Childcare in the summer for school aged kids?

[hellokitty]

I've thought about returning to work part time, BUT childcare is a huge issue for us. DS3 is only 2, so not in school yet, but DS1 and 2 are in full day school. I haven't really thought about this until now, but how do you arrange part time childcare for school aged kids in the summer? Is it doable without costing an arm and a leg?

[egoldber]

Camp. An all day camp with before and after care depending on your hours. Some people hire a summer nanny, but personally I prefer camps. For 3 kids, I think economically it makes more sense to have a summer nanny.

And yes, full time summer child care for elementary ages kids is actually quite expensive (at least here) relative to the cost of full time care for younger kids. All day care for preschoolers can be found for $200-$250 a week, but for elementary aged kids, it tends to be $300 or more per week.

[crl]

Everyone I know now uses either camps or the school district run child development centers. With three kids, a summer babysitter may make more financial sense. I used to know a mom who hired college students for the summers and they would take the kids to the park and the pool and such.

Catherine

[wendmatt]

It's really tough isn't it. I want to take a summer class and it's 2 hrs twice a week but it's for 10 weeks. It would be around 3 hours total with travel each day. So I don't know if I should look for camps or just get a baby sitter, but that would prob cost the same as a whole day camp. YMCA is $30 for a full day, I imagine I'd have to pay a teen $10 an hour maybe? Or could I get away with less? I've never done it before, I've always been at home or done online classes in the summer. I feel your pain! Kudos to all you working mums, it's a real struggle to fiind something appropriate.

[lalasmama]

I've tried a few different things. I live in a low-to-moderate COL area. (For a comparison, we live in a tiny 2 bed, 1 bath duplex, and pay $700 for about 750sqft.)

Each year, the school's after school program attempts to do a summer program. We signed up last year, and they had to close it after 3 weeks, because there weren't enough kids signed up to make it financially feasible. Bummer! This was $95/week for 5 days a week. I can't remember the prices for less days. $425 for a month, give or take a little, was WONDERFUL!

When the school program ended, we did a nanny-share. It was $35 a day. That sucked. I was living seriously paycheck-to-paycheck, and it was hard to budget $700 in childcare for three months in a row. I totally :heartbeat: our nanny, she makes sure the kids get hours of fresh air each day, she runs them ragged, and DD comes home tired, sweaty, and dirty... with a HUGE smile on her face. But, I'm a single mom, and soon, will be the single mom of 2, and the money isn't there for the nanny-share all the time.

We also have a Y nearby. Their summer camps, including before and after care, were $185 a week two years ago... That's over $800 a month, and I'd be having to provide breakfast, lunch, and 2 snacks for her!

We're looking into The Boys and Girls Club this summer. A good friend's boys go there for drop-in activities, and they have been very pleased. It's close to my work, and, according to my friend, will be MUCH more affordable than the nanny-share.

I hate the month of May, because I spend the whole time thinking, "Okay, how am I going to afford daycare and make it work well all summer long??"

[Gena]

Summer childcare is a challenge for us too.

Last year, DS went to a childcare center during the summer. (He had been attending their afterschool program before then.) The school aged kids went on field trips 2-3 times a week, including swimming every other week. DS seemed to enjoy it for the most part, but there were some difficulties due to his disorders.

DS no longer attends this program for afterschool care and after the trauma he has been through with the school's attempts at mainstreaming this year, it is obvious to us now that DS needs specialized care. So right now I'm not sure what we are going to do. I have a couple of leads on places that offer therapeutic care during the summer, but I need to get more information. I do know that summer childcare is going to be very expensive for us.

[hellokitty]

Wow, so it really does sound as bad as I thought it would be, ugh. Maybe I will have to try to get a job as the school nurse, so I can work with the kids school schedule. DH's work schedule is so erratic, we pretty much have to hire a full time nanny if I want to go back to work full time, but it's not worth it for what I earn. I'd like to get back to working part time, but it sounds like a logistical nightmare and I wouldn't be bringing much of a paycheck home after paying for childcare.

[belovedgandp]

If you can find an older high school or college student that can work well too. That was my job for four summers at the end of high school and beginning of college. I was able to run kids to camps, lessons, play dates, park, pool, etc. I worked for two summers for two different families. Both of them were able to always be home early enough for me to do night classes at the community college and/or also work my retail job nights and weekends. Better hours and pay than I could get at almost any other summer job.

