Christmas childcare!

[Christmaschildcare]

Before I had children, I thought parents wanted Christmas off because of the ‘magic’ of Christmas with children. I’m sure some do but I now realise it’s mostly because THERE’S NO FLIPPING CHILDCARE OPTIONS AVAILABLE

I have three children under six. Their school is (naturally) closed, their nursery is closed. There are no holiday clubs in our area open whatsoever. We have no one to ask - everyone either works or is in same boat as us so cannot look after THREE CHILDREN for us.

We need to find cover for two weeks. My dh can take a week, and I can take a week, so we’re lucky that we can plan to share.

but even that has been an issue for both employees. We’ve both been told we ‘need to do our part’ and ‘can’t expect to be off just because you’ve got kids’ and ‘well it needs to be fair to everyone’ etc etc.

while I agree with this in theory - in practice, what on Earth am I supposed to do for childcare? If my employer says I can’t take the week off - well, unfortunately, I will be, as I can’t leave three children at home. I’m not being difficult, I genuinely have nowhere and no one to send them to. I wish I did.

is there some magical Christmas childcare solution I’m missing? Please enlighten me 😩

Our nursery is open year round and the only time they shut it between Christmas and New Year, I haven't seen anywhere that isn't shut them to.

I think you can make it clear to your employer that you don't want to be difficult, but unfortunately even if the leave isn't approved then you physically cannot work as there is nowhere for your kids to go! Either that, or tell them you'll end up in prison for leaving 3 kids alone, so they'd have to deal without you for much longer than 1 week!

I hope you find a solution, we're lucky our works shut down between Christmas and New Year so we don't have to enter the politics of it all!

No, the suggestion was to move to a more flexible company that was more understanding to working parents. Not 'quit their long term careers' it wasn't that dramatic.

Childcare.co.uk and find a nanny - there will be teachers and nursery staff on holidays wanting extra cash

I would echo trying for a Uni student home for the holidays, or the like. I did some of this for a local family who both worked in the NHS, when I was a student. Be prepared to throw quite a lot of cash at it though..... I''d be thinking at least 1.5x what you'd normally be expecting to pay.

However, I would also be on board with what others are saying (but more gently) about not just assuming you'll get time off, because you're a parent. As someone who is sadly childless, it feels like rubbing it in my face when previous employers have said parents get priority. At one point, I lived 250 miles from my family, and could only get 2 days off, which meant a lot of driving to see them for a short time. Just because we don't have kids, doesn't mean we don't have family (or friends) we want to spend time with.

I've done my share of working in hospitality, hotels, retail, and NHS - all which operated over the festive season - and took my turn in working. It was super frustrating when it was a first/second class citizen approach, depending on whether you had kids or not. The assumption that parents would be off was the worst part. If I'd been ASKED, I swapped to help out, on many occasions.
Luckily I now work somewhere which closes over the festive period, so it's not an issue any more. (But it is still an issue over School holidays, which is a whole other issue.....)

My DD went to a charity run nursery.

For a cheaper price plus the ability to deal properly with children with disabilities they had longer holidays.

However we also used a childminder for half the week as we had used her since DD was a baby.

Lets blame the system then calling out women with young children. None of us enjoy the Christmas childcare struggle.

In my town, there is only one holiday club!

Oh I.meant to say aswell that if they are at a private nursery some of the people working there would often 'babysit' over the periods when it was closed which was always much more comfortable for me to know that they were trained and already knew my children. Get in there quick though as they always got booked up quick. I used to just send an email to nursery asking if any of the staff were offering this.

I'm lucky I can wfh, the days between Christmas and New Year are quiet so I just wing it with the kids there!

I'm a single parent working in the NHS. Not even the bank holidays are a given.

I just didn't have time to call a load of places to hear they were all closed x50. My council had a family information service. I called them after a bit of begging they did a search of what childcare was open and gave me a (short!) list of places/people that could potentially do the days I needed. I'd not met any of them before, was miles out of my way and super expensive but yes I had to work until 9pm on Christmas Eve and I had no choice. Might be worth seeing if you have something similar in your area?

In that case go to one of the expensive nanny agencies and ask them to find someone. (You may need to get a live in to cover if there is nothing local). Norland has its own agency as some of their nannies prefer to take ad hoc work.

These are good agencies who can usually find someone at short notice for temp cover
https://www.edenprivatestaff.com/what-we-do/nannies/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjY64BhCaARIsAIfc7YZZWeFoLfRCiKT2x1suN7pOh-HI47GmzD_UhBCb2VOWPICYURFEanUaAoO0EALw_wcB

https://imperialnannies.com/

The kind of nursery where the staff need to be with their families too?

