How other working mums manage school holidays

[confused746]

I've never really considered it as this is our first full year at school. (Silly I know)

I'm interested to hear how other working mums handle the school holidays. Do you use annual leave? Do your workplace allow you to take unpaid days here and there?

We will use holiday clubs and try grandparents too.

I need to speak to my employer soon to put something in place, it's a fairly small company so no policies as such.

Thanks

DH and I both take some annual leave separately to cover and both take some together so we can have an actual holiday and then we used holiday clubs in between. We did both try and 'bank' days throughout the year to cover as much as we could but that meant some holiday clubs at Easter and half terms to cover some days.
I was also able to buy extra annual leave in my work so did that too.

I had a spreadsheet of every week of the holidays (nine where I am - Northern Ireland). I probably took three weeks AL (I bought an extra week with salary sacrifice) a block of two weeks when we were on holiday, and a single week. Then the rest was clubs or DH took a week off (not the same week as me).

The school did a three week summer camp and then we paid for others at local leisure centres / sports clubs.

You need to be organised!!

Yes, same as @hopeishere , we have a spreadsheet with all the holidays and inset days on. We have one or two holidays together, use the rest of our annual leave separately to cover some days, sometimes send her to grandparents, otherwise use holiday clubs. You have to be careful to save your leave for days/ weeks when there are no holiday clubs (eg inset days, we find there is nothing on last week of summer holidays round here). You are also entitled to parental leave (unpaid) - dates have to be agreed with employer and can only be taken for a week at a time rather than days here or there. I think it’s 4 weeks a year but I am not certain as I’ve never used it.

Holiday clubs, annual leave, a spreadsheet, and trade offs with other parents. My job is also very flexible, so I'll often do a morning of work whilst DS plays/watches TV, and then take the afternoon off to go out somewhere active or have a play date, and catch up on work in the evening.

Personally I like mixing it up, so if we're not away, each week will normally have a day or two in holiday clubs, a day or two of annual leave, and the rest flexible WFH/play dates/afternoon outings.

DH and I trade off days. Holiday club. We also are very fortunate to have grandparents who help out sometimes. We have a spreadsheet.

As other have said, a spreadsheet of the year :)

Spread your leave as far as possible with the other parent.

Other than that (things that I and other parents have used)
-other family members (e.g. grandparents)
-"child swap" with other parents
-if your job allows consider working flexibly to minimise childcare needed
-holiday clubs
-if your child normally has a childminder or goes to after school club, they may cover holidays.
-failing all these, the odd week of unpaid leave

Inset days and Christmas holidays are often trickiest as there tends to be little in the way of external childcare offered.

Annual leave, grandparents, council sports club, ymca childcare (only place that took under 7's near me), split shifts (I'd go in by bus for 7, work until midday as I was pt anyway then he'd meet me in my work car park at 12, I'd drop him off (really close) then he'd work until 8 and we'ld pick him up, them already in pj's, as buses rubbish my then

Annual leave - We try and get off weeks together, but it is not always possible. I work with someone who also had school-aged children, and we can't be off at the same time. Holiday clubs- very fortunate to have a reliable club which you can book either 9am-3pm or 8am-6pm and grandparents- ds only has 1 set and we try and use them as little as we can.

Look up parental leave. You can take unpaid, upto 4 weeks per annum. You'll find you take all paid holidays in school holidays too, sometimes at different times to your partner. It's not easy.

As with others, I have a spreadsheet, especially for the summer.
I have a generous annual leave allowance. My husband's is fairly average.
Between my husband and I, we take off around 3.5 weeks in the summer.
Each set of grandparents do a few days dotted throughout.
That usually means we'll pop them in a camp for a week -usually 4th or 5th week to give everyone a breather!
Christmas is straightforward as my employer closes.
Half terms are OK as I'm part-time, and then I usually share playdates with a good friend on 2 of the days.
Easter I find the trickiest as it's a long time and the weather isn't as good. However, bank holidays plus being part-time usually means they go into a camp of a day here or there.

Do you use a childminder for wrap round childcare? Ours went to her during holidays and we coordinated our holidays with hers. When a bit bigger they would stay with grandparents for a few days. I found working less but full days rather than more short days worked much better to manage the holidays

Thanks to everyone, Will be pulling together a spreadsheet.
Hopefully they will agree to some unpaid leave to top up too.

I took a week of planned unpaid parental leave each year, during a planned holiday. That left some actual holiday days free for more emergency or flexible situations. This isn’t workplace specific I think - I think anyone should be able to take this. I strongly recommend it if you can afford it.

DH is part time, 3 days a week, so that helped. I’m 4 day a week. He also gets a bit more holiday than me so there was usually one week where he’d take 3 days off and have them in the holidays.

We’d had a childminder for preschool childcare and one huge advantage to that is that she also did wrap around care so in the holidays they’d be with her all day rather than wraparound (plus the preschooler and the school age one both in the same childcare setting). It’s one of the massive advantages of childminders if it works for you like this.

We also used some holiday clubs, if childminder had a week of holiday at the same time as kids were off (she was good and told us way in advance so we could all plan). Constantly reassessing which ones worked best for our kids at what ages. If I’d been able to WFH when they did this when younger, it would have helped as it would have made the days a bit less long for them - we always had to pay for the early bird and late stay slots to make the day long enough to encompass the commute.

