How did you work out childcare v working hours?

[Raindropsandroses123]

I’m due to go back to work from maternity leave in a few months and am currently working out childcare v working hours. I have a busy and demanding clinical role in the NHS, however it is flexible and I can wfh 2 days per week and can adjust my working hours around clinical work. However saying that, on certain days there is no flexibility and I have clinics to do. I am also quite senior so I can pretty much quite a lot of say in what I do throughout the day eg clinic timings etc. I work very hard and take immense pride and diligence in my work and patient care, probably to my detriment. However I really value motherhood and want to be present as much as I can. So I do want as minimal childcare as possible, as does my husband.

This is the sticking point…
my husband pretty much wants me to say to work that I’m working more than I am but actually work very minimal during the day so I can pick the kids up. For example on 2 days per week he wants me to actually say to work I’m working a full day but only actually do 2.5 hrs (maybe more in evening) as he wants me to drop the kids off then pick one of them up at 12!! I find this very dishonest but he says if I’m so efficient I can be the work done. I’m not that bloody efficient but also I need to be present. I also don’t want calls when I do have the kids. When I sign off work I want to be finished and not thinking about it when I’m with the kids. Also I find this plan incredibly stressful and would have to work when the kids are in bed, on top of doing housework, meals etc. we have 3 kids btw - all under 4.

I agree with my DH that the childcare has to be around my “9-5” working schedule as he works shifts and is only around a few days per week, when he’s around he plans to help “where he can”.

I want the kids in a little bit more childcare so I can get my work done but I’m trying to find a balance so both aren’t excessive.

This Is causing arguments.

Now my question is not about trying to find solutions about my working hours. It’s about how did you come to the conclusion of what working hours v childcare you have. Was it a joint decision? Was it led by the person who is around more and if so did they call the shots. Anyone in this situation at all?

AIBU? It’s a joint decision and he has as much say as me even though I’m doing the “leg work”?

YANBU? That my DH is calling all the shots but Im doing all the “leg work”?

I work in HR and we all work from home.

1. I get significantly less work done when my kids (4 and 1) are home. That’s despite my MIL looking after them.
2. It’s obvious when staff don’t have formal childcare in place. It will be noticed and it will lead to disciplinary, and possibly dismissal.

Put your kids in childcare during your working hours. If your husband doesn’t like it then he can pretend to be working from home while looking after them.

Your reputation and future career prospects could also be damaged when (not if) work put you on a performance management plan as they aren’t happy with your output (capability) or disciplinary (conduct) investigation.
Easy way to sort it be to tell work you want to return to the clinical setting FT. Much of this is being caused by DH not understanding what WFH means and take the P expecting you to juggle it all. If you were at work you can’t be juggling rest. Simples. Do it until at least pattern established that you can’t do both at the same time. If DH so smart tell him to leave his work to do the pick ups/drop offs.

Or they both do?

@Raindropsandroses123 what's your husband doing to adjust his working pattern?

Working in the evenings after kids have gone to bed is a killer. Is he offering to do all dinners bath and bed so you can work from 5-9 for example? Or expecting you to help with this time of day then log back in after all the kids are in bed.

I have a flexible job in that I condense 5 days into 4. The 5th day of condense hours I use flexibly. Some weeks I do long days e.g working from 7.30-6pm (instead of 9-5) and other times I choose to log back in and work 3/4 hours in two evenings (tbh it's usually service demand driven for me as to when things need to be done so it works both ways). But having to log back in especially if the kids have been a pickle getting down to bed can be so tiring and exhausting.

I would honestly just look to have childcare sorted for the hours you work/work when DH is home to have kids. And if you don't want kids in full time childcare then you need to look at reducing hours (either of you). I know someone who both parents have condense their hours so have 1 day a week each with their kids at home. So then only 3 days a week childcare.

It was a joint decision here.

I start later and he finishes earlier. We both made a change and it worked.

Never have either of us suggested it was the others ‘problem’ to solve.

Speaking as someone who had a 5 year old at home during lockdown - do not do what your DH is suggesting. You’ll half arse your job, you’ll half arse your parenting but your stress levels will be double.

