Please help me with this complicated childcare conundrum? Please, please! <begging tone>

[WideWebWitch]

Oh god, it's long and complicated but please, read on and tell me what to do. Background: I have been looking for work for 7months. I need a job. I've just got a job, hurrah! Reasonably well paid, but it's a contract 3.5 hours drive from where I live with my 2 children (7.5yo ds and 20mos dd) and dp. Ds is ex dh's. We are still good friends and I love and get on with his mum, ex MIL (keeping up here?), who lives in London. Ex MIL is 1 hr drive away from my new contract and has offered to put me up AND look after my children! So my options for childcare are:

Ex MIL, who I love and who loves both my children, even though one of them is no blood relation to her. She has offered to look after dd (20mos) AND ds (7.5yo) AND put me up for not much money. Ds would be there to settle dd in and I would be there at the end of every day. So 3/4 of my family, i.e. ds, dd, I, will be together next week and the next few weeks over the summer holidays. Dp will stay in Bristol BUT will be able to do unlimited overtime and earn quite a bit more money (not as much as me, ha!, but still useful).

OR we find a nursery for dd now, if there is a place, in Bristol, where we live. But suddenly I disappear and am not around during the week AND she's in a strange place, i.e new nursery, plus her brother, ds, will be in London with me and will suddenly disappear from her life it will seem to her. But dp, her father, would drop and collect her and put her to bed every night in her own home.

Oh goodness, what would you do? Our options seem to be splittng our family up (i.e. dp lives alone until the end of the summer hols, the rest of us live in London) and keeping 3 of us together until the new term when dd will have to go into a nursery (yet to be found) and ds will go to after school club. Once my contract ends it might be extended or I will be at home again. Any advice welcome. TIA.

I can't not take the job, we need the money but any other thoughts or advice welcome. TIA.

Well I have never been to Milton Keynes but I believe they have delightful concrete cows. What more could you want?

www, glad your mind is made up and decisions clarified. I had another thought. As a contract worker, how do you stand legally regarding unpaid leave for dependents? If you have a child under 5 years old you are entitled to a certain amount of unpaid time off each year without it jeopardising your job. I know money is important right now, but if you are entitled to unpaid leave, it means you have a bit of emergency flexibility if needed.

hi www, sorry i missed this. have i replied to your email? i think not, sorry

i am broadly in agreement with tigermoth and issymum, and want to emphasise their points about looking for something else pretty soon (giving up on the retention bonus) and also that since you have been a sahm for the last few months, they've seen plenty of you recently. i'd also like to point out that for many f/t working mothers who are based at home, the amount of time they see their children each day can be actually quite small if they are working long hours. say you had something local but only saw the kids for 90 mins per day. then the incremental time you'd have lost with them by being in mk would be 7.5 hrs over the course of the week.

in your shoes, i'd be inclined to minimise the disruption by leaving the family in bristol for the duration. i would only move the kids to mil's for the next few weeks if you are otherwise unable to find childcare. that's just me, i'd prefer to keep the family intact and restrict the inconvenience and disruption to myself.

congratulations on getting the job, well done i don't envy you this conundrum, but needs must when the devil drives.

lol! i mean your kids have seen plenty of you recently not tigermoth and issymum! and i previewed and everything! duh

The shopping centre in Milton Keynes has lots of shops.

So does the one in Basildon, just not the sort of shops you would actualy want to go in

Thanks bk (you don't owe me an email btw)! Ds would be going to MILs anyway next week and for at least one other week in the holidays because that's the deal so I can see that keeping them together might work. If it doesn't though we've agreed we'll just change it, dp will have to take time off work to deal with it. I do need to make sure mil has broadband though or the deal's off

www - hope it all goes ok next week, will miss you! x

www- the trick to MK is that the roads are V (vertical) and H (horizontal) numbers. Once you get the hang of that, and know where you're starting from and where you're going by grid number, it's not too difficult.

I'm in MK one day a week (was permanent there for quite a while, but never lived there) if you end up there and want some early evening company sometime.

martha - I think they've removed your concrete relatives now!

blimey, I don't envy you, but well done for making a decision. good luck with it

www, i've only just seen this... congratulations. i am on way out and can't post now but will later/tomorrow....fwiw, whatever you do, i think your family will be fine!

WWW - just checking in on this thread!

I'm glad you have reached a decision

I admire your resolution to get your families finances straightened out and hope that you enjoy the next few months workwise at least

WWW, tried chasing you the other day, am assuming this is the job you were posting about? So pleased you have found a job. Congratulations!

