main things to consider are:
Holidays. My DPs go on a lot of holidays and when discussing childcare DM had said they’d be cutting back for the next few years. However they didn’t and DH and I had to use a lot of annual leave at short notice when they went away. Not a criticism of them, they’re perfectly entitled but it caught us out once or twice.

Money. Agree everything beforehand. For ease of handover you’ll end up buying doubles of things so there’s one at DMs house so take that into account.

Contingency plan. Make sure you have a backup plan in case DM changes her mind, has plans etc. (one friends DM agreed to childmind 2 days a week then at the 11th hour took up a course on one of those days). Covid hit about 6 months after I returned to work so all the plans weren’t actually in place that long and it all became null and void. Then DM had an accident and needed a knee replacement so obviously wouldn’t have been able to look after a toddler.

A lot of people give you a really tough time for going the family childcare route but overall it worked for us. DM still has DS on a Friday afternoon as his school closes at lunchtime that day. They’re super close and have a great relationship. My nan looked after me while DM worked so DM was eager to do the same. There’s no one right way to arrange your childcare, you just have to do what works best for you’re family.

I would consider a day a week with a childminder as a better option.
Say Mon - CM, Tues - Grandparent, Wed - you, Thurs - Husband, Friday - Grandparent. Then your husband can share duties with the grandparent if he ends up on a night on Friday or off on a Friday. May make it easier on the grandparent.

Thanks everyone. All some really valid and useful points that I hadn’t thought of, which I really welcome! I guess will have to reassess in a bit and a lot can change.

My mum has our dc one day a week (she works compressed hours to accommodate, 5 days in 4), my partner does 3 long days and I do 1 long day and 2 x 7.5 hour days. So we have the weekend together every week. Our income has obviously dropped but avoiding nursery fees, especially considering we want more children in future. We did it because we struggled to find local childcare initially. I love the work life balance and feel like me and my partner have a much fairer domestic balance than a lot of my friends relationships as a result of this set up. Never have to book days off work due to toddler illness. My mum fully understands how committed she needs to be. In nearly a year of Thursdays there were only 2 days she couldn't cover. She gave us months of notice and was willing to either take dc on her holiday with her or to drive back for the day just to have him! On her days she arrives at 6:50am and usually stays until he's in bed.

My in laws are semi retired so have more free time for childcare but feel unable to commit to regular care as the retirement means they can now go on holiday loads. They are great for ad hoc days and last minute help but we couldn't rely on them long term like my mum.

If you have a local preschool they are often much cheaper than a nursery but very part time so if you can do half days at work you might be able to make this system work until preschool and then up your hours a bit. Can you formally get those odd thurs/fridays off? I've got a colleague who works a 34 hour week contract so she takes off 1-2 Fridays a month if that makes sense

I get that you have worked in a nursery, but not all nurseries are the same. The one my DD went to was amazing. Mainly due to its small size and staff. My friends little boy goes to a child minder who is now like family.
having worked and had small children I would say having paid childcare is essential and family work really well for back up or a day per week type arrangement.
just on a side note my mil was really keen during my mat leave to have my dd one day per week when I went back to work. I knew deep down that I just wouldn’t work for her. I set out my expectations that this would by my child care and that I would need to leave at x in the morning and wouldn’t be back until x in the evening. If she couldn’t do a day she would need to give me 2 weeks notice so I could make other arrangements etc. She agreed that it wasn’t for her.

having worked and had small children I would say having paid childcare is essential and family work really well for back up or a day per week type arrangement.

^ it's obviously not essential when many of us have said we didn't and family was great. It's just what you did.

I think a lot depends on what level of risk you can take.

Even when family are very able and willing, there's the potential for it to go wrong overnight - e.g. illness. Of course nurseries and childminders aren't 100% reliable either but there is more resilience there.

I think the thing with the OP's proposed approach is that not only is there the family childcare reliability risk, there's also the potential for her not to get given the odd days of annual leave, also the potential for her DH not to be able to cope with a day of childcare and then a night of work or to be rostered onto shifts that conflict with his childcare days.

Basically there's a lot of different ways this could go wrong.

