Help! No childcare...

[Nochildcare]

First time posting!

I really need some suggestions with what people do for childcare over the school holidays.

Half my childcare plans for the school holidays has fell through. There's no after school service and I work 8-6 three days a week.

I'm at a loss I don't know what to do for childcare. My dm will take my dc half the school holidays. My holidays only cover 3 weeks and I've already used them for school holidays.

I can't go term time in work or work from home. Holiday clubs are £££ a week! And pay childcare for younger dc so I can't afford it.

Anyone have suggestions?

Tia x

Holidays are 7 weeks? And you have grandparents doing half? So you looking for cover for only 3 or 4 weeks. I don't understand why your husband can't take 2 days off when you are working and then work the weekend or evenings to make up hours. That would leave a single day for 3 or 4 weeks to be covered. Surely school clubs could be used for that?

Don’t no about in Scotland but in England it is absolutely more than 7 weeks

I'm central Scotland too, thanks for this it never occurred to me about the first week! My mind has been all over the place

Unfortunately the only answer I can give is the same as many others, we pay a large amount of money for holiday clubs. It's £53.00 a day so for 5 weeks in the summer it's around £1300 which is about what we end up paying due to using annual leave for the other holidays. We try to break it up a bit so might do 4 weeks in summer holidays 1 week at Easter and so on.

Not sure, but I think that things may be different in Scotland?

Have a look at HAF funding, it's dependent on whether you are in receipt of certain benefits or your child is eligible to free school meals but you may be able to get free holiday club places. I work in a school and our County Council offer this, we can also recommend families who are not on qualifying benefits but are struggling financially. I'm not sure how long the programme is running for but it may help

www.gov.uk/government/publications/holiday-activities-and-food-programme/holiday-activites-and-food-programme-2024

It’s a completely different system in Scotland, just accept what Op is saying, it’s absolutely how it is here

Six weeks summer holidays, and your mother's doing half, so three weeks to cover, three days for each, so nine days in total. During those three weeks you have six total working days where you aren't working.

Check your local authority's website - ours has links for "holiday childcare". It's roughly £25 per child per day, and the "day" is 8.30am or 9am to 5pm or 5.30pm, which is quite a bit longer than a normal school day. £450 for two children for nine days each. £225 if you get 50% back on Universal Credit.

If you take a week's holiday, that's six days to cover, and nine days during the holidays where you aren't working, so a cost of £300 / £150 UC.

Can you do swaps with a mate or school friends of your children? You look after theirs some days, they return the favour? Even if not, a cost of £300 / £150 isn't ideal, obviously, but it is some months away so should be possible?

the local council often have a list of paid provision offered during the holidays check their website otherwise as others have suggested summer school/holiday club.

lots of people do annual leave swaps, share kids with someone else for a week and then swap. Obviously someone you know and whose kids you know

Cancel. Your husband can take the children alone. You gain back two weeks' leave and the cost of your flight/spending money out there.

Yes they can but doesn't mean they should. Children get deffered all the time ffs

Check out local schools. There's three close to us who have teachers that run school holiday clubs for extra money. Ours cost £15 per day. It's only school hours, and we have the luxury of working from home to nip out and pick him up, but could you DM do pick up from there some days if she's willing to cover half of the holidays? She might be able to do more days if it's only 2-3 hours a day (this is presuming she doesn't work).

There are also private nurseries in our area who charge around £28 per day, which you can use the tax free childcare account for too to make it cheaper. DP and I pay money into a saving account each month to cover any holiday clubs throughout the year, then it's not one big expense all at once.

If the child isn’t ready for school, it isn’t ready. You don’t bugger up the rest of their childhood for the sake of saving a year’s nursery fees

Take parental leave, although it does mean you'll lose pay.

Absolutely agree with this, if it’s at all possible.
Also, I think a lot of the people questioning the deferment are in England. Scotland’s system is different, more like Ireland where I am. I know a 4.5 year old child would be considered very young for their class here, Feb birthdays start at 5.5 usually now.

I know a family who took out a lowish interest £30k bank loan when their kids were small to pay for all holiday childcare over the years so the parents could both continue to work and grow their careers to maximise their earning potential. Would that be an option?

@BabyFever246

Wtf?? So I've just to send my child to school if I feel they are quite ready??? Just to save nursery fees read my post before where I work in a nursery and have first hand experience of sending children off to school that aren't ready who struggle, have to repeat p1. I'm in scotland it is very normal to deffer a December, January and February born child.

You husband needs to step up. He could
A) take time off.
B) find an employed job with annual leave.
C) find a job that pays more.

If self-employment doesn't pay the bills, why is he still doing it?

I also deferred my February child so he would be starting Primary 1 when he was 5.5. Don’t understand why so many people are questioning that. There are another 4 in his class who are deferred so it is quite a common thing to do in Scotland 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Anyway I also work Tues-Thursday, we managed it by splitting our holidays although we took 2 weeks together in the Summer. DP took 2 weeks at Easter/October & Summer. We still had some time together on the Fridays-Mondays that I didn’t work. In the Summer I took a week myself so that meant 3 weeks needed covered. I put him in holiday club one day a week (£30 a day) and my Mum did the other 2 days that week. We do only have 1 so appreciate it is more expensive with 2. Also as others have suggested sharing childcare with friends might be another option. I hope you get something sorted.

What do you mean you only get 3 weeks leave?

For a full year?

Watch out for early finish first day of summer hols, some places finish at 1pm.

Completely agree about defering too. I deferred my Jan baby she was ready for p1 but being older definitely helps now she is at high school with peer pressure and expected to study.

This isn't about childcare but the deferral - I'm really surprised at the volume of replies against it. Guess they are not from Scots as most people I know have deferred their Feb born children (incl me) and I know several born in December and even one September born who were deferred (so almost 6 when starting P1).

Do you feel you made the right decision to deffer? My ds is very clever but his speech isn't where it should be and is the main reason for being on the fence.

It's not so common in England, there are no deffered children in my dd's reception class at school so it's a different mentality for lots here.

She’s already explained this in one of her posts