You absolutely cannot wfh with kids at that age. My kids are 10 and 7 and I can wfh the odd day now and again if they are sick but I’m definitely not as productive for obvious reasons.

Interesting that your husband is not suggesting that he will try and alter his working hours to try and find a solution. Just expects you to manage it…

You are completely in the right. There aren't enough hours in the day and you must not do this. There are three losers if you do. The first is your kids who will sometimes be in your care either without receiving the proper attention or who will miss out on you at other times as you catch up with work later, or struggle to cope with the stress that I'm sure will inevitably bleed into your personal life. The second is you, because it is horrible juggling things like this and you already sound like you have a huge amount to deal with. Thirdly, your employer risks suffering. Even if you are incredibly efficient and make up for any missed work later, they have the right to expect that you will be available when you say you will be. Sure, you sound like you have a lot of autonomy and flexibility in how you manage your time at work, but I can imagine plenty of scenarios where something shifts a little or something urgent comes up and you get caught out.

My own NHS role sounds reasonably similar to yours - perhaps I might not be as senior as you are but I have a lot of autonomy and can schedule in a lot of wfh time when I'm not running clinics. I briefly tried to condense my hours so that I could have a day a week off with my DD. Keep in mind this was all above board as I was pledging to make up the hours elsewhere and it was all agreed with my manager. But even this turned out to be a nightmare because as you say, there aren't enough hours in the day. I couldn't get all my work done without staying up stupidly late and even this was disrupted by DD's poor sleep. It was an awful time and I felt like a fraud and ultimately had to choose between a) working 5 'normal' 9 to 5s a week, with the exception of finishing early one day and working late on another, and b) going part-time. I chose route A but only because I was lucky enough to get good childcare and was prepared to pay for it.

And do not agree to logging back on when kids are in bed. Ugh, that reminds me of lockdown when I was telling my mostly unemployed now ex husband that I needed to log on and get some work done and he asked me why I couldn’t just do it when the kids were in bed 🙄

I know someone who was fired from
the NHS for practically doing this. IT footprint. All very well pretending you’re working 8 hours but your system is only active for 2.5. The tech doesn't lie.

You get full time childcare like the rest of the full time working population or you go part time

We looked at the days neither of us were off work and we booked appropriate paid childcare to cover those hours. Aside from COVID noones expected anyone to work without childcare. Your husband is nuts

Having been there, done that (when child care fell through, and at the request of my employer) - don’t, just don’t try and work more hours than you’ve got childcare for on a routine basis.

It works for a couple of extra over the week. It doesn’t work for lots. You juggle constantly, you rarely get proper parent time, or work time, or partner time.

Crunch the numbers for going part time. The pay cut is much less than the FTE cut if you’re a higher rate tax payer.

You need to book childcare to cover all of your hours. If DH works shifts, then if he's on an early shift, he can pick them up early. If he's on a late shift, he can spend the morning with them and take them to nursery before he starts work. If he has a day off in the week, he can keep them out of nursery and look after them.

Win win, he gets what he wants, that the kids aren't in nursery too much and keeps all of your full time salary.

He wants you to lie to your employer and commit fraud. Obviously you mustn’t do that!

You need the kids to be in childcare for all the hours you are being paid for.

This is ridiculous. You either work less or pay for more childcare.

I know a few couples of have formal flexible working arrangements where they do a couple of short days and a couple of very long days each or one does a couple of short and long days but the other does compressed hours and has a day off. I would suggest you look more at something like that and have it agreed.

Dont lie. It’s gross misconduct.

very tight budget plus returning from Mat leave we were very depleted financially.

Wasnt just the cost though, I just didn’t want to hand my babies over 5 days a week and pay money we couldn’t afford. It took us many many years of infertility and baby loss to get our children, I wanted to be with them and appreciate every ounce of childhood with of them.
My DH adjusted his hours to finish work earlier and once I was pregnant gave up his weekend hobby & stopped the weekend overtime as he needed to do his share of childcare. Plus he really wanted to, like me.

