My wife and I are at the age where we’re thinking of trying to start a family but I’m concerned about childcare. I know some may say that one of us should stay at home to look after the child but that won’t be possible which is why we need ideas!

My wife is a nurse and currently works three days a week from 730am to 10pm, usually one day a week on a Saturday or Sunday. Currently I work approx 8.30-5 but there could be the possibility of another job within the same company but it would mean I could be away for one week a month, possibly more.

I can’t see any childminders be willing to look after a child from 7.30-10 and we don’t have any family who are close enough to help out,…I think we’re going to have to choose between careers or a family.

Sounds like the perfect excuse to get an au pair. 8)

Seriously though, you perhaps do need to consider your collective priorities – life will not stay the same.

Good luck

Your only option doing that would be having a nanny. I don’t know any childminders that work past 6:30 or weekends. One of you needs to do regular hours and it would appear to be you. That’s what happened with Mrs FD and myself.

Reduce your hours.

Nanny would be best, and as its in your own home it would mean the kid(s) could keep their routines.

I have friends who were in similar position (nursing shifts + outdoor instructor who had seasonal expeditions). They ended up downing his work, having to put the exped work on hold and take whatever 9-5ish work he could, and sucking up paying for childcare when they did not always use it.

Oh and work out realistically how much child care will cost. Might be cheaper for one of you to give up work.

The NHS are one of the best employers there is for Flexible working patterns, your wife should already be able to gauge whether her Trust would let her drop her hours, from experience usually they try to accommodate, obviously bearing in mind shift patterns.

Nanny. We had one as I worked shifts, and she was flexible enough to work around them. We also had twins, and trying to find a childminder who didn’t insist on being paid for two full-time places every week was a nightmare. They may cost a bit more, (although not necessarily) but the joy of not having to get the little darlings out of bed and to a childminder for 6.am was worth any extra.

Can anyone give us an idea of how much nanny’s cost, do you have to pay them full time as we’d only really need help for two week days, and or possibly one if my wife reduced her hours.

Leave the toilet seats up? Oh and make sandwiches in the morning…(I don’t have kids btw)

I have 3 young kids and am single, if it weren’t for my mum then I would not have been able to work the hours/shifts I have.

As you OP, do not have family, you would probably find it cheaper to have a stay at home parent for the first few years at least until the free 15hr a week childcare vouchers kick in at age 3, sometimes younger depending on your area.

You’ll make it work somehow, probably in some way you can’t imagine right now. Do it, sort it out later. Don’t worry about it, you’ll see yourselves right.

You’ll be wanting Granny Murray…
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozDx8wL7hQM[/video]

She does nights.

Eerm, choose! Your wife’s seems to work lots of hours, so do you. Ad a baby and it will all end in tears. Would you work such a long shift as a nurse on no sleep? Definitely I’d say you would be mad to want to stick to that level of work between you for he first (few) year(s) of having kids. You will not understand till you have them, but they take over your life (in a good way!).

We have two kids, only family nearby is my (older) husbands much older mum. We did not want to ask her to take on regular Childcare as her health is not great. I did not work for a few years, then gradually started doing more. My husband works all sorts of hours as a driving instructor.

Work less and spend less for a few years, also they change so quickly and are only a baby for such a short while. Blink and you miss it! Take maximum paid and unpaid leave, work as little as you can to have enough money to live.

Why have kids and then pay someone else to look after them? I’d never do that by choice…..

Our neighbours are both doctors, they work days and nights randomly it seems. They have a nanny who seems willing to work the irregular times when both are either working or sleeping and the kid’s not at school. Sometimes we don’t see her for weeks as they are both on days.

Must cost them a packet though.

Our neighbours are both doctors… …They have a nanny…

I think this is key here

Yeah they’re not short of a bob or two 🙂 Although you’d not think that when you hear them trying to start their poor old Honda of a morning.. take it to a garage ffs I’m sure you can afford it.

there could be the possibility of another job within the same company but it would mean I could be away for one week a month, possibly more

Without wanting to tell you how to run your life, do you really think that starting a new job that will take you away from your wife is good idea when you are trying to have/bring up kids?

Mrs s and I both travel a lot for work, up to a week at a time. Before that I was working shifts and doing a load of on call.

Mrs s had compressed her hours in to 4 days WFH to save on childcare costs but it meant she was working 4 days and being a lone parent for 3 days some weeks if I was working the weekend.that wasn’t practical so it was new job time!

We’ve both submitted flexible working requests officially and had our contracts changed. I work from home Thursday/Friday when Mrs s generally travels and I do all my travel, where possible Mon/Tues/wed.

