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!

If your considering nurseries and need full time you will need to make some decisions quickly I think. In my area (south east commuter town) you had no hope of getting a full time place from 1 year if you waited much past 6m pregnant to get on the list, let alone from 9m.

Me and dp both work full time, so I don't mean to sound judgemental - I just can't fathom choosing to work such long hours with babies at the same time. My kids (5 and 2) are both asleep by 7.30pm - if I were working your hours, I just wouldn't see them during the week!

I won't bother sharing what works for us as we have very different jobs and we've loads of flexibility. But are you sure this is how you want to do it, particularly when they're all tiny and squishy? That time goes so fast. I think it's important to reflect on what's going to matter to you both in 10, 20, 30 years time, etc. Just food for thought.

And the sickness others mentioned - you'll be screwed if you use nursery working how you work. Definitely nanny, I understand they take them with more illnesses as they don't have to consider passing things to other kids?

The thing is about nursery places is that with subsequent children people book up much sooner because you might as well - I filled in
the reg form for DS3 the day of my 12 week scan when I picked up DS1 and 2 😂

Yes to the posters who’ve pointed this out - of course(!!) it’s an issue for all working parents. And I really really want DH and I to manage this as equally as we can. But, without getting into the politics of it, for whatever reason there are plenty of working dads still going strong at my place and very, very few working mums. All my mentors are men with sahm partners and I’ve felt a lot of pressure to act like these issues don’t affect me (which obviously needs to change) and I think tbh, atm I just feel very awkward about how I’ll vocalise this without getting pushed out ..

On a personal level, I just really worry that DH and I will get at loggerheads if we don’t find a good approach upfront. There are some really helpful suggestions from people on this thread about splitting responsibilities, pick up vs drop off etc in this thread - these are exactly the kind of helpful tips I need.

Also how far in advance do people contact nanny agencies? (Given everyone seems to agree nurseries are going to be competitive af apparently). I’m still of the mentality that I can’t talk about this until I’ve made it past the 20 week scan! (struggled a lot with fertility/miscarriage last year)

You'll be flamed for saying this but I agree.

However, OP, don't be surprised if you fall in love with your baby and can't bear to be away from them for such brutally long hours. I hope you and your DH can work things out and he might also be keen to spend longer with his baby than he thought he would!

Be aware that separation anxiety kicks in big time at around 9 months so a younger baby will find it easier to settle into childcare. And babies need to form bonds with primary carers so limit the number of childcare settings. Don't forget that your baby may pick up every bug going at nursery and will need to be kept home - another
reason to have a nanny.

It sounds as if you may have to bite the bullet with regards to nanny costs

I

Leaving aside the working dads / mums thing for a moment… Is there anyone at your work, male or female, with children, where both parents have a high flying corporate career? How about at your husband’s place of work?

If the answer is no, that might also give you good food for thought about why that might be…

Thank you again to all the helpful posters and to some of the others, please keep the judgy comments to yourselves, OBVIOUSLY I won’t know how I feel etc until the time and realistically, if I could go back in time, I’d choose a different career path entirely. If I sound detached it’s because I’m paranoid af about the pregnancy going to term, let alone managing life after, and trying to stay in a pragmatic mindset!

I am also totally convinced re having a nanny..

I realise I come from a very privileged place with this advice, but I managed it by moving as close as possible to work to cut my commute to / from work - and by signing up for the most work friendly nursery possible.

Our nursery finished at 7pm and had a service where if you were late at work you could pay extra to have them take your DC home. You also got home care if your DC was sick and they had extra staff. Nursery cost upwards of £2,000 per month per child though so it wasn't cheap.

Living in Central London near work is of course very expensive - but so worth it if you can pull it off. That said, we saved no money until the DC went to (state) school. But it was an investment in growing my career and most importantly to max time spent with the DC with flexibility and lack of commuting. It was also cheaper than a nanny.

A final word of advice - sign up for nurseries asap, OP. I left it too late at 20 weeks with DC1 and we had a few months of difficult juggle. Best of luck!!

This. Your husband needs to make it clear he’s a parent too. DH is a partner in a top firm. He’s also the only partner in his large department that does the nursery run. It’s not just the woman’s job even though law firms suggest it is and you need to set that boundary from the start or else your career will suffer and resentment will build.

