Working From Home + School Holidays = Panic. Help!

[reluctantfarmerswife]

Hey everyone, this is my first ever Mumsnet post, but I'm a long-time lurker. I have a 5-year-old boy, and I work full-time from home. I'm self-employed, so I can control when I work, but as my husband is a farmer, and it's their busiest time of year, I'm getting really worried about the upcoming school holiday.

My little boy gets REALLY upset when I get my laptop out to work, and of course being 5, he can't stop himself saying "Mummy, mummy, mummy!" every five seconds. I end up feeling massively guilty for working, and I just wondered how other WFH mums are handling the holidays.

I don't have a lot of family around to help out. His school is running a holiday camp, and although he loves it when he's there, it's a battle and tears to get him there in the first place. So again, massive mum guilt. Plus, it doesn't help that it's AT school, so he sees it as going TO school.

Thanks for any advice you can offer!

what are his best friends doing? I find my 5yo just wanted to be with his mates. Which convinced him to go to holiday club. Alternatively can you exchange childcare with another parent (mum!)?

At that age you need childcare outside of the home when you work. Reciprocal playdates or holiday club sounds like the best bet.

Maybe organise for his friends to come over so he is entertained? I used to send mine to summer camps but now that my other son is 3.5years old, they play for many hours without bothering me… unless they need a snack 😂

Could he spend mornings with dad, afternoons with you and you work in the morning and after he has gone to bed? Otherwise holiday camp for half day and rest of day helping dad?

You need childcare. The operative word is working.

You can’t work whilst he’s at home, it’s not fair on him or you. Are there other holiday clubs he could go to? Any his activities are running? Or find out where his fitness are going and book the same ones.

This. seems very late to be realising this

Holiday club or some childminders take children in the holidays. I have never been able to work from home so my ds went to a holiday club or with my mum for some says. Holiday Club was 8am - 6pm or a school day was also offered at 9am - 3pm

What does everyone else do?

1. Paid childcare
2. Take some time off
3. Family/friends childcare, if fortunate enough to have it.

My children are no longer young, but I’ve always worked from home and as everyone else has said you need to plan every week of the holidays well in advance and book onto camps and courses if necessary - Around me, these are usually filled up not long after Easter.
I used to take two weeks unpaid parental leave, have a 1 week family holiday then DH would take a week and I then used holiday camps until I started a fab reciprocal arrangement with another working lmum. We would cover 2 weeks where we would do a mix of 2 children all day or one takes morning one takes afternoon and then work my hours around that starting early and working in the evening.

Unfortunately, whilst your child might not like summer camp and I’m sure prefer to be at home, If you need to work, this just isn’t a conversation you need to be having with them. Summer camps rarely covered full working days but usually enough to cover core hours assuming as you’re SE you can work flexibly.

What you can’t do is expect to work full-time whilst looking after a child.

We do 2 weeks of annual leave, then I do 5 in 4 and so does DH so that's every Monday and Friday covered, my mum does Tuesdays, PIL take him for a week Monday to Friday at theirs, so that leaves a few ad hoc days, we've booked one off to go to the theatre and he's doing 4 days at holiday camp which he's thrilled about because his friends go we also keep up his activities in the holidays so he gets some routine. Neither of us are allowed to work and be in sole charge of a primary age child. Most of our work is our if the home at do each get one WFH day, but it's a really serious disciplinary matter if we have young children at home, largely due to the very sensitive nature of the work we do and the confidentiality of the information we are privy to. Mine in particular is really stuff you wouldn't want a child overhearing

He needs to be in some sort of childcare, it is impossible to get significant good quality work done without it.

I agree a holiday club at school isn't ideal, but surely that's not the only holiday club? What about local sports and leisure centres, swimming pools and community centres - even other schools might at least feel different than "going to school"

If none of these exist then other options are:

• pair up with another mum of a child the same age, each of you looks after both kids half the time and works half the time (either dividing time in units of full days or half days)
• get a temporary nanny for as much time as you can afford. You could perhaps have someone doing half days from 1pm to 5pm. If DH could do the 5pm-bedtime shift occasionally that would be great, but you may need to do that bit, then you work after he's gone to bed until the work is done.

It's exhausting and expensive but it's only a few years until he'll be old enough to be less demanding in the holidays

He is 5, he is not a baby. Set boundaries, explain to him what it means when you are on your laptop and explain how you expect him to behave. Then put tons of snacks out, put the TV on or the PlayStation, whatever keeps him zoned out for a couple hours, do your work and then take him out for an hour or so. And repeat….

