Another childcare rant - how do people do it?!

[SMLSML]

If you and your partner both work how do you manage childcare? My eldest started school in September and prior to this we had wraparound care in nursery. We now use after school club, however this is committee led and we've just had an email saying it's at risk of closure due to not enough volunteers. If you don't use after school club how do families make it work? Do grandparents help 5 days a week? Honestly sick of this country not helping working parents 🫠 the irony of parents needing to be on the committee to keep it open when you're already busy working and juggling a million other school bits and pieces is hilarious to me also 😅 it's something I'd love to be part of but have no idea how if find time... Any and all advice welcome!

The only way we could make it work was for one of us to work part time until they were older. We planned that before even getting pregnant as we always knew that childcare would be an issue.

Not always as easy as that 😅 if only everything was black and white.

Thank goodness for people like you 😅 cracks me up every time when people comment really helpful things like 'didn't you plan?' course we did but if this afternoon school club is the only option available currently then what else do you do 😅

I moved to start at 7.30 and finish at 3, and DH switched a bit less dramatically to 9.30-6pm. So one did drop-off and one pick-up

We did the same. I’m surprised this is not more common as it was really a great setup. DH is in a high flying job so would log on from home around 7am and start working, then get the kids ready for school / drop off and continue his working day in the office.

We worked opposite shifts. I worked evenings and Saturdays.

Yes that sounds like a lovely idea in theory but crazy in practise. We use paid after school club. They have breakfast club too and it’s virtually never cancelled

Aren’t the government subsiding nursery places . Yes i know it’s not all of it and only a small amount but many many parents before you had no financial help at all. Childcare industry is a mess and no one wants to work in such a difficult job for pennies anymore.

Goverment have put funding into breakfast clubs. Education is invested into. Nowhere near enough but that’s another thread. Parents do need to plan for when they have children not complain it’s the governments fault.

Also school hours referring to other posts aren’t the problem they are there enough hours for children to access an education not childcare. It’s work and flexibility that should be looked at. Some workplaces still push back when actually something could be worked out.

When I had my children I was a single mother as my ex (separated) husband did absolutely nothing.
So, it all fell to me. Eldest went to wrap around care and it cost me £12 a day (school) and so £60 a week. Youngest was crippling nursery was £1600 a month I got no benefits and had a professional job - but literally in tears every month making ends meet. It was exhausting - I remember a treat was making a cup of tea at home and going to sit in a park and maybe buy an ice cream but nothing else.

Then my eldest wrap around care doubled overnight and I just couldn’t sleep.

When youngest was out of nursery it was a bit relief. Eldest collected him from primary but I still needed some wrap around care and it was £300 a month.

My children haven’t had children yet but if and when they do DH and I will offer to get them (if they are local) and we are saving now to offer them as much as we can for any nursery costs.

It is paid for. The volunteer roles are on the managing/organising committee, not the service itself.

Just because parents before my had no help at all doesn't make it right. A generation ago a lot of women didn't work so they didn't have this issue. Yes they've put money into breakfast clubs but not across the whole country. Please don't believe everything you see in the news. I agree with you the whole thing needs overhauling big time, just an issue that gets sidelined constantly

Yabu for having children. You should have realised the after school club would close. Your only choice now is to put them out on the street.

We offer wraparound care at nursery for local primary schools. Some children left to go to the schools wraparound as it was cheaper then ended up coming back to us as the schools closed their provision! It is expensive for families though once funding has stopped although many still use UC or tax free childcare to help.

We changed jobs. It was wasn't sustainable. It still isn't and we have halved our income and downsized our house for a smaller mortgage. We have no regular help from anyone so one of us has to work from home with flexible hours. We have switched the role of who does that between me and DH over the years. This last two years it has been me, which means I am working two levels below my actual paygrade and really annoys me.
You can also get after school nannies, childminders and there is after school club, we have tried them all. But if they start doing a sport or hobby then you want to be able to take them to it too. Then ads another kid and it's just impossible unless someome is at home or you pay a fortune for a proper nanny with a car and who can do dinners and sports and bedtime. So unless you are far outearning a nannies wage then whats the point, and you will hardly be there for all their important stuff too.

We could only pick schools with childcare, be that childminders or after school club, if that wasn’t available, we simply couldn’t have used that school. We had to move schools part way through and top of the list had to be wraparound care availability, we dismissed anything without it, and ended up with a fair drive to it as a result.

I’m always surprised when I hear of schools without any provision and wonder what their school community is like.

How often are the meetings? Monthly? It sucks but it is a nightmare trying to get volunteers so you might have to squeeze it in somehow - presumably it closing would be even more inconvenient? Could you get together with some other people who use the club and agree to be on the committee for a year each or something?

If people are so against the government subsidising childcare but also so against immigration I don't know how else we're going to deal with the falling birth rate which is going to become a real issue in the future!

Paid childcare (childminder) or reducing your working hours (I had to do the latter as nobody wanted my disabled children in terms of wrap around).

We’ve opted to go private for this very reason.

Those saying kids need a longer school day so parents can work perhaps aren’t thinking of the impact on a child of a long day like that. The need to decompress- play- chill. It’s hard I get it but kids going to school is a shift and does need family alignment- it’s not the school day that is wrong it’s the need for two full time working parents. And that doesn’t mean the mum. Dads often work flexibly at our school and do many if not more pick ups and care

I changed my job 2 years before we planned to have children so I would get full pay maternity leave, plus office hours and Flexi time to make childcare easier. We also moved to a town that had multiple nurseries and primary schools so the chances of good wrap around care would be possible.

There’s no magic answer here. If the provision you use needs support to run then you can either provide the support or lose the service. Or you could try asking them to raise their costs to cover whatever it is they need the parents to do? It’s very odd to require parents to volunteer but maybe they just try to keep costs really low?

I changed jobs so DH and I could cover childcare between us instead. It was shit working evenings and weekends, but got us through. We didn't have family childcare options available, so knew we'd have to make changes.
Hopefully your club won't close now they have asked for more help.

You pay for childcare 🤷🏼‍♀️

Childminders and Nannie’s both offer wrap around care

If your commitments are work and one DC, then a monthly meeting to allow the provision to continue is a no brainer. It’s crucial to you, so step up. You may be able to make things more sustainable by getting involved.
Some companies allow time to contribute to a charity, check if either of yours do.

Apart from that, what about buddying up with another family? It’s not ideal when you don’t know each other, but might work.