Working 60 hours on shift, impossible childcare situations!

[civicxx]

Help!

Me & my partner currently work in the same place on the same shift doing the same hours. 60 hours one week, 24 the next. (Although overtime is currently needed so it's more like 70/34) We work 6-6 days & nights, the shift pattern operates 364 days a year.

We net around £4200.
We have a 3 bedroom house but do not have a room free for an Au Pair nor the parking room & don't think it would suit us.
Does anybody know how we could overcome our upcoming childcare issue?

Daughter is 8 & pretty much takes care of herself. Currently she stays with grandparents (who we pay). When working day shift I then come out of work to pick her up & take her to school as we couldn't find anybody to pick her up from one area of the town and take her to school in another. She then is collected by a childminder on the days we work untill 6pm & then taken back to grandparents.

On a weekend she is solely with grandparents which costs me around £90 for the weekend, however grandparents have their own stuff to do & child isn't really being entertained or engaged in much bar YouTube on the computer.

On a night shift daughter does to grandparents at 5.30 after running round like a lunatic doing showers after swimming, tea & homework. Daughter then sleeps at grandparents & is collected by me in the morning for school. The struggle to stay awake & then drive is horrendous each shift.

Come June grandparents have said they no longer want to look after daughter & we are faced with zero childcare.

Could anybody suggest any ideas?
We are able to go on opposite shifts so that one persons days off is the others in, however this just would not work we would never see each other atall. We are also able to go on opposite in the sense that when one is on nights the other is on days, but can't really see how this would make things much different either.
Very worried that I will have to leave!

Any intel majorly appreciated!

Is there a different option to working totally opposite shifts? I'm guessing from your op there are 4 shift rotations running? So rather than working totally opposite could you work a shift that butts on to his? So on the week you do 5 shifts he does days, you do nights, the opposite the next week?

Whilst I appreciate you'd literally not see each other for days at a time you would surely still get some rest days together?

We are both emergency services workers and have arranged out shifts to work opposite. Yes it's shit at times but there's always one of us at home for the school and nursery run and we now have zero childcare costs. We have no family support for childcare so this is the only way to do it. We do still end up with around 7 days a month off together when our rest days coincide.

@MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig thanks so much for that, Mum net went in and edited it for me this morning :)

Yes it is four shifts. So say this week we do Monday & Tuesday 6-6 Day
Friday, Saturday & Sunday 6-6 nights.

We would still have the crossover which wouldn't be too bad at 6pm but at 6am would be, also at the weekends whoever is on nights would need to sleep the majority.

Glad you found something that works for you as it's very stressful!

I am not intending to do this job forever and I am thinking of putting in a formal flexible working request but I imagine it will be denied: if anybody could offer advice or experience on a nanny that would be great!

Why can't one of you do

Mon tues day
Fri, sat, sun night
Weds thurs day

And the other do
Weds Thursday day
Mon tues day
Fri Sat sun night

?

Then you wouldn't have any childcare problems...

Could you find a local older teenager who could help? I would have loved that kind of thing and £90 a weekend would be loads of money to them!

We tried opposite shifts when I returned from Mat leave. Within 2 months we knew it would not work for us. The small time we got as a family was spent on admin and chores or arguing!
I ended up changing roles to a Daytime role so I could do pickup/drop off at wraparound care.
What works for you and your family won’t be the same for others.

Ah ok so I assume your partner isn’t your daughter’s father. And thus if a career has to take a hit it will be yours.

If you want to go down the nanny route I would suggest finding local nanny agencies and discussing. There is only going to be a finite number of people who the job would appeal to though given the weekend work and irregular hours as it would make it difficult for them to have a regular life. You could also tryvplaces like gumtree but do your due diligence.

I get the impression though that you don’t have a space room/ is that right? If so I can’t see a nanny/au pair etc can work as where would they sleep?

@FruitCider

We've looked at that, we would still need a nanny a few times a month for when we cross for example on the what you worked out there there would be a Sunday night where on is on nights & the other starting at 6am on the Monday. Massive improvement though & what we are considering on doing, think we could ask to do it for a month now & see how it works out.

I've printed paperwork off today to request flexible working but expect it will be denied.