Childcare and academia - how do we plan it?

[LittleBobbyTables]

Apologies if this has been covered before but a quick search didn't give me any answers. I'm an academic and DH is a SAHD to DD (10 months). He has applied to university (not the one where I work) and hopes to start in Sept/Oct this year. If he meets the offer then we're going to need childcare and given the waiting lists in our area, we're going to need to arrange it now, but it's a bleedin' nightmare.

I can work flexibly in my job so if my teaching is confined to two or three days a week (which tends to happen at my university) I can be at home with DD for a day or two each week and put in the rest of the research/admin hours around that. DH will also have time outside lectures and labs where he can take over. We estimate that we'll probably need three days a week childcare.

First problem - it will probably be September before we know what our timetables will be so at the moment that could be any three days a week. How do we even begin to arrange it? Do we try and get somewhere that will take DD five days a week and then somehow drop the days we don't need? The childminder we favour says most childminders work only four days a week and that she could only take DD for two of those.

Second, DH will be there for DD out of term time so we won't need care then (especially over the summer) but the nurseries will want payment for the full year.

University nurseries are not an option - waiting lists are years long. Either of us going part time is not an option - we can't afford it and I've already dented my career just by going on maternity leave. Family help is not an option - they don't live anywhere near us. Gah, the flexibility that I love in my job is biting me in the ass. Has anyone got any ideas what kind of childcare we should be looking for or how we can approach this increasingly futile search?

Would it be worth talking to a few nurseries and see what they say? In my experience they have more capacity to be flexible and they may be able to offer a work around. Also many will be losing older children in September to school so there tends to be more spaces at that time of year.

Yep, I'll give that a try - thanks. It's so annoying that I can't think "what's the best childcare?" but have to think "what, if anything, is actually possible here?".

I would talk to a few more childminders - quite a few are alot more flexiable than that -eg they cover shift work etc and also some would not charge for school holidays if presumably you wouldnt need childcare then - I would suggest booking for 4 days a week anyway combination of fitting work and studying round a toddler - could be quite challenging - if you found you didn't need it, it wouldn't be a problem with notice to drop them.
You could also have a word with your employer/HOD about the time table issue issue - there is an academic parents thread so they might have some ideas about how to approach it

I'm an academic with 2 DD's, and work in the Humanities. It's a slightly different situation in that my DH works full time. I would second looking at childminders. They are often more flexible than nurseries, and I believe that a good CM'er is nicer place for a 10 month old. Nevertheless, I think it will be very difficult to find someone who will allow you to not use them over the summer without at least paying a partial fee.

I tried taking advantage of the flexibility of my job to reduce the time my DD spent in childcare (this was before having DD2). I spent the evenings and weekends catching up with work. It worked in the sense that I managed to keep my job. BUT I struggled to keep up with my research, felt constantly exhausted, felt guilty that I wasn't working when I looked after my daughter, and felt guilty that I wasn't caring for her when I worked. It was very unhealthy (especially mentally). Now that we have 2 DC's, we more or less have full time care. It means I can spend the evenings keeping on top of the housework, and getting myself ready for another productive day at work. Some evenings I go to the gym. I have Thursday afternoon and all weekend with the kids. When I'm at work I'm 100% committed to work, and the same when I'm with the kids. I would suggest going for the greatest number of days possible. If you're with a childminder, you will be more likely to drop days than to find extra ones.

I've listed some things you might want to consider:

1. Are you sure you can get all your teaching condensed into 2 or 3 days? I'm assuming there's no obligation on your University to do this. We used to be able to, but that's changed recently as there's more pressure upon the Uni to use their teaching rooms more efficiently.

1. What about all of the meetings to discuss admin crap stuff? Do they always happen on the same day? We used to have all our meetings on a Wednesday afternoon, but that's changing as we have more meetings to attend. Even if you do have all meetings at the same time every week, I find that there's often other things (little stuff, like meeting with a colleague to discuss a change to PG teaching, or a collarborative research grant) that need me to be around on other days.

1. Are you sure you can really condense your work in to 2 or 3 days? Yes, you can work on an evening, but how productive will you be when you've put a long day in either working or caring for a toddler?

1. An academic job is rarely a 40 hour per week job. Are you sure you can get everything done in the time available? I invariably work 45 hours per week, and have got very good at working efficiently but I can still never get everything done and constantly feel that I need more time at work.

1. Remember that children in childcare get sick a lot at first. (Although DD1 is now 4 and, after she'd got through the 5 or 6 months of almost continual illness when she started nursery, she's hardly ever sick). You'll need to factor in some lost time (one of you) for caring for her.

That's great, you've raised some things I hadn't thought out fully (like sick children). My university is pretty good at condensing teaching - they do this for the benefit of the students (most of whom work part-time) and we still stick to the Wednesday afternoon admin format for the most part. For the first couple of years in my job I did the work-all-the-hours thing - knackered myself in the process. In some ways it has paid off as I'm on top of all the teaching material but yes, it always does seem like I could be doing more even when I've really put in the hours. I've become very disillusioned with academia over the past couple of years. I'm no longer driven to become a career academic - my department is not a pleasant place to work and the politicking is ridiculous. At the same time, I don't want to be departmental dead wood. I still care about the quality of the research I produce. It's particularly galling as I'm in a very male-dominated STEM subject where some of my colleagues see maternity leave as an unnecessary, unfair, paid holiday, with childcare worries being a complete alien concept.

I know how you feel. I decided 5+ years ago that my career was never going to be able to fulfill me completely. I wanted a family, and was more than prepared for my career to be pushed back. (That made me the 'odd' one within my department.) I still feel the same, but I wasn't ready for how much it would be affected (not helped by two bouts of PND). It's only been quite recently that it's hit me that I have to get my research back on track as otherwise I risk being stuck at this University for ever more. I've realised it's in my own and my family's interests to make sure I'm portable.