"Primary contact" for nursery when both parents work FT

[Equalparent]

My DS will start nursery in a few months time. Despite me being on mat leave, my DH and I have very much shared parenting. DH does loads of night shifts with DS, and as DH works from home, he takes DS for his lunch break every weekday. DH also fully shares evening and weekend childcare with me.

The nursery forms indicate that we have to put one of us as the "primary" contact. We really dislike the idea of this, as we are both going to be working full time so neither of us will have more flexibility to drop everything than the other.

We're thinking that if we put me as the primary contact, then the nursery will just never contact DH and assume that I am the default parent for everything. We are thinking that if we put DH first, then it at least sends a signal that DH should be involved.

What are other people's experiences of this?

We have both down and they call one and then the other if needed

i really don’t think it warrants as much caution as you are paying it tbh

Would also add - they would only be calling you in an emergency for your child - surely no matter how important your ft jobs are one of you can answer or listen to a voicemail and call back

we also have demanding ft jobs but I know what I would prioritise in that situation

If they call me and I cannot do it I call DH or they call him and he calls me. Ultimately one of you will have to go.

Get a grip! It doesn’t matter.

I am fully aware that if DS is sick, etc then one of us has to go and pick him.up. I suppose I am sceptical that they would automatically try to contact DH if I can't pick up, if I am down as primary.

The person who can get there most easily or most likely to get the call. Its going to be inconvenient but honestly if you cant go you just call your spouse or father in law or whoever and send them instead. Just because you were the person called it doesnt mean you have to go.

If you can't pick up then they go to next on the list. That's the whole point of the list in the first place. If your child is ill enough that they need to be picked up, they really don't want them in nursery a second longer than they need to be, so no reason they would just say 'Oh well, Equalparent hasn't answered so let's just leave it and try again later' v calling the next number on the list.

I really feel you’re making a mountain out of a molehill!

they’ll be lots of things like this that come up e.g. where they ask for an emergency contact. Sort this out between you don’t involve the nursery/school - they just need to know who to ring first!

I've also had this experience with my DCs' school. The only way I stopped them calling me first, last and always was to get them to delete my number altogether. Then they re-added it without my permission and started calling me first again.

I would put your H down as primary contact for that reason.

Why are you sceptical?? If your child is sick then they want them gone, end of.

Just put whichever one of you has more flexibility with work.

We put my number down as primary contact but they still phone DH first. If he doesn't answer, they'll try me next. No big deal.

Why are you sceptical? If the kids I’ll they will try each number you give them on rotation until someone answers. They’ll leave messages for both of you.

FWIW after 6 years at school I’ve been called about 3 times.

you’re making this a bigger deal than needs be

Honestly, if you’re this prone to making a mountain out of a molehill, you’ve years of pain ahead of you for your child’s school career 😂

If you are the person to answer the phone then no I would not expect you to say to them can you ring DH as I'm busy... if you pick up the phone I would expect that you would sort out someone to deal with the issue - whether that be you DH, grandparent or whoever. If you can't pick up the phone and they ring the next contact the would expect that person to deal with the issue as the first person they spoke to.

Maybe another way of looking at it is the primary contact will get the correspondence such as 'wear blue day' or can dc go on this trip, or your bill is outstanding or its photo day do you want the set?.... who deals with those kind of things in your house? My DH would happily deal with the ill child... but the admin stuff is much more likely to get dealt with if I know about it as that's the way we work...

Jesus just put someone down!

If the child is ill, nursery will call contact 1. If contact 1 doesn't pick up then they go down the list! Contact 1 answers but can't collect? They call contact 2 to arrange between hemselves.

The nursery won't be playing mind games, they'll just want a sick child collected!

This happens to my colleague with both the nursery and the school. Her DH is primary contact but never gets called. Sometimes she can help but quite often she has to call him to ask things like "are DD's trainers for PE still in your car?"... no, they're in her bag in the classroom but she's 5 and likes to make excuses so she can keep her sparkly shoes on.

This sums it. ^^

Honestly the next 10+ years of your life are going to hard bloody work if you're over analysing everything as much as you are this simple form.

OP, you're being weird!

Is there some subtext here about discrimination, or the Mother being seen as the primary parent even if that isn't the case?

Just put either of you down, if they're not available, they'll call the other one.

Eh?

Just put one of you down and get on with it. Why are you both making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I am primary contact for our DC because I am more likely to be able to answer the phone. When they were at nursery (they're now at school), if I dropped them off and knew I'd be having a busy work day where I wouldn't be able to collect them in the case of emergency, I just told the nursery at drop off on those days to call DH instead if there were any issues.

We have only ever been called when they were either ill and needed picking up or had had an injury which was significant enough they needed to ring us to tell us about it.

It's really a non issue. Your child's nursery/childcare will need to contact one of you occasionally and in those instances either of your works will need to come second anyway.

Just put yourself down. Even if your FH is primary they will likely call mum anyway. Save yourself the rage.

If the nursery calls you because your DC has a raging temperature and needs to go, please don't huff and puff about how you've got an important meeting and DH is in London working for the day. The staff aren't interested - just come and collect your child! It's your problem, not theirs! Always have a back up person/plan.

Just put down whoever always has a mobile on them and switched on.

After they've got in touch, then you do the whole shenanigans of phoning DH and trying to work out who can reasonably skip out of work for a while.

It's a juggling act but it doesn't happen all that often.

At least a few people have posted to say that their child's nursery or school makes no attempt to contact their DH and defaults to the mother. This is what I am worried about.

Even if we share emergency pick ups equally, then if all nursery requests come to me first, then that's an unfair division of life admin. Especially as unimportant requests for fancy dress etc. will undoubtedly get emailed to the "primary" contact.

If that happens just switch who they primary contact is...