If she's in a flexible role and/or if there is a lot of childcare in her area so if it went wrong, it would be easy to fix, it might be a risk it's reasonable to take.

But it feels like a bit of paid childcare would make this less stressful.

Literally everyone I know who has worked in childcare settings says the same thing. My best friend used to be a crèche worker and all her college friends used to say they'd be SAHM's when they had their own children rather than put them in crèche. Always made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Yes I've heard that repeatedly from people who work in nurseries and I chose to take a career break while mine were small (was the wrong thing to do financially but I did love the time I had with them.)

Although I guess people who work in childcare are temperamental good with children. Maybe for very career driven parents it's not between "amazing nursery" and " child centred approach with lots of interaction" at home but between "amazing nursery" and "frustrated parent" at home. So many people on mn say they couldn't be a sahm so the comparison isn't exactly the same.

I knew I could do a better job than a nursery so I did. But it also came at a cost. So everyone has to weigh that up.

I meant to say it shouldn't make people feel uncomfortable as a nursery is still a good option.

Although I guess people who work in childcare are temperamental good with children. Maybe for very career driven parents it's not between "amazing nursery" and " child centred approach with lots of interaction" at home but between "amazing nursery" and "frustrated parent" at home. So many people on mn say they couldn't be a sahm so the comparison isn't exactly the same.

I think you are right there. I imagine someone who enjoys working with children and wants their own children are more likely to be SAHP's themselves when they have them.

My option if I was to consider being a SAHM would definitely be ''amazing nursery'' or ''frustrated parent''.

We rely on my mother's support for childcare 2 days a week, similar to your mother she's in her late 50's and very fit and active. I'm a nurse so only work 2-3 12 hour shifts a week (10 days a month). She minds him the weekdays I work and my husband collects him at 5pm and takes care of him for the evening and puts him to bed because I don't get home until after 9pm. My husband minds him the weekends that I work too, usually every other weekend.

I made a thread about this while I was pregnant and had loads of posters tell me that this was unsustainable, that grandparents were unreliable, it would cause resentment etc etc.... This couldn't have been further from the truth. My mother is obsessed with my son, she often asks to take him for a few hours on the days I'm off and the two of them just have the best relationship. He's just over 2 now and I've been back to work since he was 9 months. She's been great at helping with his language development too and teaching him things like his numbers, colours and alphabet too, she takes him to the playground most days and goes to special playgroup sessions just for grandparents at our local library which she loves. You know your mother best to know if she'll be reliable or not.

I thought it might be helpful to hear it from the "granny" side.
Looking around my friends (early 60s) most have grandchildren and most do one day a week plus emergencies.
One has 3 grandchildren 3 days a week and is permanently exhausted. There is also the case of grannies dropping off and picking up from nursery so the day isn't too long and children are fed bathed and ready for bed before the parents get home.
The question of the Friday night shift (I have worked nights) is just unsafe for the child and the workplace.

I worked 4 days so did my husband

Our baby went to nursery from 6m old, 3 days per week

It worked very well. Baby thrived

All the plans are great until you present Nanny with twins!!!

It defo doable but it just depends on how long for …

Have you looked at nursery’s locally to you?
most nursery’s will allocate a certain amount of outdoor time. My son’s nursery have them
play out come rain or shine for at least 2/3 hours a day. Unless it’s extremely hot/
cold or wet. In the spring summer they would spend the whole day in the garden. They would go in weekly trips to various parks. A lot of nursery’s also now offer a forest school. I also think nursery is so beneficial to young kids for their development and socialisation. My kids defo benefited from being nursery rather than with me on a daily basis.

We found relying on family difficult - something always came up and usually last minute, I actually almost lost my job over it. My husband and I tried to opposite shifts thing too but again it grew exhausting very quickly. You need time together even if it’s just one day.

the other things to think about is your job doable in 4 days? Put in longer days to gain one day maybe be more stressful.

I would still look for a nursery has back up incase you can’t condense or your husband can’t that lessens the pressure.

Thats too complex and there are too many variables that can go wrong - flexible working requests revoked, grandparents ill etc… get reliable childcare in place that won’t go wrong!