Very occasionally grandparents would come and stay to help for a week in the holiday but they don’t live close by (5-6 hours away) and so it was maybe a week every couple of years? We preferred to have holiday with them all together. And the childminder holiday care worked great.

www.gov.uk/parental-leave

One year I did condensed hours just for school holidays. So 5 into 4 or 4 into 3.

Mine are thankfully coming to an end of needing holiday childcare. Such a pain each year!

Yeh this is a biggie and most ppl do a patchwork approach.

We split our AL so we had two weeks' family holiday and then used the rest separately. We used GPs for the odd week. We used holiday clubs one or two weeks in the summer. We did swaps with other parents who had similar aged DC (easier in the summer as you can take a picnic (cheap) to the park (free) and then I would return the favour.

We both worked four days/week (different day off) so we had three days a week to cover.

When the DC were approaching tweenhood (three DC, 2 years apart, so when they were roughly 7/9/11) I started working in schools which wasn’t ideal in many ways haha but one huge benefit was that, as the time approached when holiday clubs were outgrown, I was able to be at home when the DC were on holiday, albeit working, so that made everything a lot easier. It’s not a very good reason to be a teacher but it is for sure a good side benefit!

Edit: Oh yes we also had a spreadsheet!

We use a combination of:
Annual leave
Swaps with friends (when I was part time)
Grandparents
Holiday clubs

Now she's 13 she does some days at home, hangs with friends, goes away with us, grandparents and a drama club. It gets easier (except drama camp which is a pain to get to and rubbish timing 😡 but she loves it! ☺️)

We also have a spreadsheet so I can see how it’s looking across the year. We do a combination of:

• Annual leave between DH and I
• Family (although this is limited)
• Working from home (employers are fine with this)
• Unpaid parental leave

Your employer can’t refuse unpaid parental leave but can push back on dates. I put a bit of money into a pot every month and take one week unpaid off every summer holidays and then pay myself from that pot. I’m effectively buying extra annual leave I guess.

I also make sure the weeks get broken up where possible. This could be DS spending 2 days off with me, 1 day off with DH, 1 day off with a friend/relative, 1 day at home while I work. We don’t have holiday clubs where we live. Mum-friends sometimes suggest childcare swaps as well which can be helpful. I’m also super careful with how our annual leave gets used through the rest of the year (I don’t ever take my birthday off, for example).

Annual leave(both parents, either separate or together)
Paid holiday camp
Grandparents
Unpaid parental leave ( statutory entitlement for both parents)
Have used all the above in the last year.

A mix of annual leave, grandparents and holiday club.

It’s a bit of a mare but easier as they get older and especially if you can wfh

but yes a spreadsheet, and a combination of
-me never working Mondays so that is always sorted
-annual leave from both of us, on top of actual trips away
-grandparents
-holiday clubs (round here they are only sporty ones so not helpful if child not sporty)
-informal arrangements with other parents

it’s a lot practically easier when they are nursery tbh. At least then you can just throw money at the problem!

I’m separated with 50:50 custody but it’s still a mix of
annual leave
unpaid parental leave
holiday clubs
grandparents

Second, thirding and fourthing suggestions for a spreadsheet. Don’t forget to account for wanting to see nativities, go to any drop-in sessions, etc. Put down every inset day, half-day, whatever.

We use holiday club, buy extra annual leave, and take it in turns. The more overlap you have (so you can have a family holiday), obviously the more holiday club or alternatives you need! No grandparents on hand and swapping with other parents is useful for days here and there but for us, not viable for big chunks – takes a lot of coordination! We’re lucky to have offices that close over Christmas and give you the time gratis rather than expecting you to use annual leave, so that gives us a little more leeway.

Recommend holiday club for the February half-term which is BLEAK. I like Easter for a family holiday as there’s loads to do, ready-made activity ideas on tap, chocolate, lambs, daffodils, SPRING, plus two bank holidays so less annual leave.

Around here all the holiday clubs stop in week 3 of August but the schools don’t go back till 2nd week of September – check ahead and plan holidays and leave accordingly!

The most important thing is to work out when holiday clubs in your area don't operate

Around here, there is almost nothing in the Christmas holidays (some clubs offer a couple of days but that's it) and the last week of the summer holidays, also inset days

So we book those off as leave - usually take a family holiday the last week of summer and take a few days separately each at Christmas

Like everyone else, we have a spreadsheet -

First book off the dates we absolutely need - as above
Keep 2-3 days each in reserve for appointments/emergencies/illnesses
Then book our family holidays in
Then fill in some days with separate annual leave
Then work out which dates we need holiday club and look out for early bird discounts

Lots of clubs. Thankfully our out of school club a operate 0730-1800 in the holidays so we can cover a lot with that. Then a couple of hobby/activity clubs that have shorter days but I can WFH all summer so that's fine, she comes home and watches TV or plays in the garden.

We're also in NI so there's two bank holidays in July, so we usually take a few days around that and have time at home or go see family.

Then at least one of us takes a day each week so they get a bit of chill.

We'd be lost without the out of school club. Expensive but cheaper than the nursery days at least.