Shift work/occasional nights

[dimmu]

Hello everyone,
My husband has been offered a new job that will consists of shifts; it will be four days on, then four days off and after that four nights shifts and then four days off. His shifts starts at 7 am/pm I work four days a week, two of those from home and two in our London office, and spend one night a week in London.

Obviously there will be times when his shifts will clash with my office days. I am not sure what to do about child care for those days. We have two DC, one is school and the other one in nursery.

We can probably shuffle our days a bit but there will be occasions when we would need someone to stay with the kids overnight. Also as DH would need to be at work early we would need some help with taking the kids to school/nursery.

We have no family nearby to help, although someone maybe able to come and stay with us for the first month.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and what did you do? Find a local student or childcare provider? How did you find them? Or should we consider an au pair? Although it seems a bit futile to have someone living with us full time when we only need them two days a week, and not even every week.

I would try your local authority they should have a list all providers in your area also look on childcare.co.uk. I would say you are looking more at nanny’s as they provide care in your home where as childminders offer care in there homes. I think you may struggle if it’s as an when arrangement you are looking for as providers do not need to keep a space free for you permanently so you may find they have no space on the days you need.

If I were you I would aim to organise a schedule that works with your DH. So on the time he’s on, you work from home, and the time he’s off you go into the London office. 4 days wfh and 4 days in the office could potentially work better for your employer too.

While our situation isnt exactly the same, we are also living in an area with no longer term friends or own family around. This wont solve your immediate dilemma, but I would recommend you build up your network of reliable childminders. When we moved to where we are now, I engaged minders to start to develop a relationship with them and to see what they are like. The better ones I have kept by booking in occasional/irregular childminding sessions. This means I have people I can call on in the event of a sudden need for cover. For right now I would start advertising for assistance and to start to see what quality of people reply and judge them as well as you can. Perhaps you can do this through an existing trust network - for example through people you already know from mums groups, church groups, etc. Good luck.

@MoranTA

Are you talking about properly registered childminders, or just casual ad hoc babysitters? There’s a world of difference.

Childminders are professionally trained, qualified and insured, then registered and regularly inspected by Ofsted. Because they are legal and government-approved you can pay them through money-saving schemes such as tax-free childcare. They make a contractual commitment to work particular hours/days. They work almost exclusively from their own homes, although some will come out to your home in certain circumstances.

Babysitters can be anybody with any sort of background and no training or insurance. You have no way of knowing how safe they are. They cannot legally take responsibility for someone else’s child. That means the parents can be held responsible for anything that happens. They can never be regarded as anything like reliable, as you cannot hold them accountable or tie them to a legally binding contract.

An au pair only costs around £100 per week so may well be cheaper than a by the hour nanny. You have to of course also provide bed and board and they generally won't stay longer than 6-12 month.

Have you got space for an au pair? It sounds like it would fit the bill the most as you need a high level of flexibility.