How do you work full time when the children start school?

[mummyclare]

It's a year off for us but I've been panicking for some time. We have had luxury of workplace nursery so far. I am going to try to reduce my hours - but that's only going to help with some drop-offs and pick ups and will do nothing for hols. Also local playscheme takes from 5. So what are you meant to do when they're still 4?

Help please. All ideas warmly welcomed.

lol frogs

lol frogs

we have a nanny even though both of ours are at school

dh and I both work FT OTH and there's absolutely no way on hell we could do it without a nanny (we have no family nearby and it would have been a huge imposition on friends to try and get them involved regularly though obviously they help out in emergencies). It costs us a fortune but any other method we tried just didn't work out in the long term (we don't have room for any live-in help).

Luckily for us, most of the other parents at school are super organised and have realised that dh and I are hopeless so I get regular text reminders of err things I probably should have remembered without a reminder.

Hmm.

So basically my options are

a) DH and I both work full-time and earn enough for a nanny/private school.

b) I become a SAHM and my career founders completely.

c) Choatic combination of me working part-time and years of coping with guilt, stress, dodgy au-pairs etc.

Aaaargh!!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

Sounds like a fair summary liath.

I love my job and have always anticipated working despite having kids. For the first time in my life I have seriously thought about being a SAHM after this thread. I hate the thought though. My job (sadly) is a big part of my identity let alone income, pension, sick rights, status etc etc. I won't give up on it till the shit really hits the fan but I guess I won't be so blinkered as to that happening in the future. (We're planning to have 4 kids .)

Off to read threads about all the problems associated with having an au pair....

liath, there is a 'third way' - you both work less than full time or in jobs that are in other ways flexible and share the duties. Make up the slack with whatever childcare is available (childminder, holiday club, grandparents if lucky enough)
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Yes, it is a bit of a patchwork but I am certainly not going to be giving up my job any time soon. And neither is dh .

Plus, I think it is toughest for those who have to work full time but still don't earn enough for a nanny - and there are plenty of people who fall into that category. Not everyone who works full time gets a gold plated salary

Hi Sorry havent read whole thread but here's my experience with my twins.

I found childcare much much easier pre school. Nursery they went too was flexible. Open from 8-6 adn if I got stuck in traffic always someone available to stay on (even though extra charge). I was quite smug about how well everything was working

Completely changed with school even though does have after school club:

1/ boys hate after school club - think its boring and dont want to be there.
2/ they are desperate to have friends back for tea after school
3/ really want me to be in class to help out like other mums
4/ After school club finishes at 5.30 on the dot. No flexibility at all. Very stressful if probs with traffic.
5/Homework become a real problem. Boys too tired to do it by the time we get in and had something to eat. Everything seems like a massive rush.

I still do it though so cant be that bad. - not that ive got any choice.
There is a significant number of mums at the school who worked pre school but who are now SAHMs. This is the opposite to what I originally expected.

x

When my DD started school she was only 4 (July birthday)and I was so lucky her Day Nursery took her back in the holidays until she was 5, so reception holidays were covered, fitting in work around LO's is a nightmare and I thought it would be easier when she started school! I have just had my morning childminder cry off on me so had to run around finding another one a week before term! Nightmare!

Kizzie - that was my exact same experience.
I ended up giving up my job.
I now do something completely different from home but lots of my friends are stuck - can't go to work - don't want to be stuck at home

Great thread.

It makes me mad when people assume that as a SAHM we must be well off. Well, we're not! It's too expensive to go to work.

As someone with NO relatives in this country, and a dh who commutes a long way to work, there is simply no chance of my working unless I could earn enough straight off to pay for a nanny [snort emoticon].

How I envy those with handy grandparents. When you even have to take the dcs to your smear tests, root canal appointments and just about everything else, you know that a job, let alone a career, is just a distant memory.

I had always assumed that SAHM had made an active decision to spend as much time as possible with their child i.e. that they were pulled not pushed into it .

mummyclare - that's a really interesting insight, as I had always thought the same!

I sort of have the 'halfway house' eliot describes - both DH & I work for ourselves and cover the various after-school activities and holidays with a variety of all the things discussed below.

Mostly I'm OK about it, and 'accept' my lot in life, and appreciate my lovely family. However occasionally I feel very bitter about being in this situation - feeling, excatly as you describe, as if I was 'pushed' into it (although I accept that I made the choice to have children).