For those warning me about nursery sign ups now - got it, am going to get on that now. Do I need to sign up with nanny agencies too if we are thinking about that route??!

I would also start asking yourself now - how many of these late afternoon fire drills really are same day problems? So do you had to be offline say 6-9pm to get home and do bed time, really would the world end? I bet it often wouldn’t. And if this is happening a lot, how can you work with colleagues to stop this because that’s no way to operate.

You May both want to also think about the specifics of what jobs you do. I absolutely don’t mean to “mummy track” but for example in my field there is often transactional work and advisory work. Prior to kids I started to Segway more into advisory and did less transactional - no less work and no less senior but generally a bit more controllable as to WHEN I did the work. When the work exceeded regular hours, and it often did, then found it was easier to work 1 or max 2 nights per week very late to catch up and the others stop so I have time with the baby before bed. And once baby was in bed it didn’t matter to them if I came in 1 minute later or 3 hours later. Yes I’d like to do bed 7 nights a week but I figured being there for 5-6 a week was close enough. I settled on this after being home every night for bed, cranking up the laptop afterwards and never ever having any form of evening.

FWIW I returned from mat leave both times before 9 months but BF past 18 months.

I know you don't want to hear it, but 8.30am-7.30pm is totally insane. You'll never see your child and I would worry they'll have detachment/resentment issues as they grow older. My husband and I are high earners, but have built respect with our employers so we work flexibility, doing all school/nursery drop-offs and most of the pickups between us, working in evenings after bedtime to make up time etc. Your presence arguably becomes more important once children are at school. They have playdates, hobbies/clubs, homework, emotional support etc to manage. You simply can't farm this out to someone else, you need to parent your child. I think we probably have as close as it comes to having it all. It's relentless and stressful with long days, but we are there for our children and have never missed milestones/ performances/ assemblies/ parents evenings etc. I couldn't grow old and look back to realise I missed it all.

@Ceramic272

my advice would be to reframe the situation, instead of DH and your career in opposition, sit down with your DH and see yourselves as partners in a business. You are both the business ! Kids are not young for long, so look at childcare as a 10 year project. if you both put in 75% for a few years, in the end you’ll both have more time and more money in the end.

look at your usual schedules - fit around each other but also schedule time together.

If you have less flexibility and need to stay late sometimes, can you work compressed hours and go in later, then your DH always does pick up? It is easier for men to do more picks ups, they are not seen as workshy, they are seen a great dads. So annoying but true.

The reality is you will have to have some juggle between you. Dh and I take work home frequently and our careers are.... not exactly stalled, but def not full throttle...

I'd consider childminder or a combo of childcare.
Our friend use nursery with part time nanny wrap around.

And also find and build out reliable person(s) who can be used in emergency situations.

For us its my mum and our childminder. Buttt we could call two neighbours and our cleaner ìn a pinch.

OP I’ve had a nanny since our oldest was about 6 months. Our current one works 12 hour days, M-F. probably has to stay half an hour or so later maybe once a week but other than that she only works late probably once or twice a month.

You need to be vigilant at having a strict cut off time when you leave the office, recognising that sometimes means arranging calls late in the evening and often means logging back on post bedtime. The more senior you are the more you can dictate your own diary in my experience.

Do you need to travel or attend evening events? Pre Covid we both travelled a lot and there were a couple of times when our nanny stayed over.

You obviously can’t take the piss but most nannies realise the main reason they have a job is because the parents need flexibility. Accordingly, I pay very well so that hopefully our nanny feels appreciated and well looked after.

Some of my colleagues mix a nanny with nursery and it looks like a pain in the backside. Obviously the kids are mainly sick on a nursery day!

I’ve always used an agency. Costs a fortune but the quality of applicants has been great and takes all the hassle out of it.

From day 1 we had a routine, and we still have our set days now dc are 10 and 8. It has never been up for discussion, everyone in DH's office knows he leaves on time on Tuesday and Wednesday. And that's way easier for people to remember - nobody likes surprises.

I do 3 pick ups and 2 drop offs, DH vice versa. And you absolutely have to be firm about it. It works for men, the more vocal he is about doing the nursery run, the more he'll get promoted 🙄

We decided against the nanny route because we didn’t want to be dependent on one person for childcare. If they were ever sick or on holiday, we would be screwed.

With nurseries, we generally registered at 7 months, because I was similarly anxious.

