Childcare for nephew

[Childcarehelpneeded]

My sister has recently moved house and now lives close to us. She has a son who is 9. My nephew finished the school year at his old school but will be moving to our local primary school that is a 10 minute walk from where live from September for year 5.

My sister works Monday-Thursday, leaving the house at 8am and getting home at 6pm. Her plan was to use before and after school clubs or a childminder for my nephew. She has enquired about them but breakfast club only has space on Mondays and the after school club is full. She says there are only a few childminders that cover our village annd primary school and they are all fully booked.

She has asked if our our nephew can come to our house before school on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 8am and after school each day Monday-Thursday, until she gets home at 6pm. He will be walking to and from school himself so we wouldn’t need to actually take him.

We don’t want to commit to doing this. We only have our youngest child at home full time as she is at college and is mostly independent. Our older children are away at university in term time. We both work from home, although I only work 3 days, but often we don’t have to start work til 10am. We sometimes have a lie in and a lazy start to the day and then we work til 6pm ish.

My sister doesn’t feel my nephew is responsible enough to leave the house on time to get himself to school, lock up and be at home for 2 hours by himself after school, which I agree with. She seems to think that as we don’t have to actually take him to school or pick him up, that this is no bother to us at all. I know in reality that won’t be the case as we will have to be up in the morning with him and obviously we wouldn’t ignore him after school. He’ll want to chat, play, have food etc and we need to be working. She says he can watch tv or go on his iPad but inevitably, it will disturb our work and our life.

I have said that this doesn’t work for us, but have offered to do 1 day if she can sort out the other days. I was a SAHM when our children were young so I didn’t have to worry about childcare and don’t know what other options there are. Are there any obvious options we are missing? We don’t have any other family locally and all her friends work full time so have their own childcare to sort out. Her ex is a waste of space and doesn’t see my nephew regularly.

Do childminder spaces become available regularly? The school have said it’s unlikely a space will open up at breakfast club and after school club as they have a long waiting list.

After years of raising our own children, we thought we were free of this and I can’t help but feel annoyed at being made to feel like we have to help. AIBU? Any advice about other childcare options welcome. Thank you.

You don't need to fix it for her. Just say no, she'll have to find another solution as she would if you weren't there.

I think you need to say to her this isn’t going to work and she needs to come up with an alternative.

Availability at wraparound and childminders changes all the time she needs to contact them all again and even if she’s using 2-3 settings during the week she’ll have to do that OR she’ll have to alter HER working hours and not try to impact on YOURS.

What is her plan of action for the school holidays?

That's asking far too much. And what would happen if you wanted to go on holiday during term time?

This it isn't your situation to solve, you have no school age children at home you don't have to be tied to this, if you want to help say you are willing to.watch him on x y z day or in the morning, I suspect she might have expected you to.babysit before she moved. She needs to sort herself out.

This is a really good point!

If she gets snotty about it then you know she was expecting, and not asked a favour.. what is she going to.do.in the school holidays.

If you are both working until 6pm then how can you look after your nephew in that time? At 9 and on his own in someone else’s house he’ll need some supervision.

it’s not realistic to expect you to adjust your hours to look after him.

breakfast and afterschool clubs do tend to be full. They rarely have spaces and if they do they’re snapped up by reception parents.

sometimes other providers do pick ups from a school, or a new childminder opens up. That’s what I used.

was he with a childminder at his old school?

She could advertise for a college student or similar to come to her house. I once advertised on gumtree and had a lot of replies but I do live in a city. She may find there are extra curricular clubs at school thst run until a bit later (4.30 ish). Or she could request flexible working. She may find he makes friends that she can share childcsre with parents but it will be hard if she has just moved and she may need to offer something reciprocal. Would you own older child be available to do as a regular (paid) babysitting job? He/she could get him a snack and watch TV with him (at his house to avoid interrupting your work).

I surmise from what you are saying that she works a full 9 to 5 which is a one hour commute, with a standard one hour lunch break. She needs to ask her employer to work four days across five, and take a short lunch break of 20 minutes every day and see how she goes from there.

This is what everyone else has to do.