[niccig]

I am back in school, and do classes over the Summer. We used camps for DS. He always does some sort of camp, but this was more weeks and more days. It does add up, and I am not earning anything right now. But one day I will be, and I hope to make it back.

I know a couple of families where Summer is very costy for childcare, but they need it so they can earn money the other 9 months of the year.

As for child care costing so much, so that you don't bring in much - I felt the same when DS was born. But I didn't count lost retirement, promotions and raises. All of that adds up.

And you have to consider if you wait too long, can you get back in? That depends on your field. I know 2 women who are mid-50s and need to work because of their DH's salary cuts or layoffs. They haven't worked in 20 yrs. MIL was a nurse and went back to work part time when her youngest was 3rd grade, because FIL has his first heart attack. Her career became her focus when the youngest was in college, and at 70 she is still consulting, and not because she needs the money. I can see me doing something similar. I'll have 20 yrs once DS is off to college.

[niccig]

Maybe ask around and see what camp options are in your area. I'm in high COL, so I will pay more for camps then other places. One camp charges less the longer the child goes there. So all of Summer is cheaper per week than just one week of camp.

Eta does your DH's work have dependent care FSA. It helps a little to use tax free money to pay for childcare. This is the first year we're eligible, and or childcare should be less out of pocket this year.

[KpbS]

We are looking into school options for next fall and I stumbled across a local parochial school that has an unbelievably affordable camp (7 am-6 pm) for very little tuition. Seriously, it would cost me more to hire a babysitter for one day than for what this camp costs per week. Keep looking into your options--you might find something very reasonable.

[fivi2]

Camps. Which even in my area are crazy expensive.

However, many regular day cares do a summer program also, which tends to be less expensive (but still not cheap).

Summer nannies are common here also.

This is our first real summer and I am finding out that I did not budget nearly enough!

[JBaxter]

Our YMCA has all summer day camps. They also run most of the before/after school programs in the county. It was nice for my older 2 I could sign them up for only the weeks we needed ( minus vacations etc). Was fairly reasonably priced for child care.

[hellokitty]

Niccig, yeah I have seen the tuition rates for some of the summer camps here and I think that they are pretty expensive for our low COL area. I'm not sure how ppl in our area do it, except that some ppl get free childcare if they are low income and many ppl depend on family for free childcare. We don't have either option. I have been out of the field of critical care nursing for 8 yrs now and already feel nervous about being able to bounce back with my skills and quite honestly I don't know if I would want to return to ICU or not, at this point, working somewhere low key would be awesome, but nursing jobs are hard to come by, the one I was thinking about is at the public health dept, so at least it would only be during limited hrs (vs hospital which is open 24-7). What complicates things further is that my DH is on call 50% of the yr, so that makes it hard for me to schedule much of anything (his schedule literally changes in real time if they cancel or add on a case or there is an emergency), even if I wanted to just work on the wknds. If I work on the wknds that he is off, then we literally have ZERO wknds as a family. We talked about this yesterday and DH's attitude is that if that is what we have to do (to save for college costs), then that is what we are going to have to do (me work on the wknds and not see family all wknd, since it will probably me two 12 hr shifts). I'm just dreading this. In DH's line of work, if they have kids, the spouses (unless they have family who will take care of kids) have to sahm, b/c of the erratic work hours. His schedule is different every day and can change at any minute, so it also sucks that I could pay for childcare and he may not even have to go into work on certain days. The only thing the best thing that would work for us is someone who casually wants a babysitting job, and will be willing to accommodate us on an as needed basis, but I don't think anyone is going to like only working 3 hrs one wk and then maybe 12 hrs another wk, kwim?

DH does have an FSA acct, but I am not sure if we can access that now that the sign up period is over, or maybe if I get a job, that would qualify as a life event change to let us do that? I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm already getting a headache thinking about this. They have a daycare facility for employees, but it is only for kids under school age. I always thought that when DS3 starts full day school, I could just return to work, but never gave summer daycare a thought. Most ppl I know either work full time (so it's easier to figure out childcare) or have family to watch their kids. I don't really know anyone in our area in the same position as us. DH's 3 co-workers are not in the same situation since the ones with kids have a SAH parent and one has no kids.

