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