I have less childcare than my working hours just now (an after school arrangement fell through and my DP just got a new job so I am having to do more pick up and drop off temporarily). I have a very flexible role though and can make up hours first thing in the morning plus in the evening so I actually do get my hours done but it is stressful as that means little down time for me. Clearly only doing 2.5hrs of an 8hr day is not feasible though (my deficit is 1hr/day) and this wouldn't be feasible long term. My view is that the person who does the most childcare has more say over the arrangements and your DH can't just tell you to not work your hours. Could you both go part time if less nursery/childcare is important to you both?

If you are working, they need to be in childcare. It's that simple.

You absolutely can't work while looking after kids under 4, unless they are asleep, or you have stuck them in front of Cbeebies or something - in which case you're not being the present parent you want to be and they would probably be getting better care at a good nursery or childminder/nanny anyway.

You definitely shouldn't expect to get paid to only work a third of your hours. It's unethical, you are likely to get found out, and you'll probably end up overwhelmed at work and disliking your job if you try.

You need to have childcare in place for all the times that you and your husband are both working the hours you are paid to work. If you don't want to have them in full time childcare, then you and/or your husband need to reduce or compress your working hours.

That's what my husband and I do. After I went back after maternity leave with my eldest, we started off both doing 4 days a week, with a different non-working day each so we only ever needed three days of childcare. Now I do 70% FTE which means I have one full day off with my toddler and can pick my eldest up from school on two other days, and my husband is full-time but works from home so does the majority of other school runs (we use after school clubs for the days I'm not doing pickup).

We have jointly discussed the changes to our hours and what that will mean for our income, our longer-term career prospects, and the time we have to spend with the children/as a family. However, we've always assumed that any time we're both working, we'll have other childcare in place for the children.

This is bonkers. Either cut your hours, or get childcare for the hours you work..whether you WFH or not is irrelevant.

how you deal with childcare as a family should be a joint decision, and joint money

If the childcare falls down to you, it’s up to you to sort it, do as you see fit

Don't be dishonest about your working hours. That's terrible advice from your partner and could get you into trouble as well as being overwhelming for you.

I pay for wrap around care at nursery as a single mum. It's the only way I can work. Sometimes you have to a accept you don't have a choice and what you want and need don't necessarily align.

I do know someone who has a childminder look after their kids in their own house so they can still see them and get on with work but they eventually accepted they have to just shut themselves away as the kids demand their attention even with the childminder.

You asked how you work out childcare around work. Is your contract a certain number of contracted hours... Or is it output based? I ask as most jobs are based on contracted hours...not necessarily how many appointments are completed, for example. I'm surprised your husband doesn't realise this, but there we go.

ASSUMING contracted hours, his is how I would do it.

Kids are in childcare from the time it takes you to get from childcare to your place of work (and vice versa). So, if your childcare is 30 mins from home, and you start at 0900, I'd suggest aiming to drop them at 0820 (or maybe 0815) to make sure you get there on time. Same with pick up.

If you have the children with you, then you stop the clock, and restart the clock again after the children have someone to take care of them or after they have gone to bed. This assumes that you are able to complete the contracted hours any time of the day.

A working day is your contracted hours. So, children can't be taken care of by you during this time.

Your husband is nuts. Has he not actually looked after his children like ever?! I'm guessing he has no idea because he has lived in a cave all his life, and because you have probably been on mat leave for a large whack of time since your first was born...

I used to work 90 hours over a 4 week block. My husband worked away every other week, so the weeks he worked i did very little, but the weeks he was home I was able do more. I think it was called annual hours when I put in my flexible working request (it was 15 years ago so I csnt actually remember 🤣). That worked for me, but it might not for you but could be worth looking in to, to see if you can something similar.
You definitely can't work and have your children at home, I tried that also and it was hell!

No matter how senior you are, with all the nhs cuts right now you’d be mad to do this.

Are you really able to get away with 2.5 hours of actual work? I’m clearly doing nhs work all wrong where I struggle to fit in a lunch break and regularly work over time.

I think the person doing the juggling gets more of a say!