a question about what you do . . .

[PooPooInMyToes]

to those of you who work and whose partners also work with your children in the school holidays.

Im thinking of going back to work a couple of days a week. I have one pre schooler and one at full time school.

The little one i think would be better off at nursery and the older one at breakfast and after school club. This does mean though that in school holidays i wouldn't have a childminder. Even if i did that would mean my children would be apart all day which would make them REALLY sad as they love being together. How on earth do you find a holiday only childminder anyway! I can't imagine there are many around so i wouldn't have much choice if i found one and wasn't sure about them.

The only holiday clubs at my local school seem to be sports ones which wouldn't suit my oldest AT ALL.

Is anyone else working with this situation and if so what do you do?

Obviously i don't have family help otherwise this wouldn't be an issue so Im interested in others in the same situation.

Posted too soon but hopefully it makes sense!

No it doesn't make sense!

What i meant was, where do your children go each day during the school holidays when both you and your partners work?

I have 4 children and work 3 days a week.

School holidays we do a combination of:

• I always take a day off so that I only have 2 days to worry about
• The nursery my younger 2 attend offers Junior Club so although they are apart they are in the same building
• The older two watch DVDs/read books/play board games/do homework whilst I work from home - not ideal but I have done it a few times
• Summer I and DH have always taken 2 weeks unpaid parental leave as I like for us all to spend as much time together as possible. They also spend time with my mum and dad abroad in the summer, although haven't left them all there yet.

Hope this helps a bit - 2 days a week is very doable, I think.

My DD goes to her childminder.

Some childminders have 'school holiday' places, especially if they look after the children of teachers, who do not use their services in the school hols. You would need to contact your local child minders and see if they have any of these vacancies.

Watching with interest as I'm going back soon too (crossed fingers and toes and anything else)

My son's after school club runs a holiday club, so he goes to that for some of the time and with my parents for some of the time.

my son's school do a holiday club too so he goes there - its not a fixed scheme they just go and play, they take children from different schools so worth seeing if a primary in your area could help, we take holiday and grandparents help for a couple of days in summer, I know friends who take it in turns to have each others dc's but I think with 3 I would be asking too much.
I have heard of holiday childminders, our council keeps a list of registered childminders.
I work 4 days - works brilliantly during term time, hopeless during holidays

We use a combination of splitting our holiday so we are off at different times, the occasional day working from home, sometimes unpaid leave and playscheme. I am part time and normally work a slightly shorter day for 4 days per week, however in the holiday I work 3 longer days some weeks to cover my contracted hours.
We tried several different playschemes until we found one that they are both happy with, now they go to one at the local leisure centre which offers both sports and crafts so it suits both of mine. It is also reasonably priced and accepts childcare vouchers.
I must admit it does take a lot of planning and has got harder since ds went to secondary school as his school has longer and slightly different holidays to dd's school.