Better to have time together or no holiday clubs?

[JellyFlooding]

Oldest DC (twins) have started school this year so the first time we've had to juggle school holidays. We have three DC, DTs who are five and DD who is 2.

I'm just in the process of planning out the rest of the year's annual leave to cover the school holiday. DH and I both work part time, he's 4 days and I'm 3, so we only have Mondays and Tuesdays to cover where we both work.

This means we can cover all the holidays by taking alternate days off work. So currently it looks like:

Feb half term- no time off together
Easter - no time off together except for bank holidays
May half term - self catering week booked together
Summer holidays - first and final weeks together, rest no time off together

We can either stick with this, or have another week (Feb/middle of summer as Easter difficult because of work commitments) together, but this would mean putting DTs in holiday club for three or four days on other weeks.

What would you do? Do you think it's nicer for them to have no childcare and always be with a parent, or have some holiday club time but more time with five of us (probably more relaxed than when it's one parent!).

If relevant, DD nursery is year round so a few of the weeks she'll do nursery and it'd just be the parent and DTs.

YABU - no holiday club, stick with what you've got
YANBU - use holiday club to have more whole family time

Yes, agree it depends on the children. Mine loved the general childcare type clubs at that age so went quite a lot. As she's got older she prefers the hobby specific ones and only wants to go if at least one of her friends is also going. So it becomes much more difficult to organise.

This is giving me some extra consideration points, for sure, so thanks for all the responses so far. I hadn't thought about the holiday clubs becoming more appealing when older and also wanting friends there to make it more complicated!

Despite raging at others thinking they must always come as a package for some reason just putting one in hadn't dawned on me as an idea, that might be quite nice for one day on their own each.

Having a day to get things done in the summer would also be very useful, I think it's just weighing up the cost.

The other thing I would add on holiday clubs is that I think your attitude to it can strongly influence your child's

We have always been quite up beat/matter of fact about holiday clubs and our kids don't view them as a bad thing to be avoided. I think some people sort of expect their kids to hate them and it becomes a bit self fulfilling

Yes, I can definitely see that!

I’d try holiday club and see. Mine used to go dancing and dance school did a holiday club so she was happy there.

As a kid I would have hated holiday clubs but I was a homebody book worm and enjoyed writing stories, being in the garden, going for an odd day trip with parents and seeing grandparents and family.

These days many kids I know will do half the summer hols in holiday club and half elsewhere. Think it depends what suits you all best.

If you start young then it’s just the way things are. I worked so mine went to a variety of different clubs over the years.
As she got older some parents would say oh mine wouldn’t like that, she’ll only go if her friends go and make a big thing of it. Mine just accepted it was the norm.
It’s a good way to try new sports and activities.

Definitely try a club, and cross your fingers that they love it. Mine do complain about them, but I find it just too depressing contemplating the majority of the year without being able to take holidays at the same time as DH.

As if you've just told me to calm down, when my comment was clearly perfectly calm 🤣

Mine hated them in reception but loves them by the following year.

Annoyingly he seems to like the shorter ones (tennis - 3hrs. Yoga and art - 9-3) and the expensive ones (science camp) over the cheaper and slightly more useful 8-6 multisports ones. Most of his friends do a combination of holiday camp and family, so as it happens he hasn’t been in the same camp as any of his friends yet.

How else would you make sure you're covered for all holidays if you don't plan it out? I have all my holiday booked to the end of the year so we know when we will need childcare. Things get booked up round here so if we didn't plan we could end up with no AL to take and no holiday clubs available

I’d go with some holiday club, as it will break up the long school hols and you’ll feel less pressure to spend money taking them on days out if they’ve already spent a couple of days in holiday club. Mine all went to holiday club, son loved it, especially sports one’s. Daughter wasn’t as keen but went anyway. Both too old thankfully now to need childcare.

I would put them in some holiday clubs. I used to love going to the school run holiday club as a child (didn’t try hobby ones).

My DC is the same age and will be going to the school one for 2 days at Easter and 4 days in summer. They will probably want to go more. I think it does depend on the child, I know mine will love it as they love to be busy and like to be around other children.

I did a mixture of grandparents, me, childcare and activity clubs etc.....

I'm not a fan of only using all my leave for the holidays as you need it at other points too, instead we would have 2/3 weeks leave over the Summer on a family holiday or nights away which I felt was much better quality time.

Last year we covered holidays with annual leave and didn't have a family holiday. We put DD into holiday club (childcare kind) a couple days to see how she'd get on.

This year, we're having more time together because she really enjoyed holiday club and actually asked to go more! We'll also be able to take a couple of days to ourself.

It really depends on how your children respond to holiday club, but having it more in the mix has been really good for all of us.

I do a day or two, to get them used to it in case ever need it but also DD loves her clubs and asks for more days at pick up. She's year 4 now and goes to same one for 2 weeks in summer, 1 week easter and one of the half terms, then tries a new one each summer, loved last year's so doing another week of that this year.
There's only been one she's refusing to go back to.

My children love holiday clubs - in fact my son asked why he hadn’t been recently and I said there’s been no holidays (before Christmas). I wouldn’t see it as a problem using them.

They can also be cost effective. There’s a fab one near us that runs one week in summer and does trips each day eg ice skating, zoo So much cheaper than paying for everyone in family to go.

Holiday clubs can be great, fun for the kids, or sometimes not fun but at least character building. I've known some families never use one and they all get bored especially in the summer hols. For older kids it's a good way to meet other kids from other schools, I made a really good friend in secondary school after meeting in y6.