She can work about five hours per day, and if her son is so independent, her employer might let her do another hour at home on her laptop after school collection.

this is what pretty much every working Mother I know does, who has an office based job

me And dh changed our working hours so I start early, finish early for pickup and he starts late finishes late so he can drop off.

We also use all the school extracurriculars that run until 4.30, so that means a slightly later pickup three days a week (and a faster turnaround as it’s much easier to park at school at 4.30!).

And school has a chess club and a table tennis club and an athletics club before school so your dsis might be able to do a 7.30am drop off some days if her school is similar

You work til 6pm? So no thank you. I wouldn't the mornings as you have your iwn things to do.
Once a week is nice of you.
She needs to sort her childcare not you.

I'm amazed that 16% of people think you're being unreasonable. Of course it will affect your day and your life having a 9 year old child in your house for 3/4 hours a day and you'll no longer feel totally free to sleep/ work/ do whatever you want when you want. It's too big an ask, but unfortunately I don't know what alternatives she could look at.

If he’s a well behaved 9yo I’d do this for my sister. My 9yo niece is often at mine, I am busy with my own things and she does screen time, no problem at all.

Is your nephew’s father around to help out?

Don’t lots of WFH places not allow you to be responsible for a child under a certain age whilst WFH? If she gets snotty about it, suggest she takes him to work with her as it’s the same as what she is asking from you.

@Childcarehelpneeded so much for a village when not even a sister can help her single parent sister. He's 9 so not a toddler.

I get the mornings but if your working from home afterschool and he isnt a high maintance child. He can easily entertain himself on ipad or TV until Sister picks him up as younwill be working

Nope that just doesn't work. Maybe a couple of days a week, but not everyday.

If she’s willing to pay, but just can’t find a provider with capacity, then it’s theoretically not a bad gig for your dc.

Obviously that would depend on the hours being doable, but a sensible older teenage cousin doing a snack & supervision before &/or after school might be workable & income for them.

You shouldn’t feel in any way obligated to do anything that impacts on your routine. It’s only worth even considering if your youngest would be interested in stepping up for payment.

Year 5s don't generally need supervision and entertaining. I'd do it for my nephew/sibling. I'd hate to see my sibling lose their job because I wasn't wiling to let their child sit in my house for a few hours.
Family support seems to have changed so much since I was a child. After school club wasn't around when I was a child but parents could still work because people helped each other out.

Id do it for my sister. But she means everything to me.

I wouldn't want to do it in the longer term. It would be seriously restrictive. I also wouldn't be reliable due to unpredictable medical needs in my own child. Unless you're there anyway and the lack of freedom it would give you isn't an issue, I wouldn't do it. My lifestyle doesn't support this kind of schedule.

She will need to get a different job or leave him to it, 10 is probably old enough if he’s sensible IMO. It certainly wouldn’t attract any attention from social services where I live 😂 it’s not nice for her or him but it’s her choice to move him and keep her current hours and she should have checked if she could get him in before she made changes. Most of us have had to take jobs we don’t want when our kids needed us or beg employers to be flexible or been the last one in work feeling embarrassed etc, it’s not your responsibility. I’m astounded by how entitled people are becoming about childcare. Of course you would be actively looking after him, otherwise what is the difference between being at yours or being at home? I can understand your annoyance, something similar has happened to me recently and having to say no makes you feel guilty but also angry because of course it’s a huge ask and of course it’s inconvenient but you’re being forced to decline something that really shouldn’t have been asked. These people should by all means mention the struggle they’re having and see if you offer help. If you don’t then it’s because you didn’t bloody want to, what is doesn’t mean is that they shouldn’t still ask. This is what it feels like they’re saying to me: “Is there any chance you could make your life harder and a bit shitter and look after my child at your own expense so that I don’t have to make my own life a bit harder and a bit shitter?” tears in eyes when you gently decline Brace yourself, I was asked again recently after already excruciatingly saying no the first time and it was just as difficult the second time around!

In terms of other options, there are babysitting agencies where she could find a sitter to come to her house for the time needed each day. But this will cost.

My sister doesn’t feel my nephew is responsible enough to leave the house on time to get himself to school, lock up and be at home for 2 hours by himself after school, which I agree with.

Then she needs to work on getting him more streetwise. Plenty of kids do this,