Who does the school run in your house??

[rainsbows]

Ds starts reception in September and I am feeling really sad / terrible mum guilt that due to work, I won’t be able to take my son to school.

I can collect him twice a week but all other school runs will be either my mum or my husband.

Please make me feel better.

Edited to add, I could take him once a week if he attends the early wraparound care but conscious he’s already going to find five full school days really full on so doesn’t seem fair.

Our nanny dropped and picked up our kids when they were at primary school.
The first time I showed up to collect I was asked for ID in front of all the other mothers. That truly made me feel shit!

Mine got the bus to school. My DH used to walk them to the bus stop till they were old enough to cross the road themselves.

I never once felt guilty about it.

We split the drop offs and pick ups and have a childminder two afternoons a week. Sounds like you have a great set up as some kids will need to be in wrap around care every day.

Yes this is definitely a factor but it’s actually to take the pressure off my mum a bit as she doesn’t drive and so would rely on buses.

In that case I would use breakfast clubs in mornings you can’t do between you both and ask her if she is ok with pick ups

I do most of them, DH does a couple of he's here. We use wrap-around a couple of times a week too. It's a mixed bag of parents, grandparents, older siblings and childminders at our school.

The novelty of it soon wears off so you've got nothing to feel guilty about. Once you've been soaked to the skin a few times with a sulky hungry 5yo, you may regret all your life choices! 😆

DH dropped at breakfast club and I collected from after school club - five days a week.
Huge plus is we escaped the school gates sagas referred to on Mn

I'm a sahm and we both go in the mornings to take the dcs to school as it's on the way to DH's office, and dc2 is in nursery which allows parents to stay for 20 mins in the morning and watch dcs play in the classroom. I do all afternoon pickups. It helps that school is a 5 min walk away, and DH's office is 10 min walk away, it was important for us not to move out of London and make DH have a long commute so we can maximise time with the dcs and be able to pop out from work to attend school events through the day.

My god if I could have handed off the school run to anyone I would have! It’s not exactly the funnest thing to do. For a while I use to car pool with another family - one week I’d do mornings they’d do afternoons then we’d swap. I promise you the kids were unaffected by this arrangement.

Dh did nearly all the morning ones as he wax self employed. They wrnt to after school club and often dh picked up as it was on his way home or if it was my day off id go and pick them up.

It will be fine. My kids were in full wraparound 3 days a week from P1 - they were used to it from nursery anyway. My husband and I both compressed our hours so he did the school run on Mondays and I did Fridays and then we did whatever for the other days around work and such. The only thing to think about is how to be proactive about socialising - since I didn’t really see the other parents I had to set up play dates and such on purpose.

So MIL does one pick up a week
I do one pick up
Hubby does 3
Hubby does 4 drop offs
I do one drop off.... She is in yr 1 and does 3 after school clubs (of her choosing opal, fitness and cooking).... And swimming once a week...

DH, their dad. I do pick up once a week. All good.

I've always done the school runs (was SAHM for many years) but just to reassure you, I've seen many many children being picked up and dropped off by a whole variety of family members. I think the days of "school run Mums" are long behind us. Lots of grandparents, dad's, child minders and the occasional nanny are the norm these days. Try not to worry too much.

When my daughter started my husband did almost 100% of drop offs as I was out the house at 7.20 and it was crazy to pay for breakfast club when he worked from home and started at 9 so could drop her. I then collected most days, 2 days from ASC and 3 at 3pm as I worked part time.

Now I have a different job mostly from home, I’d say I do 3 drop offs a week and he does 2, I do most pick ups though as I can pick up at either 3 or 4.30 which saves on ASC, whereas if I wanted him to do it we’d have to pay til 6.

weve always just used clubs where we need to, but not if one of us is at home not working at that time, and split who does off and collection based on working hours at the time.

Given that I did close to 100% of nursery drop offs and collections due to location of nursery and my work, I felt no guilt at all when hubby had to step up in reception!

I rarely did school runs. I worked 8-4 every weekday so there wasn’t really a choice. You do what you have to. It worked out quite well because I didn’t have to get involved with school mum’s either 🤣

my husband does 3/4 out of the 5 drop offs and pick ups. We work opposite one another so means I have most weekends.

Don’t feel guilty at all. I tell my kids that we har to work to pay for the house and have nice treats like holidays etc.

I’m a single parent, across a fortnight I do about 10 school runs, their dad does 5 and my mum does 5. 2 of the school runs I do are picking up from after school club.

God it quickly wears off!! My DH and I shared it, he probably did 70% though as I had many meetings early, and difficulty in parking at my work too

I do every school run, which is really common at our school, but one of my best friends can only do 2 days. She’s really feeling it this year in terms of finding it harder to get to know new parents of our youngest, so I make sure she is kept in the loop and getting to know people through me to reassure her. I’ve reassured her I will introduce her to loads more new people at my youngest’s party. Whenever you can be there really network/get to know someone like me who knows everyone! 😊

Why doesn’t your DH do any? I did the collecting from after school club (DH did the breakfast club drop off), never felt the need to meet the other parents. DT’s were going to school, not DH or I.

He is at work. I am a SAHM, so obviously I do the school runs. I absolutely love it, have made so many friends, my kids get invited to stuff constantly. So much goes on after school, it’s so sociable ☺️

I felt I was very lucky to miss the school gates sagas. DT’s never missed out on party invites - a few less would have made life less busy!
What do you love about it?

I did all of them (was a SAHM) and dh did none unless I was ill or away.
i don’t think he felt guilty or sad about it!
I was delighted when they ended, I hated doing it, it always seemed to rain at 3 o’clock - I also kept myself pretty much to myself after dc1, made a couple of ‘mum friends’ and that was enough for me!
I think your balance is nice though.

I like doing the school run. It just puts me into contact with adults briefly 😂