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.

Pay for it? Go part time? I think that's your options really.

Sorry I maybe confused this. So we paid £1200 a year for 1 child for 2 years of nursery. This was out of our wage. Then second child came along and we now have 1 year where both of them are in nursery (saved for this). Next year eldest will go to school so that will leave just 1 x £1200 a month which again will come out of wage. We saved for the 1 year when both of them are in. It’s bloody tight but just manageable for us.

Sorry month*, not year

Neither I nor any of my friends use grandparents for childcare except babysitting on the odd night out.

You'll have to pay for childcare, which is pretty much the norm, round here anyway.

For DD1 we had an excellent childminder. DD started at 6 weeks old and stayed with her until she was 3 and then went to nursery.

DS went to a less good childminder for about a year. Not bad but not as good as the gold standard we had enjoyed with DD1's childminder.

When DD2 was born DH became SAHP.

Paid for it.

grandparents all live nearby. They had their kids. They do some evenings occasionally, but full time child care was our job

We have 3 grandparents and 6 aunts and uncles within 20 mins of us , not one has ever looked after our kid . Ever. Not even babysitting in the evening. Some people get lucky with parents who are retired and like children. Ours still work and have much better things to do. You just have to budget for it . Or do what I did and give up on a social life and work from home that works too !

And please remember that the state pension doesn't kick in until 66, a lot of women will already retire with not much of a pension and have to work as long as possible, so providing childcare becomes very problematic.

We sent him to nursery

I work my bollocks off so that we can pay for childcare. Don't assume the grandparents will do anything. They say "ooh we'd love to babysit" but they forget how full-on young children are. Once the child is there they realise they don't want to do anything other than take photos and have a 30 second cuddle then give the child back. Just assume they'll do nothing and plan accordingly.

I’m not really sure what your question is OP, you obviously know people have to pay for childcare, so I’m going to assume you mean either:

• How did you manage to afford it when you don’t have grandparents helping at least 1 day a week?
• How did you manage to deal with unexpected issues eg child not being allowed to go to nursery because they’re ill, childminder being sick, your train home at 5pm being cancelled etc?

For us, we were in a position to afford childcare comfortably, but I think the main thing you can do is save in advance, make sure you use any government benefits you’re entitled to eg tax free childcare, and think about reducing your hours if it’s worth it for you, or maybe working evenings once they’re in bed some days if agreed with your employer.

For emergencies, I’d love to hear what others do, as I’m sort of hoping to rely on grandparents. We have agreed with our cleaner that if they’re not available and she is free, she will watch him for us, but she’s only available for half days here and there so not a reliable solution. I’m vaguely hoping I can find an emergency nanny to be honest but know not everyone can afford that.

Lots of goady threads today, is there something in the air?

This is a wind up, surely!

Adjusted/my working hours and took the financial hit that way rather than paying for childcare.
My husband came in from work and I left for work 10 minutes later.

There will always be some degree of financial sacrifice when you have children

If you can't work out the basics like this, are you sure you are ready to be starting a family?

You are going to have much more complex things to work out than 'how can I ensure my child is looked after when I cannot force my relatives to do it!'

(In no way implying that those whose parents do childcare for them have forced them, this is very much aimed at the OP who seems to think that its standard to get them to do it)

We are quite lucky that IL live close and enjoy spending time with the kids and see them often. However its whenever they wan't thing so usually on an evening when they have finished doing the things the want during the day and they go on several holidays a year, have bad days due to getting older etc... so they would never be childcare for if I wanted to work.

As for what we do I'm at home so I can watch the kids, we simply couldnt afford to pay for childcare and I wouldnt want to work full time away from my kids busting my ass everyday just to hand all that pay check right over to someone else who got to spend that time with my kids.

I make money here and there through part time self employment and DH works full time.

You don't seriously think that most grandparents spend their time minding grandchildren?
Lots of Grandparents still work too.
Some of my children grandparents live very close by, never entered my mind that they would be minderw for my children.
Fair enough they often visit, maybe go watch children matches, bring them to shop ect. But it if they available or don't want to do it not an obligation.
If I was going away or night out they could offer to help out otherwise I would get a babysitter usually would try a babysitter first.

People are pretty harsh on this thread. At least op is thinking about how childcare will work, some people don't consider anything

I think many adults do, and move house to be near parents in the expectation they'll provide it!

Some of us didn't, and paid our way.

If you are lucky OP they might help in the holidays.

Same here. We paid for childcare and would take turns to go out, as the other would stay home with the children.

I started a business that I could do from home while still being able to look after the kids. The only other option is to pay someone else to do it.

Paid for it, both sets of Grandparents are within five minutes of us but I only ever ask them occasionally if they can help out with ad hoc childcare I wouldn’t want them to be tied down to regular childcare.

It's a bit different from the many threads where OP complains about "selfish" grandparents not providing free childcare/babysitting on tap and everyone says ah well they'll get their comeuppance when they're elderly and you don't look after them.

Hi OP, I can only imagine you don't mean routine free childcare for when you're working (as you'll know that most people pay for that, be it nursery, childminder, nanny). You probably mean for nights out and nights/weekends away - to have a break from baby.

Well, if you don't have family nearby that is pretty tricky. We are both from abroad so have no family in the country. A couple of close friends who were also mums were very helpful in offering to babysit every now and then, but for overnight trips away we didn't leave our DC until he was 2 or so. Again with close friend.

You’ve heard of nurseries yes?