What do to about childcare?

[Purpleprincess81]

I was wondering if anyone had advise about childcare in my situation.

I will be returning to work for financial reasons (I earn 3/4 of household income) when my daughter is 6 months old. I work Monday - Friday 9-5 in a job which often means I have to stay at work unexpectedly until 7pm. I am on call 1 in 8 which means that I have to be available to work from 5pm until 9am the next day and for the whole weekend from Friday afternoon to Monday morning once a month. However I am rarely called out during my on calls but would still need to be able to travel immediately if required.

My husband works 9am-6pm 3 weekends out of 4 and either 9-5 or 11-8 during the week with random days off on a monthly rota. We don't have any family or responsible enough friends locally to help with childcare.

You will see that there are times during the working week where hubby may be able to look after our daughter one week but not the other and also periods in the evenings and most weekends where my husband is working and I am on call but probably able to look after my daughter but could be called away at any moment (although unusual).

What the hell should we do for childcare? If costs rise above £900 a month or so, its not going to be financially feasible for my hubby to continue working but this would have a negative effect on him and his career. I understand that childminders won't be amenable to such irregular hours on a week by week basis as I clearly don't want to pay for days where hubby can look after her. There are also times when I will need child care to be in reserve during unsociable hours but will probably not need it which I am again reluctant to pay much for. (I'm not being stingy I just don't want my house to be repossessed)

Does anyone have any ideas at all? thanks

Do you have a spare room? Maybe a childcare student would do?

I would quite like a job like this with varied hours, I am a nanny . I did a similar job where they payed me just when they used me. Do not know if many others would go for it though.

Could you look for a nanny you employ for an 'average' number of hours to include your 'core hours' (9 to5) + what you might need on top of that? You could pay a kind of retainer to be available at antisocial times and an hourly rate when actually using the carer.
A CM will set their own hours, is likely to work in their own home (so drop-off and pick up will be your job) and is less likely to work antisocial hours.
Do you have any kind of family back-up?
Are you a dr per chance? You don't have to answer if you don't want to (obviously - tis t'interweb after all ). But if you are: massive sympathies. We did not find a solution so deferred having DCs until I no longer did any out of hours work.

Actually, thinking back many years, I used to CM for a couple who were nurses, shifts all over the place, sometimes overnight. We came to an agreement whereby they paid me £x every month, sometimes that meant a very low hourly-rate, sometimes I hardly worked at all, but we reckoned it worked out Ok over time.

I am a doctor and my hubby is a retail manager - not an easy combo for a family life. We earn a decent amount between us but not really enough for a nanny (I've been quoted £20000-40000). I like the idea of a child care student in our spare room and we have a college locally that I believe does childcare courses. I might approach them but does sound like I'm going to need to have a very understanding child care giver. Unfortunately family is in London and Dad is a priest so weekend working is out for them!

Like I said, we never managed to get childcare covered as long as we had 2 on-call schedules to consider.

Where in the country are you?
Nannies can be less expensive once you are outside the M25... The salaries you've been quoted strike me as rather high, but I am in Scotland so what do I know.

I think experience comes at a cost and a 6 month old is still v young. We looked at and rejected an au-pair.
We had a very flexible CM for 8 years, but only needed her 8-7 Mon-Fri, no weekends, no nights.

Look at advertising (personally I was disappointed by the responses I had on NannyJob and Childcare, but had many and good quality applicants from an add on Gumtree), stating your specific requirements.

We're in the south about 2 1/2 hrs from London. We had been planning on having babies once I was a consultant but life doesn't always turn out the way you expect ....thanks for your advice about the ads. I really think that hubby may have to give up work/find a different job but that's easier said than done and his current job means that he would be able to be transferred round the country if I had to move somewhere strange and distant for more senior posts. Grrrr..love my job but hate the family implications.

You might find a CM willing to do this, particularly one whose own children are at school. Get the list from your local council and get ringing...

Any chance btw that you could delay your return to work / DH could take sabbatical for a couple of months? Only asking because flexible childcare is sometimes more easily available for babies 1 yr +.

Oh yeah one more thing DH could do - right to request flexible working if child is under five - could he request a change in his hours e.g. not do the 11-8 shift, do a more predictable rota to help with childcare, reduce his hours...

Unfortunately I have to go to work to earn the dosh that keeps us housed after 7 months of maternity leave. DH is looking at taking the 2 months of left over paid statutory maternity leave I have, after the recent law change but we were looking at him returning to work/giving it up after that.

Although as I write this I've realised that he could also take the remaining unpaid 3 months of leave I have as well and have a job to return to when DD is a year old. We would have to eat cup a soup only during this time but if he is going to give up work anyway we may as well keep his options open...Cunning!

ooooh..flexible working...so many good ideas