One of my friends is a very high flying lawyer. He doesn’t have kids, but has worked with a couple of female partners who are mothers and married to other partners. One had two nannies (and at least one always went on holiday with them). The other had a live in nanny, who ended up staying with them until their youngest child was 15; after one holiday alone as a family where the child was sick and absolutely distraught without the nanny to comfort him, the mother actually took on the chin the fact that she really wasn’t his prImary carer and kept her on until her son felt ready to be without her. Not many people can cope with kids and these sort of very hours intensive jobs; those who do have to accept that they won’t spend very much time with their kids (although they do make a lot of money to pay for the childcare!). It depends what you want as a family, I suppose. The only person I know well who has tried to
do it gave up; she negotiated flexible working and realised that even that was a hiding to nothing career wise and still meant she got a lot of stress and not enough quality time with her kids. These are jobs which require a huge and focused time commitment, for which you are paid very well. The problem is that children also require a huge time commitment and I think it’s very hard for both parents to be in the former camp.

But it’s MUCH more likely your kids are sick than your nanny. You definitely miss less work due to illness with a nanny than nursery.

I worked as a Nanny for 10 years in central London, worked abroad as an Aupair, worked in nurseries when I was younger and also did a couple of years as a Childminder when my own children were young. As a parent myself I have been the employer of a Nanny and put my own children in nursery. Please feel free to PM me if you would like to ask me any questions, I’m happy to chat through all the pros and cons of each option and answer any questions you may have. Congrats on the pregnancy x

When DD was tiny (long time pre-COVID so there was no flex) she went to nursery 8 am to 6 pm. DH and I (both in London professional jobs) ran a fortnightly rota where we alternated who dropped off and who picked up every day. We each agreed with our respective employers that we would start late/finish early as needed, only by a couple of hours. There were plenty of times when the trains would go wrong and I’d arrive at nursery late, but nursery knew I was busting a gut to get there on time rather than taking the piss and were marvellous about it.

You have to set boundaries and stick to them. So does your DH. It is much more acceptable for either parent to say, “I’m sorry, I have to leave now as I have the nursery run.” It requires diary discipline and good communication between you and your DH (we would swap shifts if either of us needed to work late or be in early on a particular day) and you and your employer and your clients. And yes as others have said you do have to open the laptop late into the night, but you’re probably doing that anyway…

We hired a nanny when DS arrived because it was cheaper than two lots of nursery fees, the days off for sickness were stacking up too much (one gets the bug, then the other one does) and because the domestic workload was greater too. She worked 7 until 7 and we paid her well for that. Look for local agencies that know the local market well, you’ll get someone who has a good local network and knowledge.

Latterly we have a lady who picks up after school for us and cooks a meal for all of us too. People with school age kids and school term time jobs might want something extra term time only, but agencies will tell you this and other part time support doesn’t exist!

You can do it, OP, but you and your DH will not have the life you have now. I promise you that it’s OK to change it though! And the conversation is so much more open than it ever was on flexibility, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Both compress your hours to 4 days per week, meaning you only need childcare for 3. Get a nanny to cover long hours on those 3, but I’d say nursery is better. If you go for nursery then you also shift your working patterns so one goes in early and one stays late.

I’ve no idea what a corporate job really does but I think we probably work similar hours and most of my friends at work have young kids and somehow make the time for affairs as well. I don’t know how they have the energy but it’s all possible apparently.

Congrats on your pregnancy OP and look after yourself through it - I shudder when I look back at what I put myself through working in city law before covid & wfh. My advice would be to sign up for nurseries and then relax for a bit. Look into what your and your DH firm offers - maternity/ paternity coaching? Ours has a system where you can have temporary childcare come round your house while you wfh if baby is ill. Start your mat leave a good few weeks before your due date to give yourself time to mentally transition. Once you have a baby you will be in a better position to decide what will work. On the other side do set up a routine with DH so you don’t have to discuss it every week. My Dh is a city law partner and he does pickup twice a week, it can happen. I don’t work fulltime anymore because after a year of mat leave I was so used to the joys and pleasures of a more normal life I didn’t want to completely relinquish them! Still enjoy the mental challenge of working PT though. Best of luck.

Also it’s a really good idea for DH to do some paternity leave - on his own rather than say a joint holiday - it’s the only way IME that you’ll be able to redistribute the new baby based domestic jobs off your plate on your return to work.