The school holidays are fast approaching and parents across the country face the logistical jenga of childcare for a whole six weeks. People often ask me if we would create a Mark+Fold summer holiday planner, so that’s firmly on our list for future. But for now, I thought I would do the next best thing and share my personal method for tackling this complex annual planning challenge.
The summer holidays can be a lovely time to relax and take a break from the morning rush, spend time with our kids and relive nostalgic memories of the endless summer, September feeling like years away. But as parents, there is another layer which is how to work out childcare for all the days and weeks when you cannot take annual leave and just hang out in pyjamas with your kids all day. Over the past 10 years I’ve learned the hard way that if we don’t have a plan, things can get very stressful.
Why is summer holiday planning so stressful?
1. Six weeks is a really long time.
My kids are off for a total of 43 days (including weekends and inset days), so that’s a lot of childcare days, and certainly more than a standard allocation of annual leave will allow you to take off (even if you wanted to spend all that quality time with your adorable little lambs). So for many of us, it’s a juggle between some quality family time (ideally somewhere nice and sunny) and a patchwork of childcare to get us to September.
2. All of the usual routines go out the window
As a household, we rely heavily on routines to get us through the week and ensure people turn up on time with mostly the right kit each day, and that the adults make it to work with a calm enough head to do a day’s work. This all changes as holidays start, when even if you’ve booked some holiday clubs to keep them occupied, these will most likely involve a new drop-off time and location, with a new route into the office afterwards. This year that means swapping a leisurely 20 minute walk for a drive through unpredictable traffic, followed by an awkward lack of public transport at the other end.
Our kids have also managed to build some independence this year, beginning to learn their own routines as far as what time we need to leave and when they need to finish breakfast and start getting dressed. This also becomes null and void as the holiday starts and blank faces greet me each morning, awaiting instructions (or worse, the faces are glued to the tv because it feels like ‘weekend rules’ should apply if school is closed for a month and a half).
3. Not everyone in the house is on the same wavelength
While some members of the household are rushing around at 7.45, ironing shirts and looking for mis-placed phone chargers, the children are languishing in pyjamas in a sloth-like state. So there can be some resentment, and some ambiguity, about who’s in holiday mode, and to what extent, on any given day.
4. Some days fall between the gaps
Hands-down the most stressful moments for us over the years have been the days where we had an unexpected childcare gap — either an inset day in the first week of September which we had overlooked, or when we had left things a bit ambiguous about who was looking after the kids on a given day, only to be met with clashing work commitments on the same morning and a challenging bit of negotiation over the breakfast table.
Time to get paper practical
I often speak to customers about how stationery makes them feel and the word that comes up time and time again is 'calm.' And I think this is one of those occasions when writing things down analogue style is both emotionally reassuring and extremely practical.
Step One: Check your facts
I have often been caught out by a teacher training day tagged onto the start or end of the holiday, only to be reminded at 10pm the night before. So it helps to double-check the school website first and make sure we know the precise scale of the challenge we are facing, before we begin. I also look for quick wins like bank holidays, and check the dates and availability of activity clubs so I know what our options are.
Step Two: Visualise it
The process of extracting information from various websites and newsletters and transferring this into hand-written notes, is that I am forced to take it in. The act of acknowledging that they finish on a Friday (at lunchtime, don't forget!) and return on a Tuesday, is a very good place to start.
It really helps to create a visual picture of what’s coming up. This is true of the Mark+Fold Diary, and the same applies here. Once you can see the ’shape’ of what’s to come, it starts to feel more manageable. The added benefit of the visual plan is that it can be pinned up on the fridge for all to see, so that we all know where we are supposed to be each day and the children can try to maintain their new-found independence to some extent.
By blocking out the various days when we have something booked in (holidays, clubs, visitings grandparents), we all start to get a grip on how each week follows the next in what always ends up being quite a complicated mix. And the gaps (of which there are always a few) become clear too, so we can either try to find some ad hoc childcare / entertainment, or we can at least see these days coming and be ready for them.
