London mums working long hours - how do you manage childcare?

[Ceramic272]

I’m only(!) 4 months pregnant, so this is all VERY very contingent - but after some conversations with some older friends, I’m thinking ahead to how we might manage childcare in London and feeling totally at sea.

DH and I both work your stereotypical corporate (read not very child friendly) jobs… However we do both love our work/are on good tracks. I’ll need to go back full time maybe around 9months (we will try and share some parental leave though I’ll do the bulk). SAHM/ part time isn’t on the table for various reasons, nor is a longer mat leave really an option in my job (so please please don’t start a debate on any of those/tell me to change jobs! It’s difficult enough to make it in my industry as a woman as it is :/.)

So the main options then are a nursery or nanny. It seems a nursery would be “cheaper” ( maybe around 25k a year?), and I like the idea of “socialisation” I guess, but obviously they all end 630pm latest. Frustratingly both our jobs can be unreliable and end much later in the day, with longish commutes, so I worry this will cause significant stress between us ducking out of meetings/constantly trying to decide whose turn it is to dip out for pick up etc.

So the obvious option is a nanny- and the more senior women I work with who have children all use this - but I’m just stunned at the costs! Am I right in thinking it’s going to be 50-60k per year all in? :s We could manage but with all other mortgage costs etc we’d basically not be saving much/anything at all..

Are there any ways to manage this better- eg 3-4 days a week nanny/1-2 days a week nursery? (as we can each wfh 1 day a week- but I don’t know if nannies are keen to work part time..). Or has anyone tried nursery plus say an an au pair/nanny evening wraparound to give some flexibility? (Is that even an option?) And where is the best place to find nannies - is it simplest to go through an agency first (and which one?) I’d love to hear tips from other London folk in similar job positions on the best ways to manage!

Also just to add- this was triggered by a neighbour saying she signed her current 1 year old up for all the local nurseries when she was 4 months pregnant, and he’s only just got accepted into one.. which again is another stress that childcare just won’t even be available! (We live in a very nappy valley area so tons of demand..)

One possible option is a nanny share with another family. Not necessarily easy to arrange, but reduces the costs significantly. Lots of nannies do work part time, particularly if they are doing long days, as 3x12 hour days is pretty much full time anyway. I don't know if that makes it harder to find someone though.

Honestly, you need a nanny if you want very long hours. You’ll have to pay them a fortune though - 8-6 five days a week is already 50 hours (think £40-50k cost to you).

Having multiple ‘types’ of childcare is IMO way too complicated for you to remain sane while in a very intense job. Have you looked at childminders - there basically aren’t any local to us in London (I assume due to cost of housing).

We both have full time jobs in London and ultimately we have both had to adapt our routines and push back a bit to make the standard nursery hours work. And we often work after bedtime, if required.

IMO it’s ok to push back on this a bit nowadays, so long as you are still offering flexibility.

Assuming you are probably both lawyers? This is why people often end up with one person going I -house where the hours are better.

Unless you are prepared to pay for a nanny (and are happy to put your child in someone else's care for longer hours) you need to change the way you work - you and your DH will need to take it in turns to finish at 5/5.30pm to collect and do bedtime etc. and then you log back on at 8pm.

It means you get very little downtime.

I work in a very corporate job with long days.

One of the best thing I did was to work compressed hours for the first year after returning to work. This means I basically worked 4 extra long days (but not much longer than pre baby because I was working such insane days), and I had one day a week off to spend with the baby. At full-time pay.

And also DH and I shifted working hours a bit, so he started work early. I was in charge of all morning nursery drop offs, which means he could end early and be in charge of all pickups. It worked with the time zones that we each interfaced with most at work.

However ... There's a big issue that you might not be very aware of yet. And that's how much time babies spend being sick when they first start nursery and/or socialise with other children. There wasn't a month in the first 2-3 years where DS didn't have a chest infection, D&V Bug, random unexplained fever, Hand Foot and Mouth, or whatever. (We vaccinated for chickenpox, so didn't even have to contend with that.) I don't know what the deal is with nannies, but nurseries obviously won't take sick kids. DH and I took turns staying home on these occasions, and it was quite a killer.

