How do working parents manage school pick-up with a long commute?

[Somethingsgotthagive]

DC currently goes to nursery and both me and DH have a very good commute.
We are planning to move further out to afford a house and DC will be in school next year, so that will mean longer commute and shorter childcare hours (afternoon clubs in various schools I checked close at 5:30pm or 6pm latest and the majority of these are oversubscribed anyway so difficult to get a place).

How do you manage school pick ups and wrap around care during school years if you both work full time? I can only WFH twice a week and need to be in the office the rest of the time, DH needs to go 5 days per week.
I am not a great fan of CM as I don't like the idea of having DC staying at home with a stranger and their family (please respect this, it's my personal opinion and feeling and I absolutely do not judge parents who do that). What are we supposed to do? Employ a nanny for pick ups only? are they even easy to find? Give up on the idea to have a house further out and just stay in a small flat in current area instead?

I think it would be quite a miserable childhood to get home from after school club at 6 each day...barely any time with parents or to relax and decompress. I think your best option would be to stay in the flat for now but both of you to look for a WFH or more flexible hybrid role (in the hope that one of you is successful) and then look at moving again once the role is secured.

Sounds like an amazing school for working parents! I often wonder if oir school realises parents have to work 😅

Au pair is another option if you only need after school care. Ignore all the people guilt tripping you about not being in till 6pm that normal life for many people. I don't understand why people put their kids to bed so early, if you went with the au pair they could also drop off on a morning.

The headteacher often mentions that he has young children so I think he genuinely wants to make things easy!

Why isn’t there more flexible childcare to suit hybrid working, as there is clearly a need for it post pandemic? Probably needs to look like a website that would match the nanny with different families for specific weekday.
Also, can bosses please realise this is a thing and recognise that in office days can not be ad-hoc for hybrid workers. If I’m hiring a nanny for a specific day, I can’t suddenly change my office day each week at late notice. It’s always a man with a SAHM / part time working wife that doesn’t get this.

All the families I know who moved that far out had one parent who didn’t work, worked locally or was almost fully WFH. Or both parents were mostly WFH with 1-2 days in the office which they could make sure were different days.

In your shoes I wouldn’t move out, unless at least one of you can change your job to one of the above.

It is tricky. I am a single parent and use a fabulous CM for term-time wrap around care. In my town, there is no childcare available for school aged children- except for the HAF clubs run for the benefit of children (like mine) on FSM. Unfortunately many of them are odd mornings only and don't cover working hours - the aim is to give the children lunch.

I had to give up my relatively well-paid job (before we qualified for FSM), to work as support staff in a school. Even then, I have to rely on retired friends if I have to work when my children are off school eg INSET days.

I'm afraid I don't have a solution, but don't totally discount CMs. Mine cares for my DC as if they are family, and have helped me out when I needed it. They're more like extended family now.

A long time back I did use a nanny agency for some odd full days. They were fantastic, but very expensive.

I now need to change jobs and will have a commute of 1-1.5hrs each way. I might be able to drop off, if my present CM allows an early drop for this last term, but I can't collect at 4 when I don't finish work until 5 (CM closes at 5.30). I'm hoping one of my older children can collect the others + make dinner for them while I commute home.

Bear in mind clubs might not suit. My DC refuse any sport clubs - and all their afterschool clubs are sports.

I live in the Home Counties, both DH and I work in the City with about 1hr-1hr 15 commute door to door.

Private school offers wrap around care 7.30-6 and the holiday club that operates there does the same.

We have mothers help who picks up from school after his extra curriculars and they do homework and dinner prep, and cleaning. We eat dinner together as a family at least 3 weekdays- easy to do when it’s prepped and ready for you. Its not cheap but it’s worth it for us.

A nanny to cover after school and holidays. However I would warn that train issues can be very stressful even with the best made plans. I think that you’d need to see if you can alternate working from home, or stagger hours but it does add additional pressure.

We wouldn’t really get a big house in the HC with our budget, just a house instead of a flat but same size plus maybe a garden, which would be lovely to have.
But there is a lot to consider and digest, I want to make the right choice

Move to jobs that offer more flex? Done lots of combinations over the years, early and late, some WFH post-Covid, requested lunch at 3pm for pick up etc. Your DH could find a job where he didn’t have to be in the office 5 days/week. It all depends on your priorities really!

