Work for 3 full days or 4 short days - what works best?

[Aimster]

I work 3 days a week from 9.00 - 5.30. I have a nanny to take care of my 2 DC (DC1 is in reception).

I'm thinking of changing my hours to 9.00 - 2.30 for 4 days a week. Mostly so that I can do the school runs every day - DC1 upset that I do not pick up every day. DC2 would go to nursery or have a nanny-share.

I'm not sure how this would impact on my work. I work in a business environment, so lots of conference calls and meetings / workshops.

I wanted to ask if anyone has experience of making a switch from 'normal' office hour days to shorter days? Would you do it again and what are the good and bad points?

Depends...

If you can get out of work on time every day then I'd probably say go for it. However, if you're like me and can't then I'd say stick with three days. i work four days and am lucky enough to work flexi-time. Some days I just cannot get out of the door on time though. There is a very clear distinction between my work and home life though. I DO NOT work at all on Friday!

Thanks banana. I'm very strict on work life being separate to work life, so looks like it could work if I stay this way!

When I had preschool aged children - I used to work 3 long days and it was great. It gave me two days off to do things with my DC, which added to the weekend, meant I was at home four days a week.

Now that my DC are at school, I work mornings until 2pm. This is much better for them, as I am always there to pick them up and they to do all the playdates etc. I do think smaller children can miss out socially if the parent is not in the school playground. I see this at school - those children who are always picked up by nannies / nursery always miss out on those impromptu coffee / play dates after school, and then as because the parents aren't around so much, perhaps the children don't get invited to the impromptu meeting at the park / halloween parties and so on...

Of course its difficult then to decide what's best when you've got one preschooler and one primary aged child.

I have done both, and find the 4 days better. I find that having different routines during the week (late days/early days) is a bit unsettling for DS and I, we are both exhausted at the end of the day, doing homework is a struggle, and we are both a bit grumpy, and on the free afternoons we don't have enough time to do as much as we would like to.

In terms of work, I prefer the continuity of being there most of the week, rather than being rushing to finish everything before I disappear on the last day, and spending half of the day at the start of the week trying to remember what I was up to...

In an ideal world, I would work the full week with exception of Wednesdays (I need a half week break to sort stuff) and be able to pick up DS at the end of the school day every day.

I have found that I am better organised with one day free than with two, for some reason when I have two free days I tend to waste a lot of time

I prefer to work 3 full days and then have a good block off to enjoy being a mum. Also I find trying to leave work at 2.30 quite hard as there is always something that comes up but you're in the clock!

I do a bit of a mixture in that I do 4 days but only 2 full days with the other two leaving for school pick up time. I find this works well as I can squeeze more into the longer days, its quite hard to leave on time for the school runs when I have stuff on though so you do have to be disciplined.

However you are already able on existing schedule to do 2 full days of school runs and presumably nanny picks up on other days so DD doesn't have to do long days and gets to be at home.. That isn't bad and most reception age children generally find something to complain about so I wouldn't rush to change if the existing arrangement is generally ok.

Thanks everyone - I didn't realise I had more replies .

I'm leaning towards MeMySonAndI's way of doing things. Both DC are exhasted when they come back home on the three days I work - there is no time (and too much grumpiness) to do homework / reading etc. DD is so over-stimulated that she mostly screams.

I'm going to try the 4 shorter days and see how it goes. I think this will help with presuure at work too, as I'll be more 'present' than disappearing for two days (even though it's the same number of hours overall).

And Rookimater... you have got me thinking about doing one full day and three shorter days... hmmm... some more thinking to do!

Sorry - rookie mater