We nanny-shared. But our nanny finished at 1830.

We staggered our working hours so that I started early and finished early and DH handled dropoff and finished later. But it is likely that you are going to find that with a baby, both of you working very long FT hours is not very sustainable.

We have this, we take it in turns to work from home and do slightly shorter days then log back on once they’re in bed.

once a week my parents come over so we can both do a longer day in the office then. Our childcare bill for 2 children at nursery is over £3k a month

it’s really tough, pre covid when WTF wasn’t “a thing” I don’t know how 2 working parent families managed it

Honestly ... you need to realise that you need a nanny, possibly 2 for that kind of coverage but you really may find you can't both work at that intensity with children. Your child will need their parents.

If you can both reliably wfh 1 day per week, using a local nursery for those days would make it possible to have a nanny work 3 long days 7.30-7.30 perhaps with an understanding they are available to stay late 1 day per week taking it to 40 hours?

I don’t know a single couple in your position (and, via uni I know more than a few!) who both carried on working in the same way post children. It wasn’t always the women who changed but they all did change.

If you do want to both carry on as you are you will need your nanny to work longer hours than you - ie your hours + your commute. And that will cost A LOT.

what hours do you need a nanny for? If you make no changes?

I'm a lawyer and work in London, commuting from commuterville. Ex is also a lawyer. When we had DD it was not possible for both of us to keep the office hours we had before. She went to nursery (which even in our commuter town, I had to sign up for at 4 months pregnant to guarantee the place). Nursery pick up was 6pm latest and it was me who did this every day. I then did bedtime and caught up on work after, which meant dinner together was rare and I'd work 8-11pm often. Ex just stayed in office and came home after bedtime usually.

If you genuinely want to both keep doing the long hours, I'd imagine you'd need 2 nannies: a daytime one and one to cover bedtime and until you get home. Or nursery plus a nanny who picks up at 5pm, does tea and bedtime and stays till you get back.

You may find that when you have your baby, the idea of only spending an hour a day with him or her while childcare does the rest is not what you want after all. It is possible to scale back the face time in the office - more than ever, now. It's also ok to want to go full steam ahead with your career. But you can't have it all, don't believe anyone who says you can!

Wow thank you so much for all the comments so far. This is just what I needed, and it has given me a lot to think about. As I said very few women in my job have kids (and the ones that do are much older/more senior) so I really have no idea of how it’s done. I think the issue is mostly the lack of predictability- obviously I don’t want to be missing out on time with the baby at all, and my work is good about wfh at least on Friday (and I’m sure I could add on Monday too) - I’m not crazy! I can also start later in the day, and wfh in evenings. But there are just so many fire drills that happen in the evening that getting home by 630pm every day seems too unreliable. I guess something like 830-730 nanny would be reliable coverage but obviously I’d still try to get home earlier every day I can, wfh 1-2 days a week, etc…

My mum did mention a nanny share but I imagine it may be quite tricky to find someone/work out the cost split etc.. but I will try.

I know realistically I may need to reconsider working patterns in the long run, it’s just depressing that these corporate jobs are still so difficult for working women in 2024, and really makes me question why I have ever bothered in the first place. I do know a couple of women who’ve managed in my job but I know it has been very, very difficult for them (and I know they also are the main breadwinners so the husbands picked up the slack- but my husband doesn’t want to compromise his job either..). Everyone else has left.

Nanny. It’s your only choice really if you want to continue with the same hours.

We've had ours for six years. A big factor was that the first time we met her she explained that she knew that people in our part of town (outer London) couldn’t generally afford the sort of central London nanny costs. So for us it was never quite as expensive as some of the prices you’ve been quoted. Also I went down to four days a week.

In general though I do think there’s a big element of sucking it up. This period of huge childcare costs can be temporary (although has to be said in their world you’re talking about it is tricky to bring them to an end!!) and enables you to continue your career trajectory unhindered, which obviously will pay in the long-term.