Oh and I've thought about getting my graduate degree, but it would be the same mess that we're in now, except that it would be an even bigger financial burden, since I wouldn't even break even on salary/childcare costs. It's times like this that I wish I would have become a teacher, so I could have summers off with my own kids. School nurse positions are really hard to come by, but that would probably be the only job to, "solve" my childcare issues at this point.

[carolinamama]

For some reason, I am thinking you are an RN but disregard this post if you aren't. I am an RN, but I've never completely quit work (gone down to 2 shifts a month after the first year after the boys were born) so I do have great flexibility in the unit where I work. My DH works very long hours so we have some limitations to what I can do and our childcare. Also, what type of work do you want to do?

First think about why you want to return to work. Do you WANT to work or is it just to make money or both? After I took those years where I wasn't working much (always on the weekends when DH was home) I realized that I am happier if I get out of the house, use my mind, and am not the mommy. This is why I work now with the 3 kids. I was willing to spend a pretty penny on childcare, realizing that it would benefit our whole family if I had a job outside the house too. And it is nice to have my own paycheck too.

We use a part-time nanny. She works 22 hours each week for us - two days a week while I work. DH just has to work shorter days when I work. Fortunately I have awesome managers that let me work a set schedule. She takes DS1 to school and picks him up, takes DS2 to preschool on one of her days, and cares for DD the whole time. If the boys have a playdate or activity, she also takes them. They go to the park and sometimes Chick-Fil-A on rainy days. There are also some other benefits to having a nanny. She does the kids' laundry that I haven't done, so about 50-75% of their laundry and puts it away. She is in charge of washing their sheets weekly too. It is really nice that I can leave a sick kid with her and still go to work. A few weeks ago DD had a fever and I had her text me the temp every 2 hours and how she was doing. We will continue to use this nanny through the summer too. But we have a somewhat different situation in that DS1 is in a year round school so he doesn't have a long summer break.

Sorry it got so long and hope some of this helps. With 3 kids, a nanny was the most cost-effective and easiest to make sure the kids got where they needed to be.

ETA: Lots of other posts while I was posting (and dealing with kids in the middle). Sounds like a tough spot. A few years ago, we had a nurse return to the unit (MICU in a very large teaching hospital) after being at home with her kids for 6 years. She was scared and says it took almost 6 months to feel comfortable but is fine now. So don't discount being able to get back into the swing of things if hospital nursing is what you find you want to do. It will certainly pay more than school nursing or many other places. Maybe you could go back to work in the fall and have alittle time to work through the kinks before you have to deal with the summer? I actually find that it is more stressful to me worrying about all the kids getting where they need to go during school since everyone is going a different direction so maybe that will be your case? We also have nurses that work 2 nights a week to make things work better with kids and use sitters when necessary. But I'm NOT a night person so I stick to days. Good luck. Childcare is such a stressful thing and there will never be a 100% perfect solution. Definitely look into the FSA option as it does help us out.

[LD92599]

DS1 goes to our town rec program and then I've hired a college student to pick him up and entertainment him in the afternoons until we get home.

Last summer it worked out well because I had the baby home w/ a nanny so she picked up DS1. However DS2 starts back at daycare in a few weeks and i haven't thought of the summer w/ DS1 yet.

[hellokitty]

For some reason, I am thinking you are an RN but disregard this post if you aren't. I am an RN, but I've never completely quit work (gone down to 2 shifts a month after the first year after the boys were born) so I do have great flexibility in the unit where I work. My DH works very long hours so we have some limitations to what I can do and our childcare. Also, what type of work do you want to do?

First think about why you want to return to work. Do you WANT to work or is it just to make money or both? After I took those years where I wasn't working much (always on the weekends when DH was home) I realized that I am happier if I get out of the house, use my mind, and am not the mommy. This is why I work now with the 3 kids. I was willing to spend a pretty penny on childcare, realizing that it would benefit our whole family if I had a job outside the house too. And it is nice to have my own paycheck too.

