Childcare after Mat leave?

[Jazzmine952]

Just wondering how you plan to / how you went about preparing for childcare after maternity leave? For example, nursery for us is definitely a must to be able to work, but also I guess my partner's mum might want to help, but she works full time, so would it be cheeky to ask her the extent she would be willing to help, or just see if she offers? This would be nice to have family look after for one day a week, I or partner look after for one to two days a week, etc. Saves money but also means not having child just in nursery all the time without family, after being with us all the start of their life. I just don't know how to ask...maybe I am also being a bit muddled so please forgive me as my brain is all over the place thinking about what should and shouldn't be in the future, while trying to live in the today!

Maybe if you are a working grandma who helps, what made it work for you, and did the parents ask?

If she works fill time I think you should assume she can’t assist with regular childcare unless she offers.

I wouldn't ask directly to be honest. If your partners mum works full time she may find the question difficult because on one hand she very likely would love to help with childcare but on the other she may not be able to decrease her working hours for financial or other reasons. If she thinks she can do this and is happy to do so then I think che will likely offer herself

I personally wouldn’t ask a relative to look after my child for free, you have to wait for it to be offered - and if she’s working full time, she probably won’t / can’t.

It’s worth looking at child minders as well as nurseries as it’s closer to a home situation, which I think is good for under 2s . If one or both of you can do 4 days That can work well too, you just have to weigh it up financially.

I'm not sure how she could if she works full time, and it sounds like she hasn't offered anyway.

I'd go for nursery and use MIL on an ad hoc basis to babysit occasional evenings and weekends. You will be incredibly grateful for the escapes, and it doesn't put constant pressure on her.

Your MIL hasn't failed to notice the existence of her grandchild; if she wants to offer regular childcare, no doubt she will. Until she does, proceed on the assumption that you have to cover it yourselves. It's really not fair to put her on the spot by asking.

I don't know if by you and partner looking after it yourselves, you mean you plan to try and work while simultaneously looking after baby, but if you do, please don't. It is unsafe and miserable for everybody, unless you're self employed with very flexible hours. If you just meant you will cover some care between you by reducing/coordinating your work hours, otherwise crack on.

My mum looks after my LB a couple of afternoons a week but she’s retired and she offered. I wouldn’t have asked her because I’d assume if she wanted to, she’d offer. I’d make sure your DP’s mum knows you’re arranging childcare and leave it at that. She’ll offer if she can / wants to.

You and / or your DP could perhaps look at reducing hours or working a compressed week?

i know it’s hard thinking of sending them full time when they are so little but whatever you ultimately need to do, your LO will be fine.

I presume a grandma who works full time has no choice about it (financially). So I wouldn't ask. I would, if she's close, ask for occasional babysitting if she seems interested, for date nights etc. We don't have this on either side, the kids would love this kind of extended family though.

If I worked full time and my child's partner asked to what extent I was going to provide childcare, I'd think they are a massive CF! I wouldn't be providing and childcare because I WOULD BE AT WORK.

Ffs, you can't seriously expect her to drop a day a week at work so you don't have to pay for childcare?!!

I think she would have offered if she wanted to…

The next time you see her you could casually mention you are going to view nurseries/childminders etc. If she volunteers at this point, cool. If she doesn’t, don’t mention it.

Don't ask... if they want to help out they will

I never assumed we would get any support and planned for nursery 3 days when I was back at work 3 days, mil offered and she did 1 day meaning nursery 2x a week but I'd never have asked
Especially if she worked FT, if she had considered helping out with childcare surely she would have already looked into reducing her working hours to help out

Ultimately I'd say not to assume and sort out childcare amongst what you and the baby's dad can do

Just to clarify, the notion of grandma potentially having for one day is not about dropping a day of work or reducing hours - in her work she tends to work from home a lot and also has a lot of annual leave and TOIL days each year, so it was more that if she offers she may want to use these every now and again.

We have always intended to be the main ones looking after our child.

None of this is my expectation, it's just thoughts swirling, with the primary goal that us & family spends more time with our child than nursery strangers if possible.

I agree it's better to wait if offered, and if there is no offer, no big deal at all. any time with family is cherished.

We asked. Primarily it wasn’t for financial reasons I just felt much better knowing my babies would be with family some of the week and not just full time nursery:

If she works full time how would she be able to look? Also don’t ask, never ask, wait for the offer.

Working from home is not relevant as she would be working, so not available to do childcare. The problem within annual leave/TOIL is that nursery will need to know which days you want, so unless your DP's mum can commit to a regular day it won't fit in with nursery.

If you and your DP both went to 4 days a week, then you could each have a day with your DC and only use nursery for 3 days.

We were originally going to go with MIL, but changed to a crèche. Hands down the best decision I have ever made, it would've destroyed my very good relationship with my MIL. Having her grandchild brought out a different side to her, and she doesn't listen to how I want to parent my own child because she's had 4 and knows best... I love DDs crèche though, as does she, so it makes it very easy for us.

