Childcare query...?

[xMumToTwox]

My eldest started Nursery earlier in the year. I'm a SAHM so I've started thinking about what things we can do when school finishes for summer.

But it made me think, what do working parents do during the summer? Do you have to pay for someone to look after your kids, or is there somewhere they can go during the day?

I feel like an idiot asking this!!! but I'm just curious what happens if the parents are working full time and there is no school?!

We use a childminder ( term and non term) some schools/ nurseries run holiday clubs. If she is a nursery they may operate all year round? Preschools tend to be term time

Both holiday club and childminder need paying. PIL will have them for a week ( so cheaper but we still pay them a token amount to cover days out and extra food costs)

Nursery for smallest one, holiday clubs, grandparents, annual leave and play dates for big one. Its a juggle but easy enough when we all get diaries together. Everyone is in the same boat so we swap kids all holidays

Our nursery that dds 2 and 4 go to is year round. Obviously we take them out of nursery for holidays so they are off 5 weeks a year, but we pay for year round care as Dh and I both work.

When dd starts school we will get a childminder and perhaps she'll go holiday club.

We aren't here yet as DCs aren't at school yet but DH and I both work full time all year. We'll probably use some annual leave over the summer to cover child care and then pay our childminder to have them. Means DH and I never taking annual leave together to cover school holidays but just one of those things you have to do

Marry a teacher!

We pay for holiday club , it's on the school site, use 2 weeks annual leave for a family holiday

lol lilydaisyrose!

it's the perfect solution, I tell you!

Two weeks of the summer holidays are covered by annual leave, for two weeks ds1 and ds2 go to stay with my parents (what the dc and my parents want atm although I expect at some point that one or the other party will call a halt to it), for two weeks they're in a play scheme. The baby just goes to his cm as usual.

You patch something together - but most summer activities around here start at 10.00 and end at 15.00 (or around those times) so you're sorting out a main activity, then someone who can do the morning and someone (maybe a return play date) for the afternoon. I have a spreadsheet and the complexity is just ridiculous, especially since I have kids in different key stages who therefore generally can't do the same activities. Even the ones that are in the same place usually have different timingings.

It's a logistical nightmare. We use 2 weeks holiday up then the rest of the 4 weeks are a mix of grandparents and aunties.