How the fuck did people do this before the pandemic

[BluPeony]

Last year I had my first DC. I took my full year of maternity leave and added on a month of annual leave and I have enough left that I'm working 4 days/week until basically the end of the year.

There was a requirement for us to be in the office 1 day per week, now up to 2 days. It'll likely go up to 3 days by the end of the year. I don't know if they'll build up to full time because they're being very cagey and vague and actually we've recruited so many people that there aren't enough desks for everyone and before the pandemic the company was trialling loosening the office/WFH balance so that it didn't have to move into a larger office and pay more rent.

But anyway. My commute is 70-90 mins door to door. I go in on Mondays because it's a bit quieter on public transport and it's my partner's day off to look after the baby so I feel okay about being so far away.

I've been trying to decide which other day to go in and it's just shit no matter which way you look at it. I would have to drop my baby off at nursery when they open at 8am on the dot and I'll still be in the office after 9am - so I'm screwed if anyone puts in a 9am or early meeting. I'd have to leave work early to make sure I can pick him up when they close at 6 and I'd still be in deficit with my hours and would need to make the time up somewhere. My partner can't do the nursery runs because he has compressed his hours to allow him to be at home on Mondays and he doesn't have an option to WFH.

We're discussing one of us going part time, etc etc to try and make this work but it got me wondering how on earth people did this before/do this now if they can't work from home - do you just only see your baby at the weekend?? Do you work part time? Give up work? What about maternity pay if you want another baby?

I'm exhausted. I hate going in to sit at my desk on a Teams call with other people at their desks. I hate that I'm missing out on so much with my baby. I feel like I'm becoming a shittier mum with a short temper because of the stress and tiredness. I was just getting into the swing of things before I went back. I'm feeling very sorry for myself tonight and not looking forward to my commute tomorrow at all.

We didn't compress our hours so that one of us could drop off and one collect. I left early, often before DD was up and DH got home as dinner was ready.

Could you speak to work about working a longer day on Monday so you can leave earlier on another day?

It's daunting now because you're right at the start but you'll find your rhythm as a family. Don't drop hours until you really really have to.

It was shit and exhausting. One of us would do the drop off and one pick up, depending on our diaries that day. We both chose to work 4 days to reduce the nursery fees. The end of the day commute was so stressful, praying no delays to get there for closing. Very quick tea, bath, story, bed.

Not to mention commuting is expensive! It's a huge cost I don't really need to account for anymore now I mostly WFH.

Awwww sending you hugs through my screen! My kids are older now (7 and 3) but when my eldest was 9 months I went back to work. I compressed my hours so worked long days and my husband worked 9-5 but we were both in the office every damn day. It was hard. So hard. I picked up every damn virus that was going because my immune system was probably shot due to stress.

Fast forward to now and the kids are obviously older but we also now partly work from home (my husband almost every day and me 1 or 2 days out of 4), I no longer compress my hours, I just work 30 hours per week and (and this was the main one really that saved my sanity) we moved to be closer to work so no more big commute. I have no advice but I do totally hear you. My son was also the first to arrive at nursery and last to leave for a few years and we felt awful. Can you request flexible working? It sounds like you can largely do your job from home? X

I had daycare close to work. Dropped off at about 9am got to office for 9.30. Left at 6pm then collect at 6.30. I had to turn down jobs that required me to work late. It was about 45 mins from home to daycare.
I gave up work after my second child as for both to be in daycare was more than my salary, and my DH earned enough to support us.

I worked part time. It’s not just school/nursery hours, there’s always something that needs doing eg. taking baby for vaccinations, dentists, buying school uniforms, parents evening, if they need picking up due to sickness.

Basically one of our careers had to take a back seat, and it defaults to mum usually (unless you’ve got a really good support network)

I do point out to DH that the only reason he has got promotions etc is because someone else sorted out kids. Luckily I was never very ambitious!

I can't work from home...teacher. I went part time while my kids were little because I just couldn't bare to be apart for so long every day. They did long days at nursery for 3 days a week. As they get older and can stay up later it becomes easier. Lots of people do work full time but often have grandparent help with childcare or a short commute or more flexible hours. I do thing ft long hours is a real challenge with small kids and am amazed at women ( and it really is mostly women) who juggle it and still manage to do a great job. I suppose on the plus side your house doesn't get trashed all day long.

We both compressed our hours so we only had three days to worry about, and put DC in a workplace nursery so we commuted with them and could get a longer day in. Used to get a 7.15 am train.

We both had to be in the office- technically I could work from home sometimes but on an ad hoc basis.

Other friends did one partner drop off and one pick up (we did this too, in combination) so one can start early and one finish early. This is also a reason to stay living in London, it all becomes unworkable with a longer commute.

Honestly we actually find school worse. With nursery it was at least covered and we didn't have to juggle ASC availability, random days for clubs etc- we can now work from home more but I especially sometimes need to be flexible about when I go in.

Part time, for both parents.