Well, first of all you can choose not to do “mum guilt”. I’m sure your husband has zero guilt whatsoever about needing to work so why on earth should you? The two of you should be sorting out a childcare plan together.

My DH is a farmer too. When I didn't have the option of holiday clubs (covid times) I let the kids stay up a little later in the evening so they would sleep until 9am. I worked 5am-10am super focused (9-10 they would potter about getting breakfast, dressed etc) then 2 more hours in the evening after tea while they watched TV (or on the rare occasions DH could bring them out with him). But for my sanity other than those times it had to be holiday clubs, even if they didn't enjoy them much because I was stretched so thin trying to keep them active and entertained with no downtime for myself to relax. During those times I also subscribed to hello fresh so that I didn't have to spend time thinking about shopping/cooking. I don't recommend it OP - find some clubs! (Edit - or budget for taking time off)

We used holiday clubs except for the Covid years which fell when DD was 5yo, neither me or DH were in jobs that were furloughed and childcare was all closed so we had to just make the best of it which basically meant running ourselves ragged and doing a half arsed job of everything. What worked was:

• clear and easy jobs for DD to do throughout the day, we had a ‘jobs’ board where she could earn money for doing stuff like tidying away her toys for 25p
• we had a ‘bored board’ where we had written a massive list of fun stuff to do on a sheet of a3 paper - draw a picture of a farting unicorn flying through space, build the worlds biggest tower of LEGO’s, paint the fence with water, make LEGO man ice cubes, melt LEGO man ice cubes in the bath…..
• we had a clock with break and lunch times marked with bits of tape so she knew when we’d be free to play
• we made packed lunches in the morning then had then as picnics in the garden at lunch time so we were away from computers and it was dedicated DD time.

With primary age kids you need childcare for the summer holidays, or to take time off. It doesn't matter if you're working from home or not, a child needs to be taken care of if you're working full time. Holiday club (maybe one that's not at his school?), sports camp, childminder, au pair. Take one or two weeks off if you don't want to pay for childcare for the whole 6 weeks. Talk to other parents at your school to see if you can share some childcare between you (if one of you is not working for a few days or a week or two). Work evenings/weekends if you are allowed to do your work during those times, thus freeing up some of the daytimes to spend with your child (and not pay for childcare during those times). Good luck!!

We're doing a combination of - me on a/l while DH works, DH on a/l while I work, our parents (v lucky in that respect) and joint a/l when we'll go away. We wouldn't attempt to work while looking after the DC.

Has he perhaps got a favourite outfit or 2 he coukd wear that ge then comes to associate with his club and therefore fun? Also, is there any occasion when dad could pick him.up, perhaps 1 day a week? Your son would see this as a treat no doubt. If yiu are both working then childcare is needed.

I dont wfh with my kids home. School holidays they go into holiday clubs, friends or I take annual leave.

Agree with others, absolutely no way should you wfh while looking after a 5 year old.

Book childcare or take some time off. I recognise taking time off may not be easy when you are self employed, but one of you has to give and children mean sacrifice and need looking after.

My best friend’s DH is a farmer and he has his DS at the farm with him sometimes and helps with school pick up.

You have to treat it as if you have an office job. You use childcare, or you take some time off unpaid.

I’m not sure of the issue exactly. He goes to holiday camp and you work while he’s there? There’s no magic cure to childcare and working. After a few days of crying about it, he will hopefully settle into the camp and next summer will be easier. My kids went to camp 3 days a week every summer, my husband took Mondays off and I took Fridays off. Appreciate self employed people and farmers don’t have that luxury but you need to either outsource childcare or outsource your work and the childcare seems easier to figure out.

This summer is the first we haven’t had to find childcare. Our kids are 10 and 13. Our son is doing a few days of various computer based camps at his request, my daughter is just doing whatever she wants really (with chores and such!) and we are working at home every day between us. I take half days off when I’m in charge so I can sort play dates or take them to the beach or whatever and my husband does longer lunches or early stops or whatever and makes the time up in the evening (my work doesn’t allow this). It’s much easier at this stage but for several years we just had to pay for it (and my daughter didn’t much like school camp either but needs must)

Stop overthinking it, you need childcare, there is childcare running at his school and he enjoys it once there. Just send him.

Given you are self employed, then you can do what you wish, but other WFH parents use childcare. It’s terribly unfair on your son, unless you are only going to work a scattered hour or two across the day in between spending time with him.

Sorry if that sounds blunt, but it is what it is. Arrange quality childcare for your son and work or do it yourself and don’t work. You can’t have it both ways.