Were like ships that pass in the night some weeks but our cheeky pleasure is swimming with the little un on Friday lunchtimes if were both at home. Like today 😀

Similar situation here, I work 8:30 to 5-6ish, wife is a nurse and works 12.5 hour day or night shifts. No family any closer than a 3 hr drive. Her work were accomodationg enough to allow her two fixed days shifts a week which was necessary to get childcare on those two days. Childminders generally won’t accept random different days each week, unless they are very under booked, then you have to wonder why they are under booked. Wife then works 5 additional shifts in every 4 week period, these have to be a combination of nights and weekend days. It does limit my availability to travel for work, but that is pretty infrequent so we usually manage to work around it if it’s only a night or two away, but a week away (eg training course) is very difficult to organise especially now daughter is at school and can’t so easily be packed away to grandparents for a week. But overall it works well for us and allows us both to work full time and keep a roof over our heads, and still have plenty of time with our daughter. She really enjoys the two days a week at the childminders, it is a change of scene for her, although now it is only pre/post school.

Can anyone give us an idea of how much nanny’s cost, do you have to pay them full time as we’d only really need help for two week days, and or possibly one if my wife reduced her hours.

A mate of mine has a nanny and pays her £16k pa for Mon-Fri! That’s London rates though.

I’d give the ‘new’ job a miss – being away when you have little kids is crap (take it from someone who does it – but usually only for 1 or 2 nights at a time – however have done a week at a time)
My wife works full time (teacher) and it is a lot of work trying to get two kids out of the door and to the childminders on your own before work.
When you add the complication of a child being ill – it makes it even worse.

You’ll also miss important stuff with your kids – I missed my eldest daughter starting to crawl properly (no big deal until you are a parent) because I was working away in Denmark.

WE’re in a similar boat, but thankfully neither of us regularly work to 10pm.
It’s pretty hard to find a childminder who will offer flexible dates, but they are out there.
In reality, it IS hard having long/irregular shifts – and TBH we upped our whole life to move nearer relatives who COULD offer the extra help if needed (i.e pick ups from childcare if running late).

trying to start their poor old Honda of a morning.. take it to a garage ffs I’m sure you can afford it.

There’s satisfaction in running an old banger – especially if you’re a GP – practice car parks and people streets are a magnet for bumps and scrapes!!!

DrP

When mrscarlos got pregnant with mini carlos mk1 I was(still am) a postie,she worked as a QC manager in a warehouse with about 60 staff. We took the plunge and despite being the larger earner my wife decided she wanted to be at home as much as possible for our family,she went part time which took over 16K (before deductions)from our combined earnings.
After 3 years mrscarlos had enough of the stress of management and got a new part time job closer to home earning half again,we’re lucky to only have a small mortgage but when we did the sums childcare would have eaten up nearly a third of our income. We get a lot of family time and that’s a price worth paying imo for the cut in money

Can anyone give us an idea of how much nanny’s cost, do you have to pay them full time as we’d only really need help for two week days, and or possibly one if my wife reduced her hours.

£10-12ph should cover you, and since you only need 1-2 days get someone self-employed (legit, as they’ll need other ‘customers’ to fill their week). They invoice, you pay.

A mate of mine has a nanny and pays her £16k pa for Mon-Fri! That’s London rates though.

You say it like its a fortune, its only just above minimum wage. 🙄

Au pair here, but then our little darling is a bit older, at 5. Missus is in the RAF, I’m in the Army, so regular, sustained overseas travel couldn’t be avoided and scaling back the hours was never an option – it was either no family or no job. Fortunately, for the first few years we both lived together and were within an hour or so of both sets of (retired) grandparents, we also had a place at a very good nursery. The military was relatively flexible with working hours when one or other of us deployed and that prevented any major issues in the early years – we stuck with nursery 8-6 and then grandparents to supplement every now and again. Now he’s in school, the missus has been posted to the Highlands (taken him with her) and works on a 3 week shift rotation (week of early, week of day, week of night), I’m posted 500 miles away and the grandparents are 350-500 miles away we’ve had to resort to an au pair.

She actually works out cheaper than the nursery was and does house work as well. Unfortunately I’m not home regularly but we’ve got the stereotypical 21 year blonde Swedish girl…

We were in a similar situation I ended up giving up work, we are lucky though the misses has a good job. My job was recession prone so we always financially planned with one wage only. Still was a bit tough to start with losing half our income but I’m much happier now, the misses finds the stress of work less now not having to worry about who is picking up the kids etc friends we know who chose the other route with a nanny make it work and they have much more money than we do but are constantly going on about how they feel guilty about someone else raising their kids, not spending enough time as a family, nanny stress etc they are currently worrying about it on a 4 week holiday in oz

Unfortunately I’m not home regularly but we’ve got the stereotypical 21 year blonde Swedish girl…

You know what’s coming next…….

DrP

I know, I know… I don’t have any to hand but could give you her Facebook profile for a bit of stalking if you’d prefer…

One of my work colleagues employs an Au Pair. He says it works out cheaper than you would expect every month, and is many times cheaper than putting all the kids into after-school club. She can run them all to school, collect them if he’s late back from work. He can walk in and dinner is on the go! Wife … but without the stress!

There’s satisfaction in running an old banger – especially if you’re a GP – practice car parks and people streets are a magnet for bumps and scrapes!!!

Their other car is a BMW 530d which I’ve become a little jealous of. It’s the same age as my Passat and cost the same although it was older when they bought it. It’s well specced and purrrrrs really nicely.. mm.. 🙂