We use a part-time nanny. She works 22 hours each week for us - two days a week while I work. DH just has to work shorter days when I work. Fortunately I have awesome managers that let me work a set schedule. She takes DS1 to school and picks him up, takes DS2 to preschool on one of her days, and cares for DD the whole time. If the boys have a playdate or activity, she also takes them. They go to the park and sometimes Chick-Fil-A on rainy days. There are also some other benefits to having a nanny. She does the kids' laundry that I haven't done, so about 50-75% of their laundry and puts it away. She is in charge of washing their sheets weekly too. It is really nice that I can leave a sick kid with her and still go to work. A few weeks ago DD had a fever and I had her text me the temp every 2 hours and how she was doing. We will continue to use this nanny through the summer too. But we have a somewhat different situation in that DS1 is in a year round school so he doesn't have a long summer break.

Sorry it got so long and hope some of this helps. With 3 kids, a nanny was the most cost-effective and easiest to make sure the kids got where they needed to be.

ETA: Lots of other posts while I was posting (and dealing with kids in the middle). Sounds like a tough spot. A few years ago, we had a nurse return to the unit (MICU in a very large teaching hospital) after being at home with her kids for 6 years. She was scared and says it took almost 6 months to feel comfortable but is fine now. So don't discount being able to get back into the swing of things if hospital nursing is what you find you want to do. It will certainly pay more than school nursing or many other places. Maybe you could go back to work in the fall and have alittle time to work through the kinks before you have to deal with the summer? I actually find that it is more stressful to me worrying about all the kids getting where they need to go during school since everyone is going a different direction so maybe that will be your case? We also have nurses that work 2 nights a week to make things work better with kids and use sitters when necessary. But I'm NOT a night person so I stick to days. Good luck. Childcare is such a stressful thing and there will never be a 100% perfect solution. Definitely look into the FSA option as it does help us out.

I wrote a long response back and lost it! Thanks for taking the time to post a long response back. I kind of have a combo of wanting to work a little again and also $, BUT I was pretty burnt out when I left hospital nursing 8 yrs ago. So, I'm not really too gung ho about returning to unit nursing again to be quite honest. Ironically, I went to nursing school wanting to do community health nursing, but ended up liking critical care, and now I've gone full circle and want to do community care again. I do worry about getting my groove back, but I know I can do it, it'll just suck at the beginning. I think we will probably have to consider a summer nanny if I pursue anything and yeah, the whole logistics of childcare does cause me some anxiety. I don't know if I will try to start back anytime soon, I've just been thinking about it. There is a chance, there may be job opportunities for DH in a larger city in a 2-3 yrs and that would also mean a lot more work opportunities for me (and the possibility of getting my masters too).

[niccig]

yeah, the whole logistics of childcare does cause me some anxiety. I don't know if I will try to start back anytime soon, I've just been thinking about it. T.

Honestly, I think figuring the childcare is the hardest part. But, everyone I know seems to find a way to make it work, so I will too.

DH has unpredictable hours in the evenings. He can never do school pick up as he could be home from 8pm - 12 am. I know whatever job I get, I'll have to do pick up from school or from aftercare. DH can do drop off though, so very likely I'll try to find something that starts early. On the odd occasion DH can't do drop over, DS's school has morning care, and if it's even earlier than that, we can drop DS off at a friends house. They've dropped their DS off at house at 7am and we have taken him to school. It's rare that that needs to happen, so we can make it work with DH dropping off, and me picking up.

I know it's more difficult with a spouse with unpredictable hours, DH can work any weekend as well. I have a long list of babysitters and pay for someone as then I know I can get to what I need to go to. MIL went back to work, and FIL was a nurse anesthetist and worked different shifts. She had a babysitter until DH was old enough to watch his sisters from when his mum left and his Dad came home. She did night shift a couple days a week. She went back to work, as FIL had heart problems and she was scared something would happen to him. Of course, he's 72 now and still dealing with the heart problems. She was a nurse, started night shift in nursing homes, became Director of Nursing, and then moved into administration. She now consults and is 70 years old. She's my model for career taking off once kids were older.

If you're not ready now, and it might be easier once your youngest is in preschool or school, do you need to do any CEUs or other classes to brush up on things? Now would be a good time to do it, so when you are ready to look for work, you've already got that done.

I've had classmates/professors ask what area of the field I want to go into, my true answer, that I don't tell anyone, is "any job within 10 miles of my son's school". Because I have to do pick up, I'll need to limit myself to a drivable distance, and hours that let me get there. I figure, once DS is driving himself to school/or college, then I'll look more for a job that's my dream job, if I haven't found it within the 10 miles.