I don't know what the answers are to all this really, though. Would you need to be there on a 9-5 basis? Could you try and get your working hours out of the way in say 3 days so you could spend more time at home with your family? Doubt if you are on a contract they are likely to bother concerning themselves with family friendly flexible working but would it be worth asking? Or sussing it out for yourself once you have started. Good luck with it all. xx

And all the concrete shops are under one concrete roof, so at least you don't get wet! What more could you want??

LOL I thought this must be some kind of analagy for something on this thread - then I realised you just meant Milton Keynes!

WWW, Well done on getting the job.

I think your ex-mil lives close to us and am sure that she is lovely, but if you ever need some breathing space or just fancy meeting up, give me a shout. You will always be very welcome here. Our home is a bit of a tip most of the time but we do have a sofa bed if you need it.

Congratulations on getting the job, www, what a crap conundrum situation for you. I've got no opinion on it at all, because each option is equally awful and equally valid, there are times you just have to grit your teeth and get on with it, and you've obviously decided to do that. If it helps, I always associate Milton Keynes with David Bowie, because the Serious Moonlight tour is the only reason I've ever had for going to Milton Keynes! So get your Bowie tapes out!

www, I agree with bk on this one, and you can always take ds to stay with mil for a bit during the summer hols .

Sorry but must pick up on something CountessDracula said aeons ago down the thread

David Bowie at Milton Keynes Bowl - I was there too, girl, hot hot day, also off head at the time so had to look up the exact year but thought it was later than 1981: it was 1983 (2 July apparently) It were great weren't it - sorry again to interrupt www

My lasting memory is of being desperate to go to the loo for about 4 hours and eventually going over the fence in the bushes, because it was quicker and more hygienic than the hideous portakabins.

And then having a stiletto on my foot. Painful.

www - have to speak up and defend MK here. I've lived here for 10 yrs and it's a good place to live and work - don't knock it until you've tried it I say.

The concrete cows now live at Bancroft on the H3 Monks Way. BTW the grid road all have names as well as numbers.

The grid road system is dead easy to use when you know how - H for Horizontal ie east to west and V for vertical ie north to south - buy a map and study it

Take a look on mkweb for loads of info mkweb

If you want to know anything else cat me

BTW when I lived in the very scenic and historic city of Oxford, I used to scoff at Milton Keynes too, but know I know better.

forgot to say re your journey - did you go M4, M25, M1 - I always go M4, A34, then Bicester and A421 Buckingham to MK from Bristol

Thanks everyone, yes sis, ex MIL is near you and thanks very much for that offer. Ha ha at Caligula and Cam at David Bowie in MK in 1983 - there are people on this site who were born then you know! Thanks for all the congrats Flossam, Phillipaat, Lunarsea, sophable. Iota, I hope you're not offended by the mk bashing, thanks for the advice, I do need to buy a map, definitely. We decided last night that dd is going into nursery next week if we can find one since then she will only be disrupted once (bk and pabla, you're right I think) and then she at least is at home with daddy after nursery. Also, I won't have to deal with new job/staying with ds at MIL's/AND dealing with disoriented toddler, i.e. dd, during my first 4 weeks in a new job! Ds is totally at home at MILS and will let me get ready and go so it makes sense from a me being able to just concentrate and do my job pov I think! Thanks everyone, this has been so very helpful.

Yes, Iota re route btw.

wwww - strongly recommend my suggested route as it avoids the hell of the M25 round heathrow and the hell that is the M1. (can also come off at Swindon adn do the A420 to Oxford)

We often go to Cardiff to visit family and can do it in 2.5 hours at the weekend.

Re the childcare dilemma, I was thinking about possible disadvantages - obviously I don't know the exact circumstances location etc BUT

If you took children to XMIL, you would have to leave Bristol on the Sunday afternoon, otherwise you would have very nasty Monday commute to London, leave and settle children at XMIL then commute 1 hr to MK - not really very dooable. Then similar scenario on Friday pm - and the exodus from London on Friday pm is truly horrible.

Also if you are commuting 1 hr to MK from XMIL, she will be in charge of them for approx 10 hr day, 5 days a week - is she young enough and fit enough to cope with the demands of 2 children - 1 an active todder? I'd find that very wearing!

If you come by yourself you could drive to MK early Mon and either stay locally or at XMIL and do lots of hrs - possibly getting away early on Friday to get back to your family. Then you would have 3 nights at home with them. Also, if teh journey is only 2 hrs, maybe you could go home say Wed pm to stay the night then drive back early Thursday.

My dh travels a lot in his work and sometimes choose to drive home rather than spend another night in a luxury hotel - strange but true - he misses us ahhhh

just a few thoughts

hope it works out for you