Wow planning care during school holidays and closure

[Anonymous]

Hello fellow parents. I am looking for inputs from parents where both has/have demanding careers.

Our child is going to go to school PK3 this fall in DC, public for now and we will revisit at PK4+.

I am shocked at the days the school is closed plus all the holidays. We were thinking about using school aftercare untill we can pick our child up.

How did you plan for this? I am so shocked and looking for inputs from other parents so I can plan proactively.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

Often times the aftercare program provides full day care on the off days. There are also camps at various activities. Or you can swap playdates with friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hello fellow parents. I am looking for inputs from parents where both has/have demanding careers.

Our child is going to go to school PK3 this fall in DC, public for now and we will revisit at PK4+.

I am shocked at the days the school is closed plus all the holidays. We were thinking about using school aftercare untill we can pick our child up.

How did you plan for this? I am so shocked and looking for inputs from other parents so I can plan proactively.

Thank you

Yeah umm I dont know what to say besides if you dont have lots of money or family/grandparents then you dont take a vacation for a few years because all of your leave will go to sick days and days off.
Yes, aftercare can be utilized. It will cover some days but there's a wide range in programming (thats my nicest way of putting it).

What have you been doing prior to this? Daycare or nanny?

[Anonymous]

The one bit of advice we received is to not mentally count one any magical new wellspring of disposable income now that the daycare/home nanny days were over.

Aftercare, camps, playdate trade offs, vacation time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Often times the aftercare program provides full day care on the off days. There are also camps at various activities. Or you can swap playdates with friends.

This. Our aftercare runs day off camps on most school days off except for official holidays.

Our old school didn't have that, but we discovered the camps we used in the summer often had day off camps during the year for those days. Including camps during spring break or even the day after Thanksgiving.

Yes you wind up paying for all of this and it adds up. But private schools also have random days off and you also have to pay private school tuition. So you just accept that you will be paying for childcare until your kids are old enough that they don't need adult supervision during the day.

I do think this should be talked about more extensively because a lot of parents do get blindsided by it. And in DC where dual income families are very common, this can be a nasty shock when you realize how much work and money it takes for you both to stay full-time employed. This is why a lot of families wind up with one parent in a more flexible job, because it does make this juggle easier. Other families will try to move grandparents closer, will keep nannies on well past the toddler stage, or other solutions. Depends on your resources. But yes, you are on the hook for childcare for a lot of the year well past PK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Often times the aftercare program provides full day care on the off days. There are also camps at various activities. Or you can swap playdates with friends.

Thank you this is a question to ask the schools we are considering.

I don't want to deal with playdate headaches, best to avoid managing expectations with parents. I would rather pay 😁.

[Anonymous]

If you can afford it, definitely use daycare or private pre-school for PK3. The playdate thing as a back up for no school days does not work for 3 and 4 year olds. We didn't do public until K and day off camps even at that age were stressful unless they went with a friend (which you have to coordinate and of course doesn't always work out).

If you do DCPS for PK3-4, you have to be very proactive about day off camps and coordinating with your kids friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hello fellow parents. I am looking for inputs from parents where both has/have demanding careers.

Our child is going to go to school PK3 this fall in DC, public for now and we will revisit at PK4+.

I am shocked at the days the school is closed plus all the holidays. We were thinking about using school aftercare untill we can pick our child up.

How did you plan for this? I am so shocked and looking for inputs from other parents so I can plan proactively.

Thank you

Yeah umm I dont know what to say besides if you dont have lots of money or family/grandparents then you dont take a vacation for a few years because all of your leave will go to sick days and days off.
Yes, aftercare can be utilized. It will cover some days but there's a wide range in programming (thats my nicest way of putting it).

What have you been doing prior to this? Daycare or nanny?

We have a nanny. This is eye opening as a FTP.

Debating if we should keep a nanny for after care so we can use her wreb school closes

[Anonymous]

We just take a lot of annual leave and we trade off doing so. It's not great. Lots of people on here will tell you "school isn't childcare" but if my kid weren't in school I'd have childcare set up. They're actively making it harder to find care with random days off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The one bit of advice we received is to not mentally count one any magical new wellspring of disposable income now that the daycare/home nanny days were over.

Aftercare, camps, playdate trade offs, vacation time.

Definitely true!

[Anonymous]

Some daycares allow drop-ins. We continued to be at our old daycare as needed.

[Anonymous]

Well, the first year (PK3) we did not have a plan and took it day by day and I absolutely do not recommend this approach. Super duper stressful. So it’s smart you’re thinking ahead. Our kids do aftercare every day, but our aftercare doesn’t do day off coverage (some do!)

The next year we had two kids (PK3 and PK4) so we used White House Nannies and got a temporary nanny for every day off school. Stress level: Much lower, but you have to do some nanny “onboarding” each day. Cost: High, but being done with early childcare costs made it feel fine. Reliability: Excellent.

This year (K and PK4) we found a local day off camp that covers all but two days off for the whole school year (and then we each took one of those days off from work). We use Salsa With Silvia but I know there are others. Cost: High, cause we’re paying for two kids. Stress level: Zero. Just like going to school. Reliability: Excellent

Remember that in addition to all the planned days off, you’re also going to have to deal with sick days and inclement weather days. I find if someone works from home and that job is a bit flexible/understanding, sick days are manageable (my kids just watch TV all day when they’re sick and often take long naps, so I can work with just a few interruptions) but if you both are going in to work, this can be a big stressor, as they’re unpredictable, frequent in PK, and you don’t have a ton of options.

For us, the MOST ANNOYING days are actually the inclement weather days - unpredictable, and you’ve got energetic, excited kids who need a lot of attention (especially in the PK years). We basically alternate taking those days off work, which is a PITA on short notice. We’ve had I think three of those this year? Plus we’ve had two late starts, one day with no aftercare and one early dismissal for bad weather. So that’s been a PITA.

[Anonymous]

FYI - Private schools have fewer school days (though days off are in bigger chunks).

[Anonymous]

PK3 is tough, once they hit four they can do most of the schools-out camps (Silver Stars, HoopEd, JCC, etc.). Book these camps early - I book all of my days off camps in the Fall, Spring Break in the Winter, etc.

[Anonymous]

After care, au pair, split shift with spouse, grandparent, play dates. Hardest at the early ages really. So budget whatever you were spending on daycare to cover this cost.