So tell me...how do you do it?

[milkymill]

After having the spent the last 3 yrs as a sahm with dd and ds, I am hopefully entering in to full time study soon with a view to working full time. The reality of this is starting to dawn on me recently.

When dcs are school age, how do you manage during the many holidays if you have no family close by? Are there any working Mums out there who can shed some light on this? I have never given any thought to these issues before, and tbh the whole thing is starting to worry me . Keeping fingers crossed for a lottery win in the next year .

well i manage it by working evenings. i'm a manager at m&s. dh does 7-3, works for the police so organised flexible working. then i work 5 til midnight or 3 til 11, 4 nights a week. it works perectly for us. only downside is i don't see dh much during the week, but the pluses outweigh this.

My sons school runs a holiday club which DS1 and DS2 used to go to. They run for the same hours as school.

I'll probably be doing shift work, so it's a little hard to imagine the logistics of it all at the moment. Are holiday clubs reasonably priced then?

I wouldn't say that exactly, I think it was approx. £50 for the week

After School Clubs (private) usually run for the whole day during half-term, holidays etc.
But they are NOT cheap

Where I live there are loads of summer holiday clubs available , if you can afford them
Apart from that, I use annual leave, dh uses his annual leave (at different time from me). Also dcs stay with granny or granny comes here.
Also some employers (public sector ones mostly) allow term-time only working. Or what about coming to an arrangement with a friend - you look after her dcs when she's working and vice versa.
Basically, I just muddle through, as I presume most of us who don't have loads of money / willing family close by have. Can't say it's particularly easy though.

Work 4 days, school based holiday clubs, me and dh alternate odd days of AL.