Shift work and childcare headache

[Lavender14]

I currently work reasonably flexible hours 3 days 9-5 and 2 days have to be a late shift until 11pm. The days these shifts fall on is responsive and can vary but is always mon-fri. Dc (2) is in nursery 3 days p/w and my parents mind dc 2 days p/w and any late shifts that fall outside of that. Very rarely my sibling is able to step in to cover an evening for me.

For reasons I don't really want to get into, I don't feel like having my parents minding dc is really working for anyone and I think I'm going to need to outsource childcare full time. I can put him on the waiting list for full time nursery during the day, however - what do I do for the evenings? I'm trying to find a 9-5 style job but those are few and far between in my sector on my wage in my area. I'm not a high earner and I'm a completely lone parent so I cannot take a pay drop. Plus the idea of someone he's not close to or knows well doing his bedtime routine in our home alone is really uncomfortable to me. I could move but then I've the issue of no backup childcare if dc is sick and I've an important commitment at work. Given I'm the sole income for our home I have to be consistent at work. What do others do in this scenario. No friends near us FYI.

Could your parents pick DC from nursery so they have a shorter time with him?

Do you have an extra room for an Au Pair?

Or you might be able to find a uni student who can do a regular babysit, or an older person

In all honesty, it doesn't work. I appreciate this is unhelpful but it needs to be in nursery/school hours, unless you find a babysitter who can do the evenings on an add hoc basis, although that will be pricey, it all depends how much you earn

I have tried to find this kind of childcare - even nannies/babysitters don’t completely solve the problem because they tend to (quite reasonably) want a fixed schedule/advanced notice of when they will need to work late shifts, so it’s still ‘will they/won’t they be available’ which is quite stressful long term. I would be trying to change jobs in your situation.

When I needed odd times of childcare, I contacted a local nanny training place. They found me a couple of students who were keen to get work experience. Obviously they were paid for their time! It worked really well for us.

I would stick with the current arrangement until you can change job.
If you manage to find a childminder who does evenings, they’re either going have him at their house and you’re going to disturb his sleep in the middle of the night or you’re going to have someone you barely know in your house.

I would say your best 3 options in order would be

• ask work to consider a new flexible working plan allowing you to work days only (or much earlier evenings)
• change job and take the hit in pay temporarily
• revamp childcare completely and get a nanny.

Do you work in healthcare OP? If so NHS?

You'll also need to think about continuity for your DC, ideally a child should have one primary caregiver (if that's not you), so one or two people who look after them

Unless you can afford an au pair or find a childminder you works evenings, I think you need a new job, it will be approx 12 years before leaving dc at home is safe.

Hit in pay is not ideal as I'll be trying to get a mortgage through in the near future. No room for an au pair and I'm not an overly high earner as even though I'm in a senior management role, my sector in general is not well paid. Contractually I need to be doing two evenings a week as a minimum so I don't think they could let me drop it any less. I do think long term I will need to change job absolutely, its just to what. Even would consider a bit of a career change but no idea what to and there's no time or money for doing retraining unless it was on the job. Continuity for dc is the key thing, I hate the idea of him being looked after by a stranger, I hate that I miss bedtime regularly as it is.