No grandparents for childcare!

[torbs]

Hi everyone :)

This is my first thread here.

My partner and I are hoping to start a family soon.

We are both from the South of England, but moved to the North a few years ago, where we bought our first home.

Unfortunately, both of our parents still live down south - making childcare prospects difficult!

What did those of you who didn't have parents/grandparents/family as an option for free childcare do?!

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your replies.

We have three children. All adults now. I’m not British, I moved here for my husband. His parents were not so in mined to ever watch the children but also we lived in London and they lived on Kent coast so weekday care was not possible either. When it was just one child, we had childminder. Later, as we added to our brood, we had live in child care (and moved for extra bedrooms/bathrooms too) as it was cheaper than nursery or childminders and more reliable. Both of us have high stress, professional jobs that also required travelling. As the kids reached teens years, we had live in au pairs who could drive and drive them to all their after school activities.

never had family who could watch the kids and we managed.

We pay for nursery and are prioritising school applications based on wraparound care. We have one child and likely to stay that way due to the cost of childcare. Both GPs live miles away - my parents offer to look after DD when they're visiting so me and DH can have a night out but that's only once or twice a year. My MIL is housebound and my FIL is her carer so they couldn't help if we lived closer anyway. Sick days from nursery I usually cover (as I can work from home) but DH works close to home so he's always on hand for an emergency pick up if I'm in the office. You find a way through money and being as flexible as you can - if you have an understanding boss then that's a bonus! I've come close to leaving my job a few times but I stay because of the flexibility they offer and the understanding from my boss and colleagues.

Just redone the maths, actually closer to £1500!

childminder

We live abroad, Dd is 4 and we’ve never had proper babysitting. We likely will start next summer and will have to pay a babysitter 🤷🏻‍♀️

My parents live abroad. I paid for full time nursery and had an aupair for wrap around

In many parts of the world children live with grandparents while parents work, often working away from home in a city. And before anyone says ‘but that’s because wages are low, paid childcare isn’t available, family structures there are different’, well affordability and availability of childcare are problems here too. It’s normal for grandparents to spend time with their children and grandchildren here too. The MN grandparent who is celebrated for being far too busy to do anything so dull as childcare for their entitled adult child isn’t what I see in real life.

What did those of you who didn't have parents/grandparents/family as an option for free childcare do?!

Pay for a childminder/nursery/wraparound care. My DP are local and they work full time, they aren't a source of regular child care.

Yes we pay £1200 per child and have 2 in nursery. It’s a lot :( but we saved up prior to them both being there and they’ll only overlap for a year before the eldest goes to school. It’s something we factored in before having our youngest and honestly would not have had a second if we couldn’t afford it. It’s a huge consideration and a crazy amount of money.

Don't have jobs with long hours or live far from so you have an excessively long commute
Pay for childcare
Hope you don't have a child that is constantly off nursery with bugs
Adjust work hours (dh took a week day off and worked a day at weekend instead, first year I used accrued annual leave to work 4 days a week for nearly a year)
Flex workhours to reduce childcare needed
Actively work to build relationships with other parents in school and find any opportunities for reciprocal care (once they are a couple of years into primary school)
dh and I mostly used annual leave separately to cover school holidays and we spent time looking after other peoples kids so they would look after ours (sounds awful, but ds loved having friends to play with, and two are easier to entertain than one)

I didn’t work because it didn’t make financial sense for me to do so.

my children are teens now but I know very few people who had free childcare from grandparents other than the odd emergency situation.

You pay for childcare via nursery, nanny, au pair or childminder.

Went without. Didn't go back to work for many years as a result. Fortunately dh earned enough to make this feasible.

My parents live 3 miles away but don’t babysit for us.

We pay for professional childcare.

I think op is getting a hard time here! It's a very valid concern especially considering the cost of childcare. Surely any of us would love to have willing and able grandparents to help out?! Also kids are so lucky to have a close relationship with grandparents. If I am ever lucky enough to have grandchildren I would love to help out (a bit) with childcare.

Most ppl I know have family who help out. Our mums do a day each per week for us. So grateful for this and we know how lucky we are. We definitely don't expect it. They don't accept money but we buy them nice gifts/vouchers.
The bonus is they have a lovely relationship with their grandchild.

Yes. We saved like mad whilst I was pregnant and then depleted said savings until our funded hours kicked in this month. I know others whose bill is even more - our nursery is one of the cheapest in the area. The cost is likely to stop us from having a second even when DD starts school as I'm not sure we could ever save like we did pre child plus we have a house that needs renovating that we delayed to have DD in the first place!

With my first child I went part time and paid for nursery. With my second child I decided to take a few years off work to be a SAHM. Of course I could have gone back to work and put them both in nursery. Our families live hundreds of miles away.

£1200 x 12 = £14400 a year
Say 2.5 years each between mat leave and free hours = £36,000
x 2 kids = £72,000….

You saved £72k for childcare before you had kids?! Even if you saved half that’s (not sure what the word is?) impressive?

We’re not too bad at saving but that’s not a sum of money that would be feasible on our wages.

I went back to work 3 days, one of which was a weekend day. DH regular mon-fri.
So I look after dc mon-weds, nursery/childminder Thurs and Fri
DH looks after them Sat
Family time Sun.

Then when they go to school we use breakfast club, so DH drops them off at 7.30 then works 9-5. I work 6am-2pm then do the afternoon school pick up.

And variations on the above over the years. Most people don't have family around to help with childcare

4 years of FT nursery at £900/month (plus babysitting if we wanted to go out in the evening), 5 years of wrap around care and holiday clubs (and babysitting), 3 years of holiday clubs (and babysitting). Now ds is 16 and we are finally able to go away for the night together, so we are properly out of the end of it. WFH did make life a lot easier once ds was able to amuse himself and walk to and from school or holiday club

Nursery

I am currentlybpregnant with my second and will have a csection so my mum is coming over to live with us for a few weeks to help with my older son/ do some nursery runs while I recover but this is the exception.

The vast majority of my friends who have kids have them in paid childcare of some sort I only know of 1 family where grandparents do childcare and in that case it's 2 days a week after school where they pick her up and take her to an activity.
Contrary to what you see on here paid childcarenis far more the norm

It's easy when they're babies/toddlers as they can go to nursery.

The shocker is when they start school. School hours, 9–3, are not helpful childcare wise. In our area of the SE there is a serious shortage of childminders and after-school clubs for wraparound care. It's a massive issue unless you can afford a nanny (which is a significant financial commitment as you must officially employ them with all the costs that go with that).

Didn't work for 12 years! As wouldn't have been in credit except in a 5-week month so it wasn't worth the timetabling hassles. I did a lot volunteering to keep my skills in hand

I've got three children (7, 5 and 2) and we have never had any 'free childcare'. I'm estranged from my family and DHs are abroad most of the time (but do a bit of babysitting so we can go out of an evening when they come and visit).

It's not especially unusual to not have free childcare, I went part time and work and DH compressed his hours to ease the burden a bit. We are not high earners at all, but luckily work somewhere flexible with regard to work/life balance. We pay for the rest of it. It's hard and we have never had a holiday abroad or anything, most of our clothes are second hand etc, but you manage.

Flexible working, one working shifts and one working with flexible core hours