What child care do you use for elementary school age kids?
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Anonymous
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Daycare / nanny was so much easier because it was built around your schedule.
Now that child is nearing K I have no idea -- do you 1. Use aftercare, but then what do you do in the summer / days off ? Yes there are camps but does your child ever get a break if you use them too regularly? 2. Use a nanny? If so, what does she do during the day? How much do you need to pay to keep someone part time? 3. Rely on family? If so, what do you do when family member wants to go on vacation / is sick? 4. Take days off? But surely you can't take all summer off unless you are a K-12 teacher? 5. Some combination of above? 6. Something else? If so, what? I'm not saying this can't be solved, but I'm wondering what people really do. Thanks so much in advance. And I really appreciate any advice. This just seems like so much work to handle. I'd rather spend my limited energy actually playing with my kids not researching camps, etc online. Alas. |
Anonymous
| We use aftercare M-Thurs. they take the bus home on Fridays. The school offers before care but we don't need that. Our summer is 11 weeks long. The kids get 3 weeks with grandparents (1 each month), 2 weeks with us on vacation, and 6 weeks of camp (split between 2 different camps). |
Anonymous
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Aftercare Mon-Fri
Camp for the summer |
Anonymous
This |
Anonymous
OP here. What about 3-day weekend (columbus day, election day, etc)? Half days? Conference days? I assume maybe aftercare does some of those? What about xmas break, spring break, etc? Do you do camp all summer? What do you do with the other weeks besides maybe a vacation for the whole family 1-3 weeks? Sorry to sound so dumb I'm just trying to figure out how this works 52 weeks a year. It seems like so many moving parts. |
Anonymous
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Aftercare M-F
Random school days off, DH or I will work at home or we will use one of the many fill-in camps that are available. Flyers get sent home from school about these. DS likes All American Sports. DD prefers art camps. Summer is usually 10 weeks. We go on a family vacation for 1-2 weeks and the last week of the summer we let the kids hang out at home while DH and I take turns either taking time off or just WAH. That leaves 7-8 weeks for summer camps. The other option is to get a nanny for the summer who takes the kids to the pool, park, etc. and I've suggested that before to my kids but they love their camps and think that sounds boring. Over that 7-8 weeks, the camp mix has varied over the years and between my two kids. DS loves one general day camp so he'll typically do about 5 weeks there and then a week of soccer camp and a week of an outdoor camp with a bunch of friends. DD doesn't like that general camp but likes outdoorsy and art camps so she goes to a mix of those, some with friends and some on her own. Camp is a huge headache. It takes some trial and error to find the camps your kids really like and then keeping track of what camps they can do with which friends, registration dates, payment dates, paperwork, etc. DS's favorite camp starts registration in December and most of our camps register by February. So, you need to figure out summer vacation plans by then. The easiest thing when you are just starting with camp can be to go with a general camp that can cover the whole summer but the risk is that if your child ends up not liking it you are stuck. That's why I generally wouldn't do more than 2 weeks at any one camp until I know they like it. |
Anonymous
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We use a hodge podge.
- Enrolled in aftercare. We only actually use it one day a week but that puts us in the system so that we can do drop in if work commitments come up or on days off / snow days. Our aftercare is open pretty much whenever school is not (school breaks, snow days, many holidays) - Swap childcare with neighbors. Lots of us have flex schedules, and we've built an informal neighborhood childcare coop around that. Can be logistically challenging, but saves a lot of money, gives our kids a more traditional childhood, and having a "village" that has our back has been fantastic all around - Occasional babysitter. We have friends who have a sitter come every afternoon and many mornings, but those can be hard to find. - Grandparents. Sometimes will help out with longer breaks. Summer is yet more complicated. In the past we've done both a sitter and camps, plus time with relatives and family vacations. |
Anonymous
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Summer nanny, hire a college kid.
Fill in with camps as needed Vacation or work from home (+ neighborhood kid to be mothers helper / keep kids busy while you're around) on snow days holidays professional days |
Anonymous
I get most of those long weekends off as well. Random half days school has after care. Winter and spring break school has camp. Never used a babysitter since Kindergarten. I can work at home some and my son has also been to the office for the random days off. |
Anonymous
Aftercare is open most half days, professional days, etc. |
Anonymous
| A combination of aftercare, camp or ILs. I get bank holidays off and DH takes off the random teacher workdays. During the summer, we do camp, family and vacations. |
Anonymous
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We use after school SACC.
Last summer, they went to camp 8:30-5:30/6 pm and that was too much for them. This summer, the goal is to put them in summer camp 9am to 3pm and have a babysitter pick them up and stay with them at home for a couple of hours. I'm nervous about this arrangement b/c if the babysitter isn't reliable, this whole plan will fall apart. child care for school aged children is a lot more challenging than younger children. |
Anonymous
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Aftercare M-F
Our camp runs 11 weeks. We use 10 of them (take a one week vacation.) We alternate between taking a vacation during spring break and using a camp. We use a camp between christmas and new years Random days off (either aftercare runs a camp, our summer camp runs a camp, one of us takes a day off, or we share care with a neighbor.) We don't have any family nearby - or really, that is willing to watch/take the kids for more than a day. Kids are about to enter middle school and believe me, it is much more challenging. They don't want to go to care on random off days and want to be home. But 10 hrs a day (how long we are out of the house with commuting) is a long time for a 11y old. |
Anonymous
This varies by district. In Arlington aftercare is open on half days but not if school is closed for a full day. |
Anonymous
| K is when we're getting an au pair. |