Step Three: Break it down into chunks
Contemplating the full six weeks is daunting, so I find it helps to break it down into chunks. I try to get the big things booked in first: the family holiday and any activity clubs that need to be booked by the week. Once a few things are blocked out in the planner, it feels like we have some of it in the bag and we are left with gaps of a week or a few days here and there.
Step Four: Book the things that require commitment (and cash)
I begin with what is my own personal priority: the family holiday, ideally somewhere hot with sea to swim in. I have spoken before about my childhood holidays in Scotland, which while I loved the clean fresh air, had nothing on swimming in the Mediterranean. My kids are now aged 6 and 10 and the older one is growing up so fast, I feel like to want to make the most of the years where they are not only willing to go on holiday with us, but broadly still pretty enthusiastic about setting off to discover a new place, try new food etc. I take holiday research to the extreme, much to the amusement of my husband. Once I have done all my trawling, I approach him tenaciously, laptop in hand with multiple tabs open, to run him through the options for flights, dates, places to stay. "If we travel on a Wednesday", I say, "it’s much cheaper!” And I then proceed to allocate any savings to a slightly nicer and more expensive holiday appartment. As I said, the family holiday is very important to me.
Next up are the kids activity clubs. I try to find things for them to do, which are stimulating and where they might learn something new. When it works well, they come home inspired and exhausted, with some new friends for life made in the space of a morning. We have a few options they seem to like so I try to use these on repeat, simply because it keeps everyone’s life simple.
Step Five: Fill the gaps (if you can)
Having filled in my calendar happily with flight bookings and holiday clubs, I am inevitably left with a few gaping holes. The activity club must be booked for a whole week, but some clever dick went and booked the family holiday Wednesday to Wednesday because it was cheaper. And Granny has dared to book her own holiday, and she has accepted childcare bookings from my brother who was quicker off the mark this year! So we put the feelers out for playdates and childcare swaps with friends.
But we are always left with some unfillable gaps. And the worst approach to this problem, I have found, is to pretend they aren’t happening. This kind of foolish denial only results in days where I have not told colleagues I am going to be offline, nor have I thought what I’ll do with my kids. So we begin the day with the ’treat’ of TV in pyjamas while I start work on my laptop, I make some great progress and get lulled into a false sense of security, boldly committing to deadlines and arranging zoom calls for after lunch. But by lunchtime things have descended into sibling arguments and a super-glue like attachment to both the TV and the pyjamas. It all goes more smoothly when I make some kind of plan to take them out and do something in the morning, so I can reward them with chilling out at home in the afternoon while I get my work done.
Step Six: Don’t forget the details
I must admit I don’t always manage to do this step, but it really helps when we do. This is the week-by-week plan for all the drop-offs and pick-ups in these new locations and at odd times. My partner and I try to share things out so that we both have some full clear days (or at least long ’shifts’) where we can really focus and get some proper work done. So if I’m doing the 10am drop, I might be off the hook for the 4pm pick-up so that I can get in the flow and be productive.
Make a plan, then let the good times roll
It’s always hard to get the balance right — to plan enough that you don’t get really stressed out, but keep things loose enough for some spontaneity and a chance to chill out and enjoy time with the kids. As someone who likes and relies on routines, I must say I enjoy the break from the usual repetition. And after 6 weeks of baggy timeitkeeping, makes the ‘back to school’ moment in September feel like a refreshing return to normality.
I always end up feeling on the one hand that I wish I had booked more childcare to be able to get work done, and on the other hand wishing I had kept more days free for visiting art galleries, starting crazy art projects and picnics in the park. But kids can be so unpredictable, that the moments when everyone is having the best time are often hard to predict and happen in the most unlikely of scenarios. So it’s hard to know when the magic moments will occur, but with 43 days to play with, the odds are in our favour.