I have just had to make the difficult decision to turn down an opportunity to work in partnership with a company who approached me. It could have been a very exciting, interesting and lucrative opportunity, but I would have had to give it my 'all' for about 2-3 years. DH & I sat down and discussed how we would make family life 'work', and sadly we came to the conclusion that although we might, in theory, be able to 'piece together' childcare/ domestic support etc that it was going to leave us all stressed and miserable .

We both work part-time/flexible hours - it is okay, but still needs incredible amounts of planning - and that's with no after-school activities and only two children.

DH has reduced his hours but I think there is always feeling in the background that he is not 'man enough' for a proper job, and should put in more hours for a proper salary etc...

To answer OP - it is worse when they are at school!

We have just survived 7 weeks of school holidays - a combination of day at grandparents, week on hol with me and DH, week with DH, week at holiday club in local school (not hers), then four weeks of a combination of me off, DH on his day off, DS's childminders, and grandparents, and one day at SIL's!

It is a nightmare, and you have to remember that you will need the odd half day off for Harvest Festival, nativity Play, sports day and any assembly where they are getting some sot of award - unless GP's are handy to go in your place!

We use after school club and breakfast club - but only got a place when she was in Y2

But on the other hand - the thing that hasn't been said yet on this thread - school-aged children are, in my experience, in themselves so much easier and more delightful than smaller ones. It has utterly surprised me; I love babies and toddlers, and had no idea what they'd be like when they were bigger. To my utter amazement, they're fabulous. You can have conversations with them. And do nice things with them, and introduce them to the books you read at their age and watch them become entranced by Joan Aiken (and you can borrow their Clarice Beans).

And also it is possible - and yes, I can do this because I work from home - to leave them to it, possibly enhanced with some of their charming friends, for a bit while you get on with things.

Overall, I find life much pleasanter now I have school-aged children. The logistics may be tougher, but I don't slog through it all with a generalised sense of ground-down worry and faint regret like I did three years ago.

You also tend to not be still expressing at work with school age children. And you're less likely to be spending your nights woken regularly by vomiting or teething or poorly sleeping babies and toddlers. I think those little things make working life a lot easier. You can actually be properly awake and functioning at work (and not leaking).

Agree MI they are just nicer, which is a huge bonus

I had planned the post-school childcare route, but in all honestly DD (now is Year 1) is utterly tired after school - even now - and would be in a very poor state if she had to do something else afterwards. School is far more tiring than nursery care was.

mmm, I was told they get easier as they get older too, but have yet to experience it. Leave them to play with 'charming' friends? - degenerates into aimless charging around or mindless violence within minutes.
Borrow their books? hmmm, 'the roman army' doesn't quite do it for me.
interesting conversations? Not yet, I'm afraid (see above re 'roman army')
And they need progressively more and more energetic things to do to get them worn out - a quick potter to the park is no longer enough!

MI has girl-children if I remember! She gets to play scrabble. Mums of boys have to learn how to play pokemon...

But actually I do agree MI, even with boisterous boys, they are more fun as they become real people.

More fun, yes, I guess, but easier? hell no!

And my ds1 can't yet read well enough to share my childhood books with (though since I was into fantasy and sci-fi, I do have some hopes that he will share my tastes!)

They just have such huge amounts of energy that they are unable to really channel by themselves, so I feel they need even more management than before - and now we have to take them for a 5 mile walk at the weekend instead of half an hour on the swings! Still, I guess it will keep me fit...

Interesting topic.

I became a SAHM when my elder child started school and, after 5 years, am starting work part-time in a job share.

Maybe I shouldn't bother.

I'm a teacher so holidays not an issue, work three days a week. DH also works three days a week but has managed to negotiate long hours and set days so does a full week in three days. We have one day overlap which is a bit hellish for me as I do all school drop offs etc. DC1 comes to my school, the other is at pre-school nursery at the other side of town. One child does 9-3.15, the other does 9-11.30. We use breakfast club every day of the week and have a lift share two days a week with another parent. We have no family nearby and friends are all busy working etc when we would need them. I really could not do it if
a - I had to work holidays
b - DH worked ordinary hours like every one else
c - Nursery were not so flexible (eg. she goes all day on a Wednesday, free of charge even though its more than her entitled hours)
d- both our work places were not so understanding about time of when kids are ill etc on the day we both work.
e - I worked full time (DH is great, but not always aware of PE kit, reading books etc so I tend to organise that side of life)

Am totally shocked by schools doing staggered starts, it seems odd on so many levels and so out of touch with today's world.

Also, children do need you more as they get older and have more pressing issues in their lives than babies and toddlers have in theirs. Its a real shame that so few out of school activities cater for over elevens, the assumption being, I suppose, that they can look after themselves by then.... hmmm