3 long day working week or 5 day working week

[TaraW20]

Just looking on what works for different people and what you find are pros and cons to each working week.

I have been offered a position doing 3 12.5 hour shifts a week. Days would change but I've always thought working Monday to friday would be easier with kids.

We have a nursery aged child and a primary 7 who will be in high-school after summer.

What do people find easier themselves?

Working 12.5 hours probably means being out of the house 13.5 hours (once you factor in a commute). So those days you may not see your children awake. If the shifts fell on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday you wouldn’t talk to your kids from Sunday night to Thursday morning. I have to do something similar every other week, and I really struggle with it.

My best working pattern was 4 days across 5 which I did for six months after my first mat leave. That was ideal.

A shifting pattern would make it really hard organising childcare.
monday- friday provides consistency but 3 days a week means you have 4 days free

I think it depends on your childcare arrangements and availability of wraparound care, as well as the other parent’s working pattern. A shifting pattern would make it very hard to source conventional childcare.

I currently work three long days - not as long as yours but the commute means I’m out of the house for a similar length of time. Advantages are that it saves us two days childcare costs, I get two days with my toddler and doing the school run, and it saves me a day’s commuting costs from my previous pattern.

Downsides are that they are LONG days. There are obvious bits like not really seeing the DC on three days (in practice, they are early risers so I see them AM but miss bedtime). Also, there are knock-on implications. Things like: I don’t always get an evening at home on working days if I’m back late, or I stay up too late in order to have some down time; I have no time for exercise on those days; I have to be super organised with meal planning and very strict on timings if I don’t want to end up slipping and buying crap on the way home.

If I were focusing purely on what would suit me rather than the DC/our finances and if my commute wasn’t so long or I could work from home more, I’d work full time but 5 days in 4. That would give me a day at home with our younger DC and to do the school run, and once the little one is at home I’d have time to get things straight at home during school hours on the non-working day.