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.

Both the OP and the boys mum work full time. Can you explain why its OPs job to make sacrifices to her work to look after him, rather than the boys mum?

And OP doesn't want her sister's child in her kitchen while she's in bed anyway.

If I’m done raising my kids there is NO way that I’m doing this for someone else’s!
I see you’ve offered 1 day which is a great compromise. She will HAVE to sort out the other days.

what will happen is that you will slowly be forced into holiday and half term childcare, lots of ‘emergency’ situations and it’s going to be bigger problems between you all.

Just be firm. You don’t need to feel guilty and obligated. She really needs to sort it out.

And?? What does that have to do with anything. You don’t owe your life’s choices to anyone as if you need to feel guilty for that!
what an odd way of thinking

I agree I would do this for my sister too. If she genuinely needs help and can't change her own shifts etc

100% yanbu. Don't don't do it

OP works 3 days, not full time

You know her. Is she usually a CF, or will she really do her best to find childcare asap? Did she have to move suddenly, or did she do it on a whim without planning? Did her husband abandon them, or did she choose to have a child with someone who didn't want one, and then move around on a whim?

None of this is your nephew's fault, and yes, no one has to set themselves on fire etc, but I would help out short-term for his sake, especially if you trust your sister to actually sort things out as soon as childcare becomes available.
You say you couldn't leave him without talking to him etc, but refusing to help out at all is far worse than that-just be clear that you have to do the minimum and for the minimum time period possible.

No, you don't have to. And the fact you were a SAHM doesn't oblige you to help others in a difficult situation. But one day, you will need something. And helping tends to make this world a but better.

She didnt say that at all. She said give up her career. Maybe she trained for it for years? Would a single Dad be expected to give up his career in the same manner? Doubt it.

She's NOT a stay at home mum ... she works! FFS Why should she have to change her life and working patterns for someone else's child!? Her sister needs to do that!

.

Where does it say the boy is seen as such a problem?
by who? The mum is working to put food on the table, doesnt mean she sees her son as 'a problem'.
The problem if anything is the lack of available child care.

OK, still not her child though, so why does she need to compromise her work over the boys mother?

If in response me I dont in any way think OP should. I think the sister should see if he can attend his old school for another year.
but im saying its not unreasonable or selfish for a mother to not want to give up her career.

That’s her problem to sort though! At first I thought you were going to say your child goes to the same school and I still thought it was too much to ask.

"Sorry Jessica, I ran this by my boss today just to check it would be ok, but they said it's in my contract that I can't look after a child under 14 whilst working from home. They we're very firm on it. I asked David to check with his employer but they've said essentially the same thing."

Although that only gets you out of the 3 days you work. Honesty might be the better policy if you have a good relationship with your sister.

What is she doing for the school holidays?
Surely she has 6 weeks of CC to sort out now anyway

Yes, I’ve asked this as well but the OP hasn’t replied

Thanks for all of the replies.

I will mention all of the suggestions about changing hours, students helping, after school activities, an au pair and regularly phoning childminders to check for any spaces opening up. My children have said they will ask if any of their friends that we know well would be interested but I’m going to check with my sister first and see what she would pay them.

I don’t think my sister moved with the expectation that we would provide all of this childcare. At his last school, she didn’t have a problem with getting breakfast club and afterschool places and she also used a childminder. She lived in a city then though so I think she was naive in thinking childcare would be as available here. The school told her there was a breakfast club and afterschool club but never mentioned it being full with a long waiting list.

I do only work 3 days, but those are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I have offered to help both ends of the day on Thursday when I’m off. My other day off is Friday which would be no good because my sister doesn’t work Fridays anyway. I also like to keep Fridays free as every few weeks we go and visit one of our kids at uni for a long weekend so even if she changed her days, I wouldn’t do Fridays for her.

Some posters have asked about the summer holidays. She is taking some leave, we are looking after him for 4 days, he is going to see his grandparents/dad for 2 weeks and the rest of the time he is in a holiday club.