How do you manage the school holidays?

[aperol10]

We have a 4 yo who will be starting school this year. She currently goes to nursery. We don't have any family nearby, and both work full-time. I'm a bit worried about what to do with her during the school holidays.

What do other parents without family support do? I know there are holiday clubs but surely that's not going to be all day 5 days a week. Do we get a nanny just for the summer?

Thank you!

I used to save all my annual leave up to cover school holidays but always ran out by May half term/summer holidays. It's one of the reasons I changed profession so could be around in the school holidays for my kids.

Options for you would be holiday clubs or childminder. Holiday clubs vary massively in terms of hours, costs, activities so as previous posters have said, you will need to do your research and book up early.

We use holiday clubs and annual leave to cover the school holidays, as we have no family nearby who could help out. I plan it out at the start of every year (using a spreadsheet, and use the childcare voucher scheme to save money through the year to cover the holidays.

The holiday club we use is based at the school, so some of DD’s friends will be there as well. It’s open 8-6 (this was one of my criteria when choosing schools - an on-site holiday club that ran all day), but I know some clubs are 10-3 which isn’t very useful to working parents.

For the summer holidays, we each book a week off by ourselves, plus a week when we’re both on leave. This covers three weeks of the holidays. I then try to book one day off per week for the remaining weeks, so DD is on holiday club for four days a week.

Easter and half terms are similar - we book one or two days leave per week (eg: I’ll book Monday and DH will book Friday) meaning we only need holiday club for three days.

Basically, it takes planning, money, and both parents being able to split the holidays between them.

Booking blocks of unpaid parental leave. For me it was about the same price as holiday club, but one of my dc's really struggled with them so I kept them to a minimum.

It's very difficult, and I've found the quality of clubs is very variable. My bad experiences have included:
very poor safeguarding and supervision, eg doors left open so anyone could wonder in from the road
noone noticing that my child was by himself crying as other kids were picking on him (I noticed when I went to give my other child medication at lunch,)
My friend warned me off another local club as it was a bit rough with mixed age groups and her kid was picked on by older ones.

I have always worked a three day week in the holidays and my dd dad has looked after her the three days or one day in holiday club. She's not keen on the holiday club so I need to see if I can maybe work from home one of the days. It's so hard to juggle when you are a single parent and don't have any help from family.

hot is sadly right. Some clubs aren't great. Crowd control and enforced noisy fun.

• all annual leave saved for holidays

- minimal annual leave taken when the other parent is off - get used to making the most of Bank Holiday weekends if you're both lucky enough to get them.

• odd days of WFH - child parked in front of the telly for 1 day per holiday period is not the end of the world, and you can stagger the work in 2hr chunks across a 16hr day so you don't feel totally neglectful

-find out which holiday clubs offer a decent 8-6 care. Locally to us several of the sports-based clubs are 10-3 which is neither use nor ornament once you've travelled there so I was very glad mine preferred the musical theatre one with full wraparound.

• make friends with other working parents. I don't work on a Monday so would happily have a house of kids then, and call that favour in at other times.

It can be expensive, but much less so than nursery for preschoolers if you divide the cost over 12 months. Even the most expensive clubs locally are less £££ than taking unpaid leave. But it's not "sad". My DC each enjoyed their holiday club enough to want to do it even when they were old enough that I didn't consider it a necessity. You will need a spreadsheet of who's covering what and when though.

I won't lie, it is much more difficult than nursery. I chose a school with holiday club provision, but it doesn't cover every holiday (for example it is running next week but not the week after). The school clubs run from 8am to 6pm and cost £20-£25 per day. Other clubs cost more, but may focus on sport or performance etc.

You have to plan ahead, book ahead, and hope your DC likes the clubs. Mine does so far (Y2), but apparently it gets more tricky as they get older 😬.

I decided to ask my boss randomly if I could get 8 weeks unpaid leave over the year prorated from my salary and with that added to my 5 weeks of annual leave I can have all school holidays off. I never expected them to agree but they said they would consider it and then agreed. A case of if you don't ask you don't get. Might be worth trying, most places are becoming much more flexible and my boys love that I am off with them all holidays.

I know I'm very lucky to have this but it is worth asking

Its not sad - ds loved holiday clubs and found one of his favourite hobbies through a multi sport one

You do need a spreadsheet though! Half terms are the hardest to cover, so you need to split those between the two of you first in the annual planning, similarly christmas holidays though you may be able to pick up odd days. So then its searching everywhere for what is around locally. I found a number of the private schools did holiday clubs open to all, but they weren't well advertised and they were really good as they had access to a lot of facilities and space. Then he did a local multi sports thing at the leisure centre, tennis club, rugby club, watersports, and a few times a week at PGL when work was going to be particularly difficult for us.
Once he was 10 it was a lot easier as he could go to shorter hours things, or amuse himself with one of us WFH. It was hard going as we have zero help, so it was literally one week off together a year, but it passed and ds never minded going to clubs at all

I feel your pain OP!

We are lucky that we have great Neighbours with a son the same age as DD so we take it in turns to have each child.

I also fly my mum in to help. We live overseas.

It take military planning and savings.

It gets easier as they get older. The best things I did were:

• Asked for extra unpaid leave. My employer granted it.
• WFH more so easier to be flexible.
• Made a group of four kids with working parents and each did a day's childcare. So for every day you do, you get three days of childcare.

I’m a SAHM and it’s not unusual for me to have some of my sons class mates when their parents are working, it’s really hard for working parents so I don’t mind offering.

The local trampoline park has a holiday club £25 per day or £80 for Monday-Friday. It looks really good too!

Separate annual leave

Holiday club run by afterschool club or leisure centre

Reciprocal arrangements with other parents you get friendly with, if you can get 2-3 and take all the kids at the same time even better as you will get more days covered in return

Get any willing family to come and stay for a week each while you work/or take and leave dc with them

Unpaid parental leave if your work allows it (you and your dh)

I think most holiday clubs cover even Xmas holidays.. in the North they do at some. A lot open at 8am till 5/6pm.

I have to use a holiday club the majority of the time OP.

Sorry! I meant 'sad' because it was so expensive! Sad for me, not sad for my daughter. I'm sure she will have a(n expensive) blast!

Bear in mind that holiday clubs aren’t tolerated by all kids particularly when very young. Absolutely recommend all annual
leave in holidays, buying some more leave, and thinking about a nanny or childminder that they already know and like.