Dependents days/alternative provision

[sarge89]

My little boy is 18 months old and is off nursery with a bad cold. We had COVID tests on Friday and all were negative.

He is not allowed to return to nursery until he is symptom-free, despite the negative COVID test.

I am entitled to 2 dependents days per year, plus can take 5 others unpaid across the year.

DH is the same.

We have no "alternative provision" as my parents both still work and DH's parents live 200 miles away. Our siblings all also work or attend uni.

I am assuming DS will get countless colds throughout the year. We cannot take more days than stated above. What are our options?

I am also self-employed so one option would be for me to quit my job and focus on self-employment, although I would be gutted to have to do this, then I can be at home with DS.

Looking forward to hearing (reading?) your suggestions. Thank you!

Annual leave
Unpaid leave
Anyway of flexing your work hours so you can each take a shift, especially if you can do some of it from home while he is asleep?
This sounds like a scenario that is unrelated to covid.

I don’t think that scenario is Covid related. It sounds normal. It’s normal to take annual leave. One of my children was in and out of hospital a lot as a child, and one year I used my entire annual leave on hospital visits and her being ill etc.

Maybe I should have said DH and I are both teachers. Sorry. Annual leave is not an option.

Ah. I'm not sure how others manage, tbh. What do your colleagues do?

Can you prevent as far as possible - plenty of steam, outdoor naps(!), and look for some alternative emergency childcare?

Not sure about colleagues as it's not something that's usually an issue - I'd send DS to nursery with "just a cold" if I could. I don't know what alternative provision looks like? Do I need to look for a different setting?

Maybe look for a childminder?

Tbh, not being employed but pursuing the SE option for a time would sound the way forward if work cannot offer any greater flexibility.have you spoken with your line manager?

You may need to look for a nursery or childminder that is a bit more flexible. Being asked to test for 'just a cold' with no COVID symptoms is an issue (it isn't realistic and is wasting tests when people do actually need to test) and then still not being allowed to return to the setting until cold symptoms have ended, despite a negative COVID test, is also incredibly unrealistic. This just amounts to keeping all children with confirmed colds off indefinitely, but children have colds all winter long. You can't just not work for months and months.

My youngest one had COVID symptoms a few weeks ago (high temp). I kept him home for 2 days (the day of the test and the next day when results were due back). Test showed he was negative, back to nursery he went, despite still having cold symptoms (runny nose). In fact, it's 2 weeks later and he still has a runny nose, but he's been in nursery this whole time because the COVID test was negative.

In reality, children do get sick all winter, but they usually only get sick enough to need to stay home a few days a year. Dh and I manage these between the two of us (I use unpaid leave or AL, dh is self-employed and just takes a day off). In normal times and with sensible policies, it is manageable.