Failing to manage work and childcare even when I am trying my best.

[Seasideparadise]

I am probably going to lose my job soon as a result of frequent absences due to illness or my children being ill after catching the viruses from me.

I just don’t know how other people do it. I haven’t got family support around me and have got two small children. My DH works full time in a very demanding job but he is very accommodating and works around childcare responsibilities. We still struggle a lot. We have had a bad couple of months when we have been ill with viruses. Surprisingly it has been me being sick first due to the nature of my work and then bringing the illness home. I now have been warned that due to the amount of days I was sick I can lose my job if I have got another day off sick in the next 12 months. That includes any dependant leave and I just can’t see how I can force myself to not get sick.

All the absences were to cover viral illnesses and stomach bugs as I cannot imagine asking any friend to look after my sick kids. I go in every single day for example even when I had multiple broken toes.

I am so down as I am trying to do my best both at home and at work but I just can’t seem to make things work.

https://news.stv.tv/north/aberdeen-airport-worker-wrongly-sacked-over-sick-days-awarded-40000?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZnRzaASmgKBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEetW_k0Nwp4ohsPz1iK8NJXDXDKfFNmqmOlh2JdsgwMLpXBlIUApSmY5yu9ko_aem_YWdncwDO8srK0Df2OPGy0JqzDOU1&brid=YWdncwF7UCjI0ibijmzk6znrKVNi#Echobox=1782138336

How come the OP’s colleagues aren’t struggling like this then?

Possibly the least helpful post I’ve ever read

I hear you OP. We’ve no family support either. we ended up using annual leave and unpaid parental leave to cover the endless back-to-back illnesses that the viral soup of nursery brings. My second son’s first 18m of nursery were brutal. He was in hospital with wheeze eight times.
with my third boy I have found it so unmanageable that I’ve taken a couple of years off work while the children are small.
can you go part time to ease the pressure slightly? Can you use parental leave unpaid days when your child is ill?

Some people are just less susceptible to illness though. I have two primary age children and work in a school myself. I have had less than a week off ill in the last decade and my children both have 100% attendance nearly every year. We are not pushing on through, we just seem to be lucky and have good immune systems.

How much time odd are we talking about here? It sounds like it might be excessive and indicative of the fact that you are run down? I would expect your immune system to have adapted up to a point, though obviously you are still going to pick up some stuff.

Can you work on establishing relationships with local babysitters, so you have a list of people who can call when the need arises? I appreciate it’s expensive, but losing your job would be too and it sounds like your DH earns decent money.

You need to work on a back up plan.

Fair yeah think this is the case. I remember DS having some time off nursery with conjunctivitis when he was about 2 ( he started at 7 months) and that was the first time he had seen a GP since his 6 week check. The time after he had medical treatment was for a football injury at 14

My DDs were similar

But your husband is 'too important' to do childcare when it matters (ie when you're at risk of losing your job). I agree it's shitty on women/mothers, but part of it is also your husband not being able to step up to help protect your job and income.

So why is the husband not off sick every time these bugs are brought into the house then? Does he do something different?

I think by 8 or 9 kids keep a bit more space so stop passing things on so much. They also get a bit more robust. Hopefully.

Wash your hands properly and teach your children to wash their hands often too.

I am disabled amd have a weakened immune system. Despite working in a school and having a child, I do not get sick because I wash my hands regularly. The amount of people that do not wash their hands properly after going to the toilet, touching door handles, shared toys, children, screens, and before eating is disgusting.

Make sure you wash your hands properly with hot water and soap after touching things at work. Wash your hands straight away when you get home so you are not bringing germs home. Use hand sanitiser in between hand washes but remember that you can only use it 3 times before you need to wash your hands again. Clean touchpoints at your work yourself if you have to, people are really scuzzy.

My friend used to complain that her children and were constantly sick and I was just lucky that my child was well. I looked after her children for three weeks when she had to go look after her elderly father when he had an accident. I insisted on hand washing when coming into the house and before eating. I gave them a little bottle of hand sanitiser to put in their blazer pocket and instructed them to use it at school before eating lunch. They did not get ill at my house and have been much better since.

I'm sorry but they're your husbands responsibility too. My dh and I take turns covering the children's illnesses to keep work off our backs. Your dh is being extremely unfair here. Your dh is the issue.

She literally said sometimes he isn't even in the country due to work. Would you expect him to return on the next flight home? Even if he did he may not make it before the end of the school/nursery day.

Let's be realistic here.

How is this helpful at all? It is normal to want to have children and still to be able to work the hours you can to earn some money. I am not speaking about some corporate career for myself. Nobody decides to have children because it is practical.

Ok I feel happy for you. Not all people are the same why is it so difficult to understand. We wash hands in our family and eat well we still get sick once one of us gets something prolonging the period when I can return to work if I am myself sick or my husband absolutely needs to travel on another day and kids haven’t recovered by then. If it’s a cold it’s just sneezing so nothing serious but flu, noro, rsv type of things can make you very unwell !