If you know other people in the same boat why can't you trade? They have your kids for some days and you have theirs. Might need to split it across different households if they won't take all 3.

You have my sympathies OP. I find it surprising that your employer isn’t more understanding; if you’ve genuinely tried to find an alternative and can’t perhaps you need to talk to them again and explain the situation? I’m sure they’d rather let you have the time off (even as unpaid parental leave) than have you quit your job? Beyond that I think your best bet is going to be to advertise for a temporary nanny or a babysitter. I’ve seen people use the Nextdoor app for this sort of thing, if that’s a thing where you live?

Yanbu. The only reason I coped as a lone parent was by continuing to work part time and luckily ending up in an office that shuts every Xmas.

What sort of pointless nursery isn't open in the school holidays?!

Here they are open all holidays except for between Christmas and New Year, the vast majority of childminders and even nanny's also unsurprisingly want to spend time with their own families/go away for Christmas so often close- no holiday clubs. It is a nightmare if you don't have family or a support network to help out; if you can't find anyone all you can do is take time off.

These don’t exist in my area either, we max these options out all year but they all close for 2 weeks over Christmas - so you have my full sympathies.

We tend to wing it and hope it works out, which it has done so far but some years are harder than others depending on how bank holidays fall.

Once at school doing some childcare trading with other parents can work too, you have their kids one day they have yours the next etc, uses less annual leave between you. Not ideal for the days falling between Christmas and New Years though

I have two kids and work most years bar Christmas Day and Boxing day. DH has a week and a half forced closure at Christmas so he usually covers those days. I use my annual leave elsewhere in the year to cove other holidays but might have one extra day off as a family over Christmas if I have any left.

At least one of the holiday clubs runs a Christmas week club and nursery is open (bar CDay and BDay). I honestly thought that was fairly standard as everyone I know has the same

If my DH didn't have forced closure every year.....I would contempt changing jobs to allow one of us to work for a company that does.

Yep, our nursery is open year round including bank holidays except for two weeks at Christmas. That's the same as all the other nurseries etc round here, bar one I know of that opens between for limited numbers of kids. I don't think that's unusual.

Laughing at the post shocked that anyone might have to work during this time. We both do: news media and local authority. Neither of those stop operating for two weeks over Christmas. Luckily we can manage it due to shifts and WFH but if we worked out of house and didn't have compatible shifts, it would be awful. We have no family help, three of our parents are dead.

If you’re prepared to throw money at the problem - approach the nursery staff and see if any of them would like to earn well over the holidays? Or any neighbours uni students home for Christmas?

3 under 6 is a lot, so you’d need someone used to little kids!

So you think women should be treated separately to men. Do you want to go back in time.

Ask at your children's school or nursery. You may find a teacher who is keen to make some extra money over the holidays.

What days do you actually need childcare for?

Honestly it's a truly shit situation.

And the honest answer is people either go sick to cover it or they leave jobs that are completely inflexible.

I am exceptionally lucky as the company I moved to last year has a total shut down over Christmas. We clos on 20th Dec this year and don't reopen til 2nd jan and holiday requests are never refused. I know how lucky I am. But I also took a job I am massively over qualified for in order to achieve this. My boss is fully aware of why I constantly refuse promotion or advancement opportunities and whilst he thinks I am a mug he understands.

My dp and I moved in together last year and married this year, his company also shuts down but dd's dad's doesn't so he works and we juggle it.

In previous years I have traded favours with friends over holidays and they have had dd and I have had their often multiple kids over other holidays ie inset days etc.

It's not that we don't care. It's just that there comes a point in our careers where we've had decades of being the ones left holding the fort though multiple generations of young children.

I think the poster was referring to my comment where I said I didn't care. It's mostly compassion fatigue because, like you say, although Annie is only concerned about the short period her 3 are young, if you work in the same place for a long period then you end up covering for Annie, Barbara, Carol, and Denise, only for Emma to join just as it's your turn to have Christmas off, and Emma goes, "oh, but I have young kids..."

It's relentless and after a point, you don't really feel like being helpful anymore because you never get any consideration or compassion in return.

Have you tried a local college that has childcare courses, preferably level 3? Might be a student who’ll act as a nanny, goes on their CV and they may ask you for a reference in the future. Go for a second year student as they should have done their first aid and food safety certificates.