Is this ok?

[HeadFairy]

Next year when dd starts reception, ds will be Y2. I work shifts that mean I can do the school run and then go to work. Is it acceptible for us to only have after school child care at that age? My parents don't live that far from the school, but they're not always around (they like their holidays :o) dh and I both work in Central London, and we're about an hour to an hour and 15 mins away from the kids school.

Is it really irresponsible to only have after school care, ie sometimes if they get hurt/are taken ill at school dh and I won't be able to get there for at least an hour?

It sounds like a perfectly normal arrangement for working parents...what else are you supposed to do? Change jobs?

Sounds like a normal set up for working parents. If you have friends near by maybe they could be emergency contacts for you?

I wondered if parents in the first year of school would have a nanny/childminder on standby. We currently have a nanny, who is naturally at home with dd while ds is at school, so if something happens (it's only really happened a couple of times) our nanny can go and get ds. It occured to me we wouldnt' be able to do the same when dd started school. Unless we continued to pay our nanny, and asked her to spend the time when the children are at school doing other things. I had kind of hoped we could start to reduce our child care costs.

I'm glad you think it's not too bad Cyb.

I do have some good friends among the other school mums so hopefully one could help us out..but I hate to rely on others (unless it's my parents :o)

It's a pretty normal situation. DH and I both work (me pt). If something happened to DD1 at school, or DD2 at nursery, it could take up to an hour for one of us to get there. We do have some contacts who are closer,but I don't know how useful they would actually be- my friends wouldn't want to collect my sick child, and in a real emergency they'd need a parent there anyway.

oh good, I've already mentally started spending the vast amount of money I'm going to save on childcare :o

I'm a lp and work about an hour away from home. Why would you have childcare around when kids are at school? If my kids are ill (rarely) then they have to wait for me to get there, I trust school to look after them in that time. I have a couple of friends who can be there in an emergency, but it all works fine.

Phew :o

The main time i rely on my friends is if i'm stuck in traffic and late getting back for after school club (exh works away alot so is rarely arond at convenient times). It doesn't happen often and is stressful when it does, fortunatly my friend has kids in the same class as mine so they never mind! I've helped her out at times too if needed. It just works. Book the holiday (and can i come too??!!)

Of course, I'm going to start having school holiday nightmares aren't I? Gah! I've not had to worry about that before. We usually tried to get time off the same time as our nanny in the past.