@Seasideparadiseare you going to say how many days off you’ve taken as sick? You’re positing in AIBU but it’s impossible to respond without knowing whether you’re unreasonable or not!

Love all the posters weighing in to tell the OP how rarely they are ill themselves and how she just needs to be luckier with her immune system or something!

I have never been ill so frequently and severely as the autumn when I started teacher training in a Reception class. It gradually wore off as my immunity grew but happened again when I moved areas, as I think some viruses can be localised.

Saying that, the infection control policies at your workplace seem pretty poor. Children shouldn’t be attending with D&V. Whatever happened to the 48 hour rule! Management should be taking a firm line on this as it would reduce the overall sickness rates in the setting but I imagine that change is unlikely there. Unless of course a complaint or an Ofsted inspection should bring some focus onto the issue…

My suggestions would be:

Go part-time for a couple of years to give some flexibility. You can then swap days if needed, rather than always taking time off. I know it’s not perfect with rotas etc, but it would probably help.

Change roles to a nursery with stricter policies, perhaps a school nursery, charity-run nursery or one which has more emphasis on nurturing/education than on providing childcare for working parents. Look up the policies and its reputation before applying. If parents are complaining about strict policies in local groups then it’s probably about right!

Find a local babysitter, not necessarily to cover illness but as a fallback for other emergencies. I found a lovely retired lady, after a wake-up call when I had to pull out of a job interview at short notice due to neither my DH or my MIL being available. (It was a long time ago but I still feel a little miffed with my DH about that!)

I think there is a point about hygiene and close contact. If one of us has a cold or similar we do cut back on physical contact for a few days, which does help. Not quite Covid self-isolation but just trying to avoid passing it on.

It will get better!

Yea it’s really hard. We are managing both in full-time jobs but I am definitely neglecting chores, we are neglecting our marriage as well. You cannot do all of this stuff and do it well.

If you actually want advice, OP, the key information we need is:

• How long have you been employed there?
• How much absence have you had (days/occasions) split by sickness and dependents’ leave?
• Have they started formal absence procedures (presumably they have given reference to limited absence for the rest of the year)? Which stage are you at?
• Is there a reason you can identify that your absence is at problematic levels compared to other colleagues who aren’t getting as ill as regularly as you are?
• Are there ways you can limit contact with others in your household when you are unwell (and vice versa)?
• How often is your husband away?

There is also a “work” board where you tend to get more HR and legal people that can advise rather than AIBU where you’ll often get general opinion rather than professional advice.

There are a couple things to unwrap here.

firstly taking emergency time off for dependents is a statutory right, and should not be included in any sick leave calculations.

how many occurrences have you had in the last 12 months where you have been unwell (don’t include the children in this). Time off for dependents however is usually just the emergency part, and then you can reasonably be expected to make alternative arrangements. Like you I don’t have family who can help, however I include my husband is that arrangement. You are both parents and this responsibility to your children is a shared one. Both taking turns in this will ease the burden.

with your sickness, they would have to follow a fair process and go through a few stages around capability first (I assume you have 2 years emolument service/ history). have you been invited yet to a formal stage 1 process?

acas have good information around sickness and capability, and also rights to statutory time off.

please get your husband onto the narrative that he is their parent too though.

Your dh doesn’t seem to get the bugs as much as your dc

so he needs to take time off if they are poorly

i am still shocked your workplace doesn’t follow the 48hr rule and sure ofsted would say something

in your situation I would be looking for a different childcare setting to work in

Can you get annual leave instead of sick leave? I appreciate it sucks but as an alternative. Also I know it’s not ideal but I have sent my kids so many times a bit sick at school cause I had to go to work. Calpol and off they go. I had no issues. The kids coped well and the school didn’t even call me. It could something you can do if they are not very ill with fever of course. It might also worth going to the GP to do some bloods and check if you need any supplements to boost your immune system.

It’s probably the last minute nature of the absences and ratios that is the issue for the employer rather than the type of leave being used.

neither of them have got children my age. So it is not the same really.

I have found its not so much that they grow out of it, but that from about age 11/12 they can be left unsupervised to get over it. With Instruction of course!

I was made redundant when my DS13 was 9 months old as I went back early at EMPLOYERs request. Hurridly found a child minder for the kids (dd17 was preschool) and literally 2 weeks in, ds gets a vomiting bug from the childminders kids. I am off 2 days...and those 2 days were classed as NORMAL sickness for terms of redundancy calculations - so m maternity cover got me job!

Anyway...If OP is fired, I am sure that a word with ACAS might clear up the position considering she is taking infection home from a nursery where they are keeping infectious kids in. Not saying kids dont need to get immune systems, but there are rules for reasons. Imagine if a school let kids stay with d&v.

For the taking bugs home - can you change at work? Can they wash uniforms (I assume you have like polos and work trousers? If they are going to insist on having sick kids, then they need to take steps as well.

I found that sambucol is good. But I still get variations of bugs - like when I started here there were 2 people with kids. So I had their new kids bugs to catch when they came in ill from their kids making them ill etc. But after a year I was fine. Still get sniffly if I am in a crowd though.