That doesn’t sound very doable. Nursery would want set days each week so she’s have to guarantee one set day a week she could look after your DC. I would wait to see if she offers and in the meantime organise nursery.

Most nurseries expect you to stick to agreed days, so if you're mil wanted to offer ad-hoc days when she has leave booked it might not work as you'd still have to pay nursery.

With DD1 I worked condensed hours into three days so that I had two days off a week with her. With DD2 my mum has reduced her hours and offered to have her every Friday, so she does nursery Monday to Thursday, I was initially a bit apprehensive about her having to do that amount of days, but she absolutely loves nursery and has thrived, she started at ten months and is now 14 months. It was tough at first, but she's really settled well now and we initially started her at 1.5 days a week to get her used to it and upped to four when my DH returned to work.

Just to clarify, the notion of grandma potentially having for one day is not about dropping a day of work or reducing hours - in her work she tends to work from home a lot and also has a lot of annual leave and TOIL days each year, so it was more that if she offers she may want to use these every now and again

Working from home is irrelevant when it comes to your childcare though and the odd day of annual leave is hardly going to mean you can sign up to a nursery for less days. She's not going to have enough annual leave to take every Friday off for example, and you can't really expect her to use even most of it on childcare for you.

She works FT, it's simply unrealistic to expect any regular childcare to be offered while you work.

What's her WFH got to do with anything? She's working. The same if she were in an office. As PP have said, TOIL and annual leave are going to be sparse and irregular... Plus, presumably like any FT working person, much less one who regularly works over their contracted hours and accumulates TOIL, she will want and need to spend this time relaxing, recovering, and leading her own life. Who wants to spend their only downtime looking after someone else's toddler for free?

It appears this does have to be said again: You cannot WFH while supervising a young child. WFH is NOT a substitute for child care. You need to assume that you are responsible for finding professional childcare for each hour both you and your partner are working.

You need to look at all the days that you and your partner are both contracted to work and then book little one into a childcare setting for those days.

Lovely that it is that MIL has a little flexibility in her work, that isn't enough for her to offer regular childcare so unless she has made comments about wanting to reduce her days to look after your baby then you need to assume that isn't an option. She may be willing however to use that flexibility to help with unexpected childcare issues, such as illness which could be really handy.

I am surprised by the answers suggesting, "Don't ask; wait until it's been offered."
First, if you can't ask family for help, who can you turn to?
Second, the idea here is to be able to plan. So I would definitely ask about how involved she could be.

I think if your MIL has a full-time job (even if it's flexible), a full day might be too much with a baby.
What has worked for us is sending our baby to nursery for half days. She goes every day, but we pick her up after 1 pm. She usually takes a long nap, so by the time she's up, it's already 4 pm. Something like this could work well if you or your husband have flexible work schedules, and you can ask family members (if they live near by) to pick the baby up and look after them until you finish work.
You can also mix things up. Some days full, some days half: depending when and who is free.

We do not have family around, so we do not receive any help. Oh my, if they did live here, I would ask for their help all the time! Make the most of the support you have available!

I am surprised by the answers suggesting, "Don't ask; wait until it's been offered."
First, if you can't ask family for help, who can you turn to?

The woman works full time. She is not available for regular childcare.

Asking is effectively asking her to reduce her hours and income, which is a huge ask, and simultaneously putting her under huge emotional pressure to agree. Regular, free childcare is a huge commitment. It is not really something you can ask from family. Occasional emergency backup or babysitting, sure.

This.

If you and your partner work 4 days a week each, baby can be in nursery 3 days .

And you can ask family eg his father if they are able to cover any days that baby is sick so can’t go to nursery. Of course this depends on how flexible their work is and how much motive they need to give for a day off.

Thats assuming you all have 9-5 M- F type jobs. If not, you and your partner may be able to work different shifts to accommodate childcare. Eg one does early shift and another does a back shift or a late shift.

There’s no one set way to work this, it depends on many factors such as your current jobs, any new jobs you could apply for , changes of work patterns, commutes etc .

The main thing is to talk to your partner now about what changes he will make to his work pattern - this is as much his responsibility as yours. Employees of both sexes have equal rights to ask for flexibility, change to work patterns etc . There are too many men saying “ yeah I asked my boss and he said no “ .

Having a conversation doesn't mean emotionally pressuring someone. It's about discussing options. You don't have to insist that someone takes a child on a specific day, simply ask her opinion about nursery and what she thinks would be the most beneficial for the baby.

Why can't people have simple, honest conversations anymore without over-complicate everything?

Why would ask a relative what their opinion on child care and what’s best for the baby?

You can bet any MIL volunteering their opinion on this would be told it’s non of their business.

Pretending you care about their opinion or that their opinion holds weight, so you can see if they offer childcare is really manipulative.