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

You need a spreadsheet, and yes its a mixture.

Each of you and DH are entitled to 4 weeks per year per child of unpaid leave in addition to annual leave, up to a total of 18 weeks per child across all years. I think we only used about 6 weeks of this.

On weeks where we both had to work Typically we would each have one day at home per week - which might be by working compressed 9h days on the other 4 days so using no AL, plus DC would have one day with grandparents. If I was sufficiently organised to do a reciprocal arrangement I would have another child of a different working mum with us on my day off and DC would go to them on another. Holiday clubs to fill in the remainder.

Holiday clubs. My son's school runs holiday club 8am to 6pm for every holiday except Christmas (2 weeks, but my department is closed for one week anyway) and one week at the end of August. So we always have that to fall back on, but these days my son often goes to other activity camps, always booked with at least one of his friends - he is willing to try most things if he has a guaranteed sidekick, or better still a posse. Luckily most of his friends' parents also need holiday childcare (London so few have family stepping in).

Obviously we go on holiday etc but i don't have nearly enough leave, and unpaid leave is problematic. I know it shouldn't be but the fact is it is a pain in the arse and I want to keep it for actual emergencies. My parents are not getting younger 😬.

I am very lucky as I wfh full time and DH works 40% from home too so that helps - although DS is 9 so a younger child would obviously need more supervision.

We also have grandparents on hand to help as well as taking annual leave. I'm happy to help out with DS' friends too as some of their parents are nurses or work in retail so have it tougher than we do.

We do something along the lines of
1 week away on holiday
1 week annual leave split between DH and I (also we do a week each for half terns so need to save holiday for these)
1 week stagecoach holiday club
1 week to my parents house (3 hours drive away do they can't do regular childcare)
1 week childcare swaps with friends
1 week normal holiday club (the kids are not keen on this so keep to the minimum)
I work 3 days a week so we do also get time to chill - would be much worse if we both worked full time.

Mixture of annual leave and clubs, plus the odd play date or time with grandparents. Christmas was generally ok because of office closure and my parents would help with the other days. We'd have an Easter and summer Hol accounting for 3 weeks of leave. Organised by spreadsheet.

The only thing with holiday clubs was that most were not a full day and the ones that were tended to be boring. Namely, the uni playscheme which was 8:45-6:00 but dull and miles from the uni in a village primary. Most of the others were 9-3, but tennis and holiday orchestra were only half days. The others we tried were 9-3.

We do a combination of annual leave (separately and together), holiday club and compressed hours. We're very lucky that DD loves going to holiday club and that it operates 8-6.

It works for us at the moment, but I would certainly take advantage of unpaid parental leave if I had to, though this would need planning for financially.

@Printedword Oh god yes, the worst were the ones that advertised as full-day holiday clubs when what they meant was “full school day”, and they didn’t have extended options.

We’re very lucky that there’s a great holiday club here that can cover 8-6 (for a price 😬), gives them an absolute feast for lunch and one of the activities is always baking so they emerge with a substantial snack; they do a jam-packed day with scavenger hunts, crafts, cooking, sports, trips out to the beach or park and once the “zoo” (petting zoo type affair that’s part of the senior school the club is attached to). It’s actually easier having DD there than school – better hours, no reading homework, no nagging for a snack when she emerges! Just costs us the GDP of a small country per day.

DH and I took some annual leave
Holiday clubs
grandparents
aunties

12 weeks plus 4 inset days to cover with 12 weeks leave between us.

No grandparents alive, so it's leave and the only holiday club in town.

We tend to try to have a week off together in the summer, a week at October half term and a few days over either Easter or May half term, but holiday club for the rest. We both try to wfh on inset days and DD9 just watches a lot of TV.

I'm going to try to save up this year and use some parental leave (everyone has 12 weeks of this unpaid to use before kid turns 18) next year to have a bit more time off together as a family.

For the long summer holidays, from Reception year we got together with some parents we had met through nursery and hired a temporary nanny for the six weeks and spread the cost between us, up to six children. We had a kitty for lunches and activities, and we took turns hosting. Sometimes we did it at Easter too. We had some great nannies, often teachers topping up their pay with a summer job. It was such a good solution for us, all working parents.