Anyone working in retail with multiple DCs of school and nursery age…

[Countingdays]

Please tell me what hours you do!!!

Bit of background:
Two DCs. One of school age, one will go to nursery after my maternity is up. We are not eligible for TFC or working parents scheme so youngest will be going to a childminder 7:30 - 5:30 four days a week. Eldest is in school (let’s say 7:30-6 factoring in clubs). DH works and is the higher earner so he is unavailable Monday-Thurs between 8am-7pm. Fridays he can work from home.

my commute in to work is 1.5h. My shifts can be anything from 7am to 10pm and anything in between.

How flexible is your flexible working request? And how do you function? Do you have any time to yourself?

So your husband is earning over £100k? Could you get a job nearer to home? Save money on childcare?

@boulevardofbrokendreamss yes, I am a higher tax bracket but nowhere near what he earns. I do enjoy having an income and a career so I do want to continue working but the plan would be to go back and then start looking for more mon-fri job which will likely come at a significant pay cut.

For the time being, I'm just looking at how to structure my FWR so that I can manage for up to a year

No amount of money would see me putting my children into childcare for that long each and every day.

Can you find a job closer to home? Can he wfh to facilitate drop offs/pick ups?

Is commute 1.5 hour each way ? Even still 45 mins is a lot for working in retail

Fwr can only be agreed if the business can accommodate. Only you know what your working environment is like and with shops shifts have to be worked according to the opening hours

The OP is in a higher tax bracket, so I assume she is at least a store manager of a big store, if not an area manager or similar

We did it with our first, she was in a nursery 7-5 but was able to be there until 6:30 in case of traffic and we had support from a family member at pick up so could continue working full time

The added complexity is that now she is in school and DC2 will be with a childminder who has shorter hours

I definitely won't be going back FT again as I do want to have time with my kids and now that DH is earning more I can do that

Just wondering what peoples patterns would be so I can get ideas before asking work

Yes, and it’s not a retailer that’s in every town centre, it’s a central location

totally, I was just trying to get ideas before I propose the patterns as this time round I’m not as flexible as I was with 1 DC

I am not in retail but I am currently on a 3 month trial after submitting a flexible working request.
My usual hours were 8.30am to 5pm with a one hour lunch break, 5 days a week.
I am now condensing 10 days worth of work into 9 days and having every other Wednesday off.
This means working an extra 50 mins per day on the other 9 days
So now I work 8.15am to 5.15pm and have a 40 min lunch break.
It doesn't feel like I am working any longer because I would quite often work slightly after 5pm anyway if I was in the middle of something.
Also if I had a meeting straight after lunch I would be back earlier anyway to ensure I was ready for the meeting.

This!

Thank you. I might look in to condensing days although I’ve never seen any of my team do longer hours before.

I wasn’t really looking for judgement around my childcare arrangements in this post. A quote springs to mind: “we expect women to work like they don’t have children, but raise their children like they don’t work”. I am allowed a career and still be a good mum.

Not retail, but I worked in high end hospitality when my dcs were little. When the youngest one was a baby I did only evenings and weekends, so no childcare was needed for him. When he got older and started preschool I started doing breakfast shifts only and only 3 x days a week. It worked well for us.

Editing to say hours were 6.30pm-finish (usually about 10pm) or lunch shift on a Saturday, from about 11 till 3pm.

Breakfast shift was 7am till 1pm

Not in retail but work 3/4 days a week 8am-6pm.

Before having my third baby I was squeezing my full time hours into 4 days to have a day off for myself and then able to do school drop offs and collection so no wrap around care needed for 1 day a week.
I’ve now gone back to work after 10 weeks maternity leave and am back working 5 days with a mixture of long days and short days until my baby is a little older, I do 2 x 10 hour days, 2 x 8 hour days and 1 really short day to help get bits done at home and again save on wrap around care needed everyday.
I’ll probably go back to 4 days fairly soon to get that day back for myself and gets bits done at home child free.
I’m more than happy with my baby attending various hours in the nursery I’ve used for all my children knowing he’s cared for so well and developing his social skills along with other things such as getting more stimulation than he would being at home 😊 hence me being back at work so soon too!