But you can't have it all, don't believe anyone who says you can!

I don’t even have a high earning corporate career, but I want to highlight this from @Elektra1 and say that I agree with it wholeheartedly.

Really You need a nanny. Can cover longer hours than nursery and will care for most illnesses that nursery will exclude for. There is no way we could both have progressed our careers without using a nanny.

If you have the space a live in nanny works out quite a bit cheaper and slightly longer hours as standard. Or a nanny share but that can bring its own issues. If you speak to a few nanny agencies they will give you an idea for your areas of cost and whether people often do shares.

Even with a nanny though you’ll need together to be much more disciplined as someone will need to get home to release her in a way you don’t have to now. And of course you’ll have got someone at home you’ll want to see!

Whether you go for nanny or nursery my advice to you, as to women I work with going off on mat leave - is do not let it be split that he will do all morning drop offs/handover and you do all evenings. You will massively shaft yourself at home and at work - insist on splitting the evenings fairly.

I’m also amused at how many people have immediately inferred this is 2 lawyers.. not going to out myself more haha, but my god I’m glad not to be alone/feel a bit mad about this specific career! (And also seriously questioning why I didn’t follow a totally different path sometimes..)

“it’s just depressing that these corporate jobs are still so difficult for working women in 2024”

No, difficult for working people. Your husband is equally liable for parenting. Ideally you’ll both make career compromises of more or less equal value so that you can raise your child.

You may not want comments about changing your work schedule or jobs but honestly it’s your best option that one of you has more flexibility.

Pick up at 630 and then quick feed, bath and bed sounds tough for a baby - every night.

Also what happens during sickness and sleep regressions - it’s the middle of the night here and my daughter has been awake for 2 hours - currently blowing bubbles in bed but not sleeping!!

Don’t get me wrong I went back to work at 9 months - it saved my sanity but for 2 days a week … Long long hours for both parents and a baby don’t work

Both lawyers. Both in City law firms, with DH a partner whilst I’m on track for partnership.

I work a four day week so we only need nursery for four days. Then from those four days, we each work from home on two of them. The person going to the office does drop off whilst the person working from home does pick up. But we adjust as needed if one of us has a meeting, a deadline, etc.

It can be difficult when we’re both busy but we juggle nursery pick up, dinner and bed time as needed and often need to log back on after bedtime.

Btw we just block out our respective drop offs and pick ups in our diaries so that no early or late meetings are scheduled for then.

I know realistically I may need to reconsider working patterns in the long run, it’s just depressing that these corporate jobs are still so difficult for working women in 2024

I do know a couple of women who’ve managed in my job but I know it has been very, very difficult for them (and I know they also are the main breadwinners so the husbands picked up the slack- but my husband doesn’t want to compromise his job either..)

You’ve missed the point here slightly I think. They’re not difficult for working women, they’re difficult for working people. And choices have to be made. The thing is that one of you WILL have to compromise.

Now, there’s a bigger feminist argument about why that might be predominantly women (but also biology: you might find you don’t want to do this when you’ve had the baby) but your bigger issue now is that you are pregnant and need to come to a conclusion.

which one of you has the most flexibility?

WFH means you are supposed to be working, not doing childcare and juggling a bit of time for work.

Yes we do too, I found that setting boundaries early on was key.

Totally agree with this from @StuckInTheUpsideDown: "
Whether you go for nanny or nursery my advice to you, as to women I work with going off on mat leave - is do not let it be split that he will do all morning drop offs/handover and you do all evenings. You will massively shaft yourself at home and at work - insist on splitting the evenings fairly."

I was shafted in exactly this way by my ex (who subsequently had an affair and left me). I've lost count of the number of work events I've had to miss because of this (and ex's total lack of flexibility). Compromises do have to be made when kids come along and those compromises should be shared equally.

How dense. WTF means you save the commute time so can do more childcare / nursery runs