This idea of two parents working full time hours with young kids is insane, unless you have a grandparent picking up the load, or a housekeeper or the like. Yeah, some people make it work, but I really think we should stop expecting it.

(It was exhausting but both the children were awful sleepers so I never worked out what it would have been like without that).

There are advantages to commuting with them, we used to do a lot of reading on the train. One of DC1's first sentences was 'See it, say it, sorted' though.

I worked school hours and my career suffered. But I wouldn’t change it for the world!

I think to be honest most people just don't have such a long commute. I don't know anyone who had that kind of commute when my kids were small.

We did what everyone else working full time did, dropped at nursery at 7.30 and collected at 5.30/6.00. The pandemic was only in 2020 which was 4 years ago and only lasted a year!! Many people continued to work full time in the office/hospital/schools/fire station/retail before and during the pandemic. Only on MN do I see this hand wringing of what is actually living a normal life which many people do.

You will adjust to life with children, it’s only 4 days a week in nursery as far as I can tell from your post as your partner is off on Mondays. Can you not get a job working closer to home?

One starts very early and does pick up.

One drops off and finishes later.

Limited jobs to those within a sensible commute.

20 years ago, I went part time, career suffered as a result and I became financially dependent on my husband (now ex). Most of my friends did the same. Those working full time either shared the drop offs/pickups, or had a nanny covering the extra.

Honestly though, hardly any mother I know managed to work full time throughout. The husbands all worked full-time, with long hours and travel.

We each did 4 days a week and then shared the pick ups and drop offs. Blocked them out in the calendar at work

If dropping off , get into office for 0930; if picking up, leave at 1630

Yes, this is what we decided to do as well but I don't think anyone else we know has took the same path except for my DSis and BIL, interestingly.

With one child we managed with just be a bit LTFT - I did 30hrs across 4 days and DH FT across 5. We did have grandparent childcare one day a week though and about 6 months after returning from my mat leave I started being able to WFH one day out of the 4.

With two children the cost and logistics of childcare became even crazier, and we also lost the grandparent childcare due to ill health (which obviously meant there was a lot going on within our family around that at the same time). So after mat leave 2 I went back 23 hrs over 3 days and 6 months later DH dropped down to 30hrs over 4 days too. Obviously that has a financial cost but when we factored in nursery care for two it was roughly breaking even (except for pension contribs admittedly). And we have a much nicer pace of life now. It's arguably even more advantageous since eldest started school because there are only two days a week when we both work so that's only two days childcare we need in each week of school hols. Which is not difficult to arrange between a mixture of both of our AL entitlements and some paid for holiday clubs.

I think honestly though if we'd been able to keep one day a week grandchildren childcare, DH probably would have stayed FT though (he is by far the higher earner).

I work in a supermarket and all the mums I work with manage to work five days a week.

Would you say they have a 70-90 min commute each way?

We both dropped down to. 30 hours and worked four days a week each. My in laws looked after the kids one day a week, they picked them up from our house and we collected from theirs. Our nursery was next door to work (but we are lucky in that we are only 20 minutes walk from work and nursery is only about 5 minutes further. One of us did the drop off and the other did the pick up.

Things got a bit more complicated once the eldest was in school, we jiggled round the hours a bit so we were both in every day, three full days, two half days, so we only needed one day per week of grandparents/after school club.

Single parent, I work compressed hours so only work 4 days a week, drop DD at nursery at 7:30, work 8-5:30 collect DD 5:45

This might be obvious but…
by the way this is worded I’m assuming the nursery you’re looking at is near your home?
why don’t you instead choose a nursery either midway to work or near your workplace?
That way you’re dropping off before work and picking up on time?

That’s the OP’s choice and has nothing to do with what job they do.

Choosing a nursery near the office and car parking nearby. Dropped off bang on time and pick up.
Made sure that we had quality time on the weekends/holidays.

DC were very happy. I was knackered at first but got into the swing of it. Enjoyed my work time and learnt to leave it at the door to enjoy family time.
Used the nursery years to gain promotion, so was able to go part time when DC were at primary. Still used breakfast/holiday clubs but it worked for our family.

DH worked 7-3 so could do nursery pickup, I worked 9-5 so could do nursery drop off, DD would be at nursery 8.30am-4pm.

We used the weekend to prep for the week ahead

• washing done and sorted into outfit bundles so we just picked up an outfit each morning
• nursery bag packed and ready to go, then each day we'd restock it as soon as we got home and hang it by the door ready to go.
• one evening we'd go shopping and as unpacking the bags would be prepping it eg splitting a big tray of chicken breasts into meal sized portions, adding a marinade and freezing. All weekday meals were things that could be on the table within 30 mins of starting to cook.

Also - my company is pretty family friendly and we generally try not to schedule meetings before 9:30 or after 3pm, especially if we know we want to invite parents of younger children - I always blocked my calendar out until 9:30 too, so people would never find a free slot for me then!