Surviving the summer holidays

[FindingNemo123]

Hello
Thinking ahead to the school the summer holidays, how do you make it work?
Both parents work full time
Young kids - reception. Pretty sure they won't enjoy summer camps
What should I dooooo?
Thanks for your help and inspiration

You need to sell them day camps

😂

Take parental leave from work

Take it in turns to take annual leave. You could cover a big chunk of it that way. Then summer clubs & help from family (or childcare swap with friends).
Summer holidays are really hard work.

Even if they’re in summer clubs it’s difficult because they are often 9-3 so if you work standard office hours you still have to find a solution. Plus they’re expensive!

Both of you take 2 weeks leave. Perhaps one together and one either side for just one parent. In the middle of the hols. Then you have one week and then a fortnight to deal with.

Mixture of annual leave and childcare. At that age the kind of childcare with lots of games, colouring etc will be enough, some schools are used, it gets harder when they are older and this bores them

They are going to love summer camps, I promise!

I would just put them in summer camps, at least temporarily. They might end up loving it.

Use leave from work and book them into camps on the other days

Work out how much leave you can take between you.
Any opportunity to WFH/flexibly? I have sometimes done a lighter day when at home with the DC then made it up another day when they’re not with me.

Any family nearby who could do some days for you?

I think some days at holiday club will be unavoidable, but try and use annual leave so they don’t go every day of the week.
You could also ask around if any of their friends are going to any holiday clubs and use the same one just so they know they will know someone there.

The biggest issue with clubs is suncream. They're often out playing sports in the 30+ degrees all day with essentially a bunch of teenagers. Get a good all day protection (ultrasun) and slather it all over them at drop off.

Get on the class whatsapp and see if there is anyone else who is going to the club so you can align it and they have a friend to go with.

You and DH take leave separately and/or you move your working hours so that you are working when DC are asleep. (4-7am, 8-11pm) But depends on the nature of the job.

Maximise your annual leave - take as much time as you can separately from your husband - if you are having a holiday together obviously do that, but be aware that it then comes at a price of less annual leave left for the rest of the hols.

Neither of you take time off outside of the holidays if you don’t want to use holiday clubs. That is the reality - it’s either keep your annual leave for the hols (separately as much as you can) or have to use holiday clubs more.

Do use whatever holiday clubs you need to and that seem suitable for the kids -
they won’t expire if they’re doing something they don’t absolutely love for a few days here and there. Don’t take all your leave in one chunk if you don’t think the kids will go for whole chunks of holiday club during the rest of the time.

Do some childcare swaps with other families - so you have their kids one day when you’re on leave and vice versa.

Use unpaid parental leave if you need to - that’s both you and your husband, not just you.

DON’T on any account try to wfh with young children knocking about the house. That’s not fair on the kids, on your employee or on you, as it’s horribly stressful. I’m still not
keen on doing it with my yr 7 (so age 12) child!

They go to camp/club. That’s just what happens. They have to go.

find out who else from the class is going and double up with lifts

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This Id have not earned any money ( as self employed) if I took summer holidays off each year so not only would we not afford to do anything nice we wouldn't afford to eat or pay the mortgage

They were never given an option

Annual leave split between you.

Rope in family and friends to support.

Activity based camps for any remaining days.

Summer camp. If you have to work, what other option is there? They might not want to go, but it’s not a choice.

Mine have been moaning tonight about having to go in the Easter holidays. But either we eat and pay our mortgage and they go to camp, or we’re homeless 😂

My eldest goes to a football camp but it is aimed at slightly older DC. Reception DC is going back to her old nursery as they take EYFS/KS1 kids during the holidays. Then we have a week away with family and both me and DH will take some more time off.

They go to camp. Non negotiable. Chat to friends and/or post on the class whatsapp to coordinate with mates and also try to match their interests.

Another vote for summer camp here. DH and I split the week. He takes off a Monday, I take off a Wednesday, DS goes to camp Tuesday & Thursday then Friday is a bit feral where he’s allowed TV til lunch then we try and balance a few hours between us. WFH on that day helps.

Find what camps their friends are going to and book those. It helps most children immensely.

I also plan my holidays to be mid week to mid week to bring up the number of camps in a row.

I’d start looking at what is available to you locally for a start. These threads are always full of ‘use summer camps’ but you might live in an area, like me, where they hardly exist. Or if they do they run 9.30-3 so useless for actual working or only run for a week or handful of days.
DH and I used to take 2 weeks each and have a week together in the middle. Rest was TOIL, parent swops, a few days of clubs here and there. I’m glad I’m past it.

I also found that summer clubs often start from Y1 as reception kids are too much of a liability

Its good that you’re thinking about this already.

I use outlook to print out an A4 blank calendar monthly by month so 1 page July 1 page August then mark out the days as I have them covered.

Ask / join local Facebook parenting / kids groups to ask for recommendations and find the clubs that are available. Ask on school whatsapp groups. Look at notice boards in libraries etc. Ask anyone you know who has kids. Ask teachers. Build up a good list of providers then research dates they’re on, ages, timings and if they offer and early / late pick up. We found some absolutely brilliant sessions that filled a lot of the time then on days when there wasn’t anything decent on we’d use leave.

And YES if you’re on leave, offer to have other kids over for the day in exchange for a day of yours going to them. Lifesaver!!

Yep we usually do 1.5 weeks each, 2 weeks together and a week of family and holiday club help combined. We use unpaid parental leave to get more time off too.

In the summer after YR, holiday club at a nursery can work quite well. They love being the "big kids" after a year of being the smallest. They often don't need to advertise much but I see a couple of our local nurseries still run them. And network - a lot of the best clubs fill up almost on word of mouth. Any extracurriculars they already do are ideal if yo can swing it. When they were older we could WFH sometimes around a 9am-3pm club which helped.

Consider parental leave. Chop summer into chunks, either one week at a time or think of Mondays as a block, Tuesdays as a block etc. Generally we found a week at a time worked best most years.

We throw everything at finding the most appealing holiday club we can and plan round that. We didn't worry too much about the cost because it's only a handful of weeks of the year - I can afford to work at a loss if need be for 2 or 3 weeks a year and still make a load of net benefit across the year. So with 2 such young ones you could even consider a short term nanny.

We didn't take much leave together, we tag teamed. And we also conserved leave on term time days. Any days we had the "option" of picking them up early (eg last day of term) I gave them the choice of coming home early but doing an extra day in hol club later, or being one of the few poor things forced to stay to normal finish time at school. They always picked to stay in school to minimise hol club. As an older teen my daughter has said how much she enjoyed those quiet afternoons after most peers had gone home. They were some of her favourite days in school.