Before the first DC joined school we used a nursery that was open 7am - 6pm and staggered our hours (I was in London 8-4 while DH dropped off, and he was in London 9-5 while I picked up; 2hr commute each way!).

Once school happened we used after school club some days and a CM other days and then the CM during school holidays.

If you work long hours or have a long commute, I don't think just after school club works. You need a CM or a nanny. While they're preschool, a private nursery with long opening hours works if you can work different hours to your DH.

You need a Nanny

I'd seriously think about your commute. If you are travelling by train and must be back for a specific time to collect your dc don't underestimate the stress that will put you under. Our rail network is not reliable and it takes very little to cause massive disruption.

@AloeVerity DH doesn't work in an office, his job requires him to be present onsite. I love my job and company, wouldn't consider changing all of this for an unknown job just to have some more flexibility (which btw I already have and I wouldn't enjoy working remotely 100% of the time, not for me)

@likepebblesonabeach yes, I need to think very carefully. Right now I have a 50 min commute door to door on the tube so I never have to worry about trains really, makes such a difference

@Somethingsgotthagive - in which case, as others have said, you need a nanny or au pair. I suppose only you can decide whether career satisfaction etc. outweighs not being there for the school run most days. Personally I wouldn’t have liked that when mine were tiny as it’s a long day for them already, before not seeing a parent until close to bedtime. Also, nothing is forever, so you could make changes now that you reverse out of in a couple of years’ time as DC gets older. If your absolute non-variables are the jobs you do and the locations you do them in, you need to make all other decisions based around those, even if that means staying somewhere smaller.

I think you definitely need an after school nanny for the first year. Maybe once you're settled and get to know other parents at the school other options might come up e.g. nanny share, recommendations of a trusted CM or sharing school picks up - you do the ones when you are WFH and keep the other child til 6 and they help you out when you're in the office. Maybe you can ask your work if one day you can get in early and leave early so home by 5.30pm?

In my experience childcare is always a juggling act. Definitely move now as if you stay and get settled in a local school it will be even harder to make the move!

@AloeVerity It's not exactly what you are saying. If we stayed in the current area, I could be at the school gate at 5pm on the days when I am in the office. That is nowhere close to DC's bedtime (I know this might change when older but right now DC usually falls asleep around 8:30pm so that will leave a few hours to be together in the day. Even if I picked them up at 3pm, I would need to run back home and reconnect and work so it wouldn't really be quality time either). The main issue here is whether it's worth moving somewhere further out to get a house, but with the issue of having a longer commute and therefore not being able to pick DC up before 6pm realistically.

@Sunshineandpinkclouds sorry I am not sure if you have read the full thread. I already leave early when I am in the office (I am out by 4pm) but if I'd have a 1 hr and 20 min commute + train delays, that's when I think I'd struggle to be at school gate by 5:30pm. If I kept living where I am now, I'd be able to be there at 5pm no problem.

Are after school nannies easy to find? where do people source them from? we can't have an au pair, we wouldn't have the space

I do suspect that when you added it up, the costs of the commute and extra childcare might mean that it's not that financially advantageous to move out of London

The other thing that I would say about living closer is that it means you can get to school events and things easily. Stuff like nativity or sports day can be a half day off not a full day off.

Personally I'd choose a manageable routine over a bigger home. You could always reassess the situation later.

@Somethingsgotthagive after school nannies are not easy to find and tend to be really expensive. If you think about it, no one is going to want a “during school hours” nanny, so they can’t really have another job. You’d need to find someone who only wants to work a few hours a week, or pay them as if they are working more. Koru Kids specialises in this but they may only serve London.

I wonder if there is a compromise where you can move further out for more space but not as far as you plan? Eg if you moved somewhere on the tube network (inc Elizabeth line?) you could have a faster and more reliable commute.

Koru Kids was set up for this.

We compromised by staying closer to work with a smaller house.

@Solasum issue for us